In 1787, Delegates James Madison and Edmund Randolph presented their “Virginia Plan,” a proposal for a new government before the creation of what is today the Constitution, to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.
This plan would centralize enormous power in a one-man Executive Branch that could unilaterally strike down laws, dictate rules across the nation and onto states, levy war, and perform other duties that our present government requires the other branches to apply scrutiny to without many checks and balances.
Today, the “Virginia Plan” has been cited as the contextual basis for the “Unitary Executive Theory,” a maximalist interpretation of Article II of the Constitution that would grant the President immense power to wield all powers ever allotted to the Executive Branch.
May it be powers that Congress specifically vested in agencies and departments that were designed to have independence from the President, or implied powers in the Constitution, followers of the Unitary Executive Theory believe all these powers lie with the President.
In the 1980s, President Reagan initiated the implementation of the Unitary Executive Theory through various executive orders and other actions, aiming to limit the autonomy of independent agencies. Efforts to circumvent the power of independent agencies and Congress have continued since Reagan left office, with Presidents Bush and Biden notably ignoring Congress when it refused to implement their offices or programs and illegally moved forward with their illegal reappropriation of funds.
This is a bipartisan issue; politicians on both sides of the aisle have extended executive power when it has been convenient for them. Today’s full-throated implementation of the Unitary Executive Theory has much more wide-ranging consequences, however.
Now, 249 years after the founding of our nation, President Trump has fully embraced the Unitary Executive Theory, using it at nearly every turn in the first nine months of his Presidency.
Trump’s invocation of national emergencies to unilaterally declare sprawling tariffs at a whim, sending markets into immediate declines and placing higher costs on Americans, all sits on a 1977 law that was never intended to be used this way.
The International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) gave the President power to apply sanctions, freeze assets, and activate other economic tools, typically used for a limited period of time to prod nations to change course on a range of issues.
Completely disregarding the historical usage of the IEEPA and the National Emergencies Act, not to mention the legal requirements to invoke both of these laws that the Executive Branch has failed to meet, Trump has consolidated massive economic powers that were meant to be vested in a well-acting, responsible executive in himself.
On Aug. 28, a U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the vast majority of tariffs ordered by Trump through the IEEPA were totally illegal, especially seeing as the IEEPA makes no mention of tariffs. Nevertheless, Trump has persisted.
Trump has blatantly violated multiple long-standing laws that give independence to administrative and regulatory agencies within the U.S. government in his mass firings of government officials and attempts to strong-arm these agencies.
On Aug. 25, Trump fired Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. Under the Federal Reserve Act, the president has no legal authority to fire a sitting Fed. Governor.
This move is an escalation and a continuation of Trump’s unconstitutional overstep. Dozens of other individuals who operate independently, as supported by the laws that create their office, such as Inspectors General, Civil Service Board members, and regulatory board commissioners, have been illegally dismissed by Trump since the beginning of his second term.
In willful ignorance of the Constitution’s Appointments Clause and decades of precedent, the Supreme Court has given deference to Trump on these matters, permitting his unlawful violation of well-established law. The practical effect of the Court’s capitulation is the enactment of portions of the Unitary Executive Theory, an unprecedented move with sweeping ramifications.
On Aug. 29, Trump issued a so-called “pocket rescission,” a unilateral impoundment of congressionally allotted funds that erodes a key power of Congress, which the Trump administration completely made up. This was a totally unprecedented move that reaches even beyond the Unitary Executive Theory, as the “power of the purse” objectively is not a responsibility of the Executive Branch.
Trump’s actions to amass power go beyond his abridgement of federal statute; they have been achieved in ways that have had a much more immediate effect on the public than these little-known, yet significant abuses of power. Attempts to rewrite portions of the 14th Amendment, shatter the Constitution’s Elections Clause, invoke the Alien Enemies Act, and limit the First Amendment are extraordinary, one-man steps to solidify an imperial presidency.
Not only do Trump’s actions to effectively codify the Unitary Executive Theory threaten the precedent and legitimacy of our government, but they also have direct effects on vast swaths of Americans’ everyday lives. People across the world have often turned a blind eye to attempts to solidify power in one office, writing off the shiftings in their government as ‘too complicated,’ until it’s too late. The lessons of history tell us that these are the societies that fall into dictatorship. As Benjamin Franklin said to a Philadelphia socialite on the final day of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, “It’s a republic, if you can keep it.”
