(Photo illustration by Iowa Capital Dispatch via Canva with official White House photo; Capitol photo by Jennifer Shutt and Supreme Court photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)
It is always a good day when you start to write, and you know that history is holding your pen. There may be a revolution coming to America. If it arrives, this will be the third time we have experienced this event, the first two being the Revolutionary War and the Civil War.
The purpose of this column is not to sound a domestic alarm that President-elect Donald Trump is about to take office nor to engage in the almost daily liberal complaint of “did you see what he did today.” Rather, the proposed or discussed changes his supporters have announced in the way our government has worked need to be examined dispassionately and without fear.
Fortunately, history gives us some comparisons of successful revolutions and revolutions that are not so good. The first is the English Revolution of 1688 (also called the Glorious Revolution) contrasted with the French Revolution of 1789 to 1799. In England, James II was a Catholic, which was all right until he had a son, who also was of that religion and would succeed to the throne upon his death. With minimum effort, James was persuaded to flee to France and his daughter and her husband, Mary II and William III, who were Protestant, took the throne jointly. In exchange for the throne, the new king and queen agreed to limiting royal powers and enhanced Parliament’s role in governing. The revolution was hailed because it took place within the existing structure of government and society.
France was a different and tragic story. As historian Edmund Burke and others observed, all the major elements of society were in extreme dissatisfaction with the king and queen, who ultimately lost their heads, as did tens of thousands of others. Different factions came to power only to be dissolved and replaced by another. Ultimately, a strong man, Napoleon, came to leadership and, at least, restored order. What fueled the anarchy was that not one group reflected a majority of the citizenship, and each faction tried to set up a new and different form of government. There was literally no path forward.
From those days of long ago, we now confront a very similar issue: How will we be governed and by whom? The question is before us because of the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. the United States, where the court granted the president “absolute immunity” from any action taken that could be determined as an “official act,” which includes “pardons, command of the military, execution of laws.”
We have had since the formation of our government implemented the concept of the separation of powers, separate but equal: The Congress to make the laws and control the power of the purse; the president to both administer and enforce the actions Congress takes and a judiciary to interpret and apply the laws to the matters that come before it. Everyone since the adoption of the Constitution has lived with this legal concept.
The first test of the power of Congress is almost right before us. Congress passed in 1974 what is known as the Impoundment Act. The law holds that what Congress appropriates must be spent by the president. It was brought about by President Richard Nixon’s threat to not allow Congress to spend more than so much annually, in that year $250 billion.
This question will soon be right before the nation. Conservatives in Congress are going to seek to repeal the Impoundment Act, which very well may not succeed. If it fails, the new president’s allies will commence an action in court to have the legislation declared unconstitutional, because it invades the presidential rights granted him as the chief executive of the country.
The implications of the success of either this legislation or the court case are profound. If the president doesn’t like any government agency, like the Department of Education or the EPA, he could simply defund it, and as a practical matter they would cease to exist.
But beyond congressional legislation, does the grant of immunity empower the president to ignore constitutional rights of citizens, like free speech or prohibitions against illegal search and seizure? Whether we like it or not, these points of difference are going to confront our elected officials and our citizens as well.
In my judgment, the Supreme Court’s ruling has already started what could be a revolution. Since the discussions are within the framework of existing government structure, it is unlikely that the revolution will be by military means, with cannons and bottles filled with gasoline. What we do know is that when the dust clears, history will have to determine whether it was glorious or not.