Next Democratic president should give Republicans 'a taste of their own medicine'! (AlterNet) [View all]

[Jack Valentino]

The first year of President Donald Trump's second term has been rife with examples of the president doing something previously believed to be illegal until it was eventually upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). Now, two legal experts are arguing that the next Democratic president should take advantage of the new vastly expanded presidential powers sanctioned by the nation's highest court.

In a Friday article for Slate, legal journalists Mark Joseph Stern and Dahlia Lithwick laid out how the next Democrat to be elected president of the United States should govern in their first 24 hours, under the new legal boundaries SCOTUS granted the White House under the Trump administration. Stern argued that because SCOTUS has blessed the "unitary executive" theory that all powers delegated to the executive branch and federal agencies can be unilaterally exercised by the president, the next president — he named Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) as a stand-in example — should take after Trump's example and "wield those powers aggressively."

"How does that cash out? First, let’s remember that the Supreme Court has now effectively granted the president authority to impound federal funds duly appropriated by Congress and to abolish federal agencies established and funded by Congress," Stern wrote. "I think that is terrible and anti-constitutional. But thanks to the Supreme Court, that is now the law. So let’s talk about what President AOC can do with those powers in 2029."

"On Day 1, she needs to impound ICE’s budget. She needs to refuse to spend the billions of dollars that Congress has appropriated to the agency and fire tens of thousands of immigration agents immediately, starting with those who committed acts of violence and discrimination — which, by that point, may be almost all of them," he continued. "Close as many immigrant detention facilities as possible and free the detainees."

Read more:
https://www.alternet.org/next-democratic-president-agenda/



What I'd personally like to see is the next Democratic president, via his authority over the agricultural department,
summarily cancel the changes made to 'work requirements' for SNAP in the 'big ugly bill',
particularly those raising the age from 54 to 64, and the exemptions for veterans and the homeless, among others...
(and hopefully a Democratic congress will reverse all those provisions through reconciliation,
as well as the medicaid work requirements for older people at the least!)

Trump and the silence of Republicans and the Supreme Court, have 'opened the floodgates'
to what it may be presumed legal for a president to do---
We should take full advantage of that fact for OUR OWN priorities!!