Assume one or the other wins. Congress has no interest in a progressive agenda or in one that will alienate Latinos en masse.
So president trump or Sanders decides to lawyer up and push the powers given to the executive branch to the max. What could either one accomplish with that mentality, the mentality of ‘Congress and probably the courts will be against me, I have to use the executive branch to get anything done’
Did you mean your subject line to read “…with only the executive branch”?
Yes I did, it got Autocorrected to the wrong word, changed with only to without.
Can a mod fix that, and also capitalize Trump’s name? The fact that Sanders us capitalized but Trump isn’t is bothersome.
Presidents are always trying to push the envelope. It’s up to congress to stop them, and since that’s a house of chicken-hearted incompetent do-nothings little would happen unless a large portion of the electorate gets pissed off.
Title changed at request of the OP.
And President Sanders or Trump will do what Presidents have always done: Whatever they can get away with.
With Obama there has been a lot of criticism from progressives that he didn’t use the powers of the executive branch. Among other things he possibly/probably could have:
Stopped prosecutions under the DADT law
Stopped the DEA from raiding marijuana dispensaries in states that had them
Made more recess appointments for judges
But he really didn’t use his powers to achieve these things. I do wonder what a president who pushes the power of the executive branch to the limit could actually accomplish.
The President has greater authority in foreign policy and as Commander in Chief; so I would expect Sanders to substantially cut back on the crazy military adventures so popular with both Republicans and mainstream Democrats: Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria…
Presidents often say different things when they are trying to get elected than what they actually do as President: I think this could be especially true for Trump so he could well turn out to be more moderate than what he currently preaches.
World War 3 comes to mind.
For Trump it’s actually easy. The laws to do what Trump wants on immigration already exist. All Trump has to do is enforce them with a vengeance.
We have laws enabling the President of the US to raise Mexican taxes?
And the American system of checks and balances was designed to make it difficult for any one branch to accomplish anything without support from the others. Where the Founders went wrong, though, was in the assumption that they want to accomplish anything. They left all the branches considerable power to screw things up, because it never occurred to them that anyone would want to.
A future president could opt to stop defending the ACA or the NSA surveillance programs against ongoing legal challenges. Certain regulatory enforcement priorities can be shifted. Some provisions as to non-discrimination in federal contracting can be extended or rolled back by executive order.
Hadn’t thought of this. If a president decided not to fight any judgements against the ACA or NSA does that mean those cases would automatically be awarded to the plaintiffs?
Well, the obstacle for Trump with Mexico is obviously that Trump doesn’t control Mexico. But current law already gives the President the power to deport all 12 million illegals if the ability is there to do so. And if funding and manpower are a little short, Trump can hire thousands of border patrol agents himself. He’s got the money.