The Looming Crisis of Emergency Powers and Holding the 2020 Presidential Election
by Mark Medish and Joel McCleary
May 4, 2020
The future of electoral democracy in the United States is, without exaggeration, at risk. While a global pandemic and economic meltdown could provide a pretext for this threat, it does not come from abroad. Instead the threat comes from our own elected leader, the President of the United States—and those who know him best, know this to be true.
President Donald Trump has made a series of comments that convey casual disregard, if not outright contempt, for our constitutional order. Last year, he told a conservative group, “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.” On February 18 of this year, he boasted, “I’m actually, I guess, the chief law enforcement officer of the country,” which even if technically true no president would dare assert in defiance of the independence of the Justice Department. On March 12, in the same breath as mentioning the availability of “strong emergency powers,” Trump declared, “I have the right to do a lot of things that people do not know about.” A week later he asserted, “When somebody’s the president of the United States, the authority is total. And that’s the way it’s got to be.”
In the spirit of total authority, Trump has claimed the power to adjourn Congress during the Covid-19 crisis to give him, among other things, free rein to make recess appointments. Despite bipartisan opposition, he has dismissed inspectors general in several departments because they dared expose fraud, waste, and political abuse that implicated him. He has claimed the emergency authority to open or close the country. He has undermined the authority of governors by inciting civil disobedience, urging citizens to “liberate” their states from pandemic shutdowns and making supportive statements of armed agitators who do so. Trump has also threatened to put the U.S Postal Service, on which mail-in voting depends, out of business. This pattern of overstepping authority and undermining institutions is too consistent – and the subject matter too serious – to be dismissed as innocent frivolity or ignorance.
Former Vice President Joe Biden has stated his concern about Mr. Trump’s intentions in regard to the elections in November. The presumptive Democratic nominee said he believed that the president might “kick back the election somehow, come up for some rationale for why it can’t be held.” The White House rejected the charge, yet Biden’s concern is warranted. Indeed, the threat is broader still. It includes the possibility of Trump’s abusing emergency powers to suppress voting in general, using other means to interfere with opposition party organizing, or adopting extraordinary measures to contest an election that he loses.
Remainder of article at:
https://www.justsecurity.org/69996/the-looming-crisis-of-emergency-powers-and-holding-the-2020-presidential-election/