alt Hacker News> Saying that a President’s personal interpretation of Congress’ laws or the courts precedence, completely overrides any individual executive employees good faith understanding and responsibility to the Constitution, laws, and judicial rulings is madness.
But it's not madness based on the intended structure of government? The EO isn't saying "ignore Constitutional violations". It wouldn't be valid if it did.
If Congress passes a law that say "tobacco is banned", and the US President says "I will direct my agencies to follow this new law" and you have agencies saying "I'm not a lawyer, but I feel like this law is unconstitutional so my agency is not going to follow it!"?
How would the government even function if you have 100 agencies with 50 of them having the power to come up with their own interpretation of the law? How is that even workable as a branch of government?
The executive branch of government is more accurately viewed as a monolithic organization which derives 100% of it's authority by delegation from the US President. This is why the president personally selects the heads of each agency (with the Senate approving). Authority moves down from the president all the way to the most junior government employee - they are acting on behalf of the president.
> There will be disagreements within a branch that will need to be worked out.
What does "worked out" mean?
For legal issues the President will consult the US attorney general. If it's complex, the DOJ might create a white paper determining the constitutionality of a law or not.
To have an agency head disagree with that determination seems like a rogue agency. Why would that agency head know better than the attorney general?
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Every citizen in a democracy has a duty to understand, respect, and uphold the law and the constitution. Congress defines what the law is, the judiciary adjudicates disputes on how the law should be interpreted, and the president can only execute that law. But all federal employees have their own duty to understand and uphold the law. The president has no special power to interpret the law: the law is what it is, and perhaps what the courts clarify.
An agency head that is disobeying the law can be fired by the president. An agency head who is not disobeying the law can't be fired (assuming there is no other cause, such as poor management, of course). If there is disagreement on whether the agency head was upholding the law or not, that's not up to the president, it's up to the courts to decide.
Having the president be the ultimate authority on the interpretation of every law and regulation, even within the executive branch, is not only unconstitutional, but also unworkable. A single man can't physically review every single aspect of the American government, they have neither the time nor the mental capacity to be the ultimate authority on every single aspect of the federal government.
So not only is it normal that the president defers to agency heads on the interpretation of the applicable law that they are experts in, it is the only way the system can function. The president has plenty of control over the agency by naming the head, they don't need and can't have more control than that.
> The EO isn't saying "ignore Constitutional violations".
What if the President says "I interpret [irrefutably unconstitutional action x] to not be in violation of the constitution"? Then anyone in the executive branch has to behave as though that action were constitutional, no matter what it is, don't they?
> But it's not madness based on the intended structure of government? The EO isn't saying "ignore Constitutional violations". It wouldn't be valid if it did.
If all executive actors must bend for the president’s orders, regardless of previous orders, laws and precedent, then nobody’s views in the executive branch matter, any time the President chooses.
They are now effectively sworn to a particular human, not the Constitution.
The President is now the “Constitution” for the executive branch.
(You might counter with the argument that they are sworn to the President’s Office first, but who actually gets to decide what that means? The human in that role.)
It is madness because a president whose will is unassailable within their own branch is also unassailable across all three branches.
The President has all the levers of practical coercive power.
Neither Congress can put any law into effect, or the Judiciary put any ruling into effect, without the cooperation of the executive branch. Without that, their existence is decorative.
> The executive branch of government is more accurately viewed as a monolithic organization which derives 100% of it's authority by delegation from the US President
That is inaccurate. Almost all federal departments and agencies derive their authority from acts of Congress. The President has very limited authority to create and empower agencies.
The strongest argument against the CFPB is that is was not created by an act of Congress. Trump could not create a DOGE so he renamed the USDS. He cannot shut down USAID, but he can mismanage it.
The president is required by law to execute the laws passed by Congress even if he strongly disagrees. The mass firings and funding holds have the legal fig leaf that he is managing them to the best of his ability.
> The executive branch of government is more accurately viewed as a monolithic organization which derives 100% of it's authority by delegation from the US President.
This is a very extreme version of unitary executive theory, which is highly controversial even in its weaker forms.
Say something like "hey, no, that law is unconstititional!".
What is the purpose of having cabinet secretaries swear an oath to defend the Constitution if the President has the sole authority to decide what this means?
Why do you support Trump being an autocrat?
> If Congress passes a law that say "tobacco is banned", and the US President says "I will direct my agencies to follow this new law" and you have agencies saying "I'm not a lawyer, but I feel like this law is unconstitutional so my agency is not going to follow it!"?
Now if Congress passes a law that say "tobacco is banned", the president can say "This law means that tobacco isn't banned and has to be sold in schools, and I will direct my agencies to follow this new law". Before, the president had the option to refuse to enforce the laws as written (and risk getting thrown out on his ass) and now the president has the option to rewrite laws according to his whim and enforce that instead. He also has immunity too so he can't even get into trouble for just doing whatever he wants.