I am diverging from my usual posts to add this to my blog. I urge you to read through it and think about the message–that the US Congress has an important role in the systems of checks and balances on the power of the other branches of the US system, the executive and the judicial. Roger Myerson is a distinguished ecnomist at the University of Chicago, and a winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics. (Most important of all, he is a member of my undergraduate cohort at Harvard.) His opposition to term limits for members of Congress is presented in a very understandable, articulate way and I agree with his message.
We know that other countries have sometimes elected presidents who then manipulated the great powers of their office to nullify constitutional constraints and establish a permanent grip on political power. But from George Washington’s first election until now, Americans always selected presidents who, in prior public service, had demonstrated their commitment to exercise power responsibly within legal and constitutional limits. In January 2017, however, America will for the first time have a President who has never held any public office and who, as a businessman, has a long record of manipulating laws to his personal advantage.
Throughout the presidential campaign, many have consistently underestimated Donald Trump’s ability to market himself and denigrate his opponents in a relentless drive for power. Now his perplexing mixture of extreme and moderate policy statements must not distract us from the fundamental constitutional issues which may be at stake in the next four years if…
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