Our Imperial Presidency
Green Pee, Please read.
The New American
8/17/98 William Norman Grigg
Note: This is the last part of the article. To read the first part, go to the web site.
Ominous Parallel
The attempted preemption of state and local governments by EO13083 offers an ominous echo of the campaign of gleichschaltung - "coordination" - through which Germany's National Socialist (Nazi) Party abolished federalism and created a totalitarian state in 1933. "The plan was deceptively simple and had the advantage of cloaking the seizure of absolute power in legality," wrote left-wing historian William Shirer in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. "The Reichstag would be asked to pass an `enabling act' conferring on Hitler's cabinet exclusive legislative powers for four years. Put more simply, the German Parliament would be requested to turn over its constitutional functions to Hitler and take a long vacation. But since this necessitated a change in the constitution, a two-thirds majority was needed to approve it."
Like Bill Clinton, Adolf Hitler urged the German Parliament to choose "progress" over "partisanship." He also exploited a terrorist attack (the burning of the Reichstag in February 1933) to obtain legislative support for expanding his executive powers. And, like Bill Clinton, Hitler pursued his consolidation of power through executive decrees.
Beginning on March 9, 1933 - two weeks before passage of the Enabling Act - Hitler's government evicted sitting state governments and installed Reich Commissars to replace them. On March 31st, using the powers granted through the Enabling Act, Hitler dissolved all state diets or assemblies (except for the previously Nazified diet in Prussia). On April 7th, Hitler issued a law appointing Reich governors in all states and granting them power to reconstitute state and local governments. Each new governor was a National Socialist Party member and was required to follow "the general policy laid down by the Reich Chancellor."
"Thus," concluded Shirer, "within a fortnight of receiving full powers from the Reichstag, Hitler had achieved what Bismarck, Wilhelm II and the Weimar Republic had never dared to attempt: he had abolished the separate powers of the historic states and made them subject to the central authority of the Reich, which was in his hands. He had, for the first time in German history, really unified the Reich by destroying its age-old federal character."
By January 30, 1934, Hitler fully consummated his triumph over Germany's federal constitution by issuing a "Law for the Reconstruction of the Reich." Under that measure, according to Shirer, "`Popular Assemblies' of the states were abolished, the sovereign powers of the states were transferred to the Reich, all state governments were placed under the Reich government and the state governors put under the administration of the Reich Minister of the Interior" - that is, under the head of Germany's nationalized police. As Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick triumphantly observed on that date, "The State governments from now on are merely administrative bodies of the Reich."
The parallels between Hitler's executive tyranny and that being fashioned by Bill Clinton are inexact, but instructive nonetheless. In fact, it may be said that President Clinton's bid to consolidate executive power and abolish federalism by decree actually displays greater audacity than Hitler's, given that Hitler's most decisive actions were taken after the German legislature had formally surrendered power through the Enabling Act.
Recovering the Balance
"The doctrine of the separation of powers was adopted by the Convention of 1787, not to promote efficiency but to preclude the exercise of arbitrary power," wrote Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis in the 1922 case Myers v. United States. "The purpose was, not to avoid friction, but, by means of the inevitable friction incident to the distribution of the governmental powers among these departments, to save the people from autocracy." Bill Clinton presumes that when congressional opposition to his agenda results in friction, it is his privilege to become an autocrat.
On July 14th, Congressman Bob Barr (R-GA) introduced the "State Sovereignty Act of 1998" (H.R. 4196), which is intended to "restore the division of governmental responsibilities between the national government and the States that was intended by the Framers of the Constitution, by requiring all Federal departments and agencies to comply with former Executive Order 12612" - the original Reagan order on federalism. But although the text of the Barr bill is sound, it could (if passed by Congress) be vetoed by Mr. Clinton. Should that occur, a two-thirds majority of both houses would be required to prevent the President from attempting to exercise unauthorized powers (in this case, abrogation of the 10th Amendment).
Another remedy, which would not be submitted to the President for his signature, is House Concurrent Resolution 236, which was introduced by Congressman Jack Metcalf (R-CA) in March. This measure, which was introduced prior to EO13083, expresses "the sense of the Congress that any Executive order that infringes on the powers and duties of the Congress under article I, section 8 of the Constitution, or that would require the expenditure of Federal funds not specifically appropriated for the purpose of the Executive order, is advisory only unless enacted as law." In effect, this measure would put Mr. Clinton on notice that he cannot presume to exercise powers he does not possess.
As The New American previously observed, the 1974 House Judiciary Committee report on impeachment documented that presidential "high crimes and misdemeanors" include actions in which a President exceeds "the constitutional bounds of the powers of his office in derogation of the powers of another branch of government." Executive Order 13083, and Mr. Clinton's overall "executive order strategy," illustrate that Bill Clinton embodies precisely the variety of presidential megalomania that the impeachment process was created to address.
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