
In addition to revamping the Supreme Court, FDR believed that he needed to reform and strengthen the Presidency, and specifically the administrative units and bureaucracy charged with implementing the chief executive's policies. During his first term, FDR quickly found that the federal bureaucracy, specifically at the Treasury and State Departments, moved too slowly for his tastes. FDR often chose to bypass these established channels, creating emergency agencies in their stead. "Why not establish a new agency to take over the new duty rather than saddle it on an old institution?" asked the President. "If it is not permanent," he continued, "we don't get bad precedents."FDR would look at other ways to increase his administrative and bureaucratic power. His 1937 plan for executive reorganization called for the President to receive six full-time executive assistants, for a single administrator to replace the three-member Civil Service Commission, for the President and his staff to assume more responsibility in budget planning, and for every executive agency to come under the control of one of the cabinet departments. The President's conservative critics pounced on the plan, seeing it as an example of FDR's imperious and power-hungry nature; Congress successfully bottled up the bill. But in 1939, Congress did pass a reorganization bill that created the Executive Office of the President (EOP) and allowed FDR to shift a number of executive agencies (including the Bureau of the Budget) to its watch. While FDR did not get the far-reaching result he sought in 1937, the 1939 legislation strengthened the Presidency immeasurably.FDR won the 1932 election precisely because he promised to take quick and decisive action to address the Great Depression, in contrast to Herbert Hoover, who was careful to stay within precedent and norms. As the above linked article shows, FDR was a pragmatist willing to move from one experiment to another to find measures that would put Americans back to work, relieve hunger, and stabilize the financial system. (Although FDR was not an ideologue, he was steered and influenced by ideologues, including Harry Hopkins, a Soviet agent.) After taking office in 1993, Bill Clinton fired nearly every US Attorney and the head of the FBI and replaced them with loyalists. Republicans hated it, but what's the point of an election if the newly elected officials aren't allowed to change anything? The Framers of the Constitution would not have approved of a permanent branch of government that pursues its own policy preferences unaffected by the results of an election. (They'd also object to the size and scope of the Federal government, stretching the Elastic Clause to the breaking point.) I am old enough to have lived through several cycles in which control of Congress and control of the White House changed hands. Back when Nixon, Ford, and Reagan were president, the House was Democrat-controlled throughout, and the Senate as well, except for Reagan's first six years in office. During that period, Republicans wanted the executive branch to have more power at the expense of the legislative branch, and Democrats wanted Congress to have more power to constrain the President. When the situation was reversed under Clinton and Obama, Democrats were defending the prerogatives of the President, and Republicans were urging Congress to use the power of the purse to reign him in. I've seen the same thing in discussions of voting systems -- caucus selection, jungle primaries, non-partisan elections, instant runoff voting. People will argue for one or the other based on whether it would have helped their preferred candidate to win or not. But that will change from year to year. Republicans love first-past-the-post when the Green Party siphons enough Leftist votes to allow the GOP to win with a plurality. The GOP loves runoffs when right-of-center voters are split among several candidates and the Leftists are united behind the Democrat. It makes more sense not to decide matters of long-term constitutional structure on short-term advantage. If we want to talk about extra-constitutional authority, 90% of what the Federal Government spends money on is not authorized by the Constitution. The Framers intended for there to be "energy in the executive" to be able to respond quickly to emergent situations at home and abroad, but Congress has delegated far more power to the Executive Branch than the Framers would have believed to be wise. A smaller, less important Federal Government would reduce the stakes in federal elections and hopefully reduce the amount of fear and panic that is generated over the results. DOGE meme from imgflip.com

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