How the Trump administration is unbalancing the balance of powers

From a paralysed Congress to a growing number of conservative judges, legal experts are concerned about the US presidency’s expanding scope.

By Emily Tamkin

WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 04: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts during the State of the Union address in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives on February 04, 2020 in Washington, DC. President Trump delivers his third State of the Union to the nation the night before the U.S. Senate is set to vote in his impeachment trial. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

At the risk of sounding like a Schoolhouse Rock! video, power in the United States is meant to be balanced between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, all three of which are meant to check each other from excess. In reality, however, executive power has ballooned.

That executive power has increased without successfully being checked is not a Trump-specific phenomenon. “I do believe that, since the New Deal, but at an accelerated pace since the Reagan administration, presidents have been gathering more power unto themselves”, Peter Shane, a professor at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, who regularly teaches on constitutional law and law and the presidency, told the New Statesman.