I Did Not See This One Coming

Fred Thompson has almost sane views on executive power:

Thompson agreed that he didn't share the views of Vice President Cheney when it comes to the supremacy of the executive branch.

"No, I think the constitution in times of war, especially, is very definitive about that," he said. "The president is the commander in chief, but the Congress has the power of the budget. The power of the purse. So everything has to go through that prism. So it’s divided power in the constitution. Our founding fathers divided that up. Divided it up at the federal level, the idea being that things like Watergate should be made very difficult to happen. So no one branch of the government can misuse power."

Thompson described checks and balances as "a constant tug and pull. Controversy and differences of opinion over legitimate national security concerns is not a bad thing. Every branch needs to stand up for itself. And I saw that as, in effect, an attorney for the executive branch, and then as a legislator."

Now, there's less than meets the eye here. Later in the interview, he says he agrees with the Bush Administration on "issues of surveillance," which after all was what Watergate was about. Plus, he tries hard to frame Congress' power as solely through the funding mechanism, while saying vaguely that "All the executive authority rests in the president." In Thompson's view, if the Congress disagrees with something the executive does, they can refuse to fund it. Of course, this isn't Congress' only power, they write the laws and have the explicit power to declare war. But Thompson tries to elide that basic Constitutional reading.

What this does show is that, even in the case of a so-called "skeptic" of unitary executive theory, the next President is going to have a big toolbox of new powers and isn't going to be too concerned about giving them away. That holds whether the President is a Republican or a Democrat. And so it's up to the Congress to assert themselves - in ways other than just through funding - to ensure that the balance of power is tilted back toward equilibrium.