Trump is Not a Monarch-Notes from Ted Cruz

The Constitution designs a system of checks and balances for our nation, and executive orders overriding states shelter-in-place rules unilaterally decreed from the White House would seriously undermine the rule of law.

Our founders repeatedly warned about the dangers of unlimited power within the executive branch; Congress should heed those words as the president threatens to disregard state authority and threaten millions of people who live here.

To be clear, the dispute over the executive overstepping state authority is not between President Trump and Democrats in Congress; it is a dispute between President Trump and the American people. The Republicans suffered historic losses in the midterm elections largely over the prospect of the president’s unlimited executive authority.

President Trump was correct: His policies were on the ballot across the nation in 2018. The elections were a referendum on singular executive authority, and the voters soundly rejected it. There was no ambiguity.

Undeterred, President Trump appears to be going forward. It is lawless. It is unconstitutional. He is defiant and angry at the American people. If he acts by executive diktat, President Trump will not be acting as a president, he will be acting as a monarch.

Thankfully, the framers of our Constitution, wary of the dangers of monarchy, gave the Congress tools to rein in abuses of power. They believed if the president wants to change the law, he cannot act alone; he must work with Congress.

He may not get everything he wants, but the Constitution requires compromise between the branches.

A monarch, however, does not compromise. As Alexander Hamilton explains in Federalist 69, a monarch decrees, dictates, and rules through fiat power, which is what President Trump is attempting.

When the president embraces the tactics of a monarch, it becomes incumbent on Congress to wield the constitutional power it has to stop it.

Congress, representing the voice of the people, should use every tool available to prevent the president from subverting the rule of law.

When the president usurps the legislative power and defies the limits of his authority, it becomes all the more imperative for Congress to act. And Congress should use those powers given to it by the Constitution to counter a lawless executive branch — or it will lose its authority.

If the president announces the end of shelter in place over the objections of states’ governors, the Senate majority leader should announce that the 116 th Congress will not confirm a single nominee — executive or judicial — outside of vital national security positions, so long as the illegal command persists.

This is a potent tool given to Congress by the Constitution explicitly to act as a check on executive power. It is a constitutional power of the majority leader alone, and it would serve as a significant deterrent to a lawless president.

Additionally, the new Congress should exercise the power of the purse by passing individual appropriations bills authorizing critical functions of government and attaching riders to strip the authority from the president to threaten the health of the public.

President Trump will no doubt threaten a shutdown — that seems to be the one card he repeatedly plays — but Congress can authorize funding for agencies of government one at a time. If the President is unwilling to accept funding for, say, the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion without his being able to unilaterally defy the law, he alone will be responsible for the consequences.

A presidential temper tantrum is not an acceptable means of discourse.

Of course, these confrontations are not desirable, and it is unbecoming for an American president to show such condescension towards the voters.

The American people, however, are not powerless. They have elected a new Congress full of members who have promised in their campaigns to stand up to this lawless President and stop the deaths. We must honor our commitments.

If the president will not respect the people, Congress must.