To be fair, I think there was a time when Republicans/conservatives/economic royalists were critics of executive power. In the time from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Lyndon B. Johnson, there was a long string of both Democratic Presidents and expansion of the federal government. During that time I do not doubt that Republicans distrusted executive power and were champions of legislative supremacy.
And let us also say that their criticism of ever-expanding executive power had some legitimacy. Executive power was expanding much faster than rules to govern it, and there were some very serious abuses. And Republicans had a point when they argued that Democrats only became conscious of the dangers when the executive branch fell into the hands of a Republican. But still, with all deductions for hypocrisy, the executive really was too powerful and too subject to the whims of one man. And so it happened that it was a Democratic Congress that passed legislation to reign in the executive over the veto of a Republican President (Nixon).
Reagan and the senior Bush were generally champions of executive power, though not normally in a really overbearing manner. On the other hand, it was under the Reagan Administration that the Iran/Contra scandal occurred -- basically, an attempt to create a parallel, unofficial intelligence network outside of Congress's control. The attempt ultimately failed under the glare of publicity, but Bush, Senior pardoned the offenders.
Under the Clinton Administration, Republicans finally captured Congress, but they passed legislation giving the President unilateral authority to cut spending. Partly, this was an old reflex that assumed that Republicans held the executive and Democrats the legislature, and that Clinton was a bizarre anomaly. Partly it was an assumption that all spending cuts are good. But there was still no sign of a fear of an overbearing executive.
Under the Bush, Junior Administration, Bush's legal advisers came up with a "unitary executive" theory which said (in effect) that the President could do anything he wanted, even if a statute or treaty forbade it, so long as he said "national security" first.
And then Obama was elected President. And suddenly Republicans started freaking out about an out-of-control executive. Somehow they managed to erase the whole "unitary executive" theory and claim that conservatives had always opposed executive power.
Yeah, I know. They only intended the unitary executive to have absolute authority in exercising government's daddy functions. Obama was exercising mommy functions, and the minute government exercises any mommy functions whatever, liberty is lost.
And, more seriously, Obama was attempting to do administratively what he could not get past a Republican Congress. There is legitimate grounds for concern there. I would also say that in the case of Obamacare, which had passed Congress, and which the executive was merely tweaking, executive action was a lot more justified than to create who initiatives that could not pass Congress.
And I suppose we should give some Republicans credit for not immediately switching back the minute a Republican was in office again. Some Republicans did, indeed, express concern that Trump was going against their "longstanding" fears of an out-of-control executive. The claim that such fears were longstanding was ludicrous, but I suppose we should be glad that there was at least a little lag between the inauguration of a Republican and the party flip-flopping on the issue.
Well, now William Barr is Attorney General and is arguing (in effect) that the President's power is absolute and unaccountable, answerable only at four-year elections. And he has been saying that at least since he advised the senior Bush to pardon the Iran/Contra offenders. And all talk of a "traditional" conservative fear of an out-of-control executive is gone.
But make no mistake, next time a Democrat is elected President, those fears will be back, right on cue. This time, let's not let the Republicans get away with it.
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