TUES DAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2025 | T HE GLOB E AND M AIL O NE WS | A17
Trump’s reach for power puts weighty debate before courts
Verdicts will determine Douglas, and in the 1932 election,
FDR finished nearly 18 percent-
whether his actions age points ahead of Herbert
have stretched Hoover.
beyond established In fact, Mr. Trump’s victory, far
smaller than what Joe Biden re-
constitutional limits corded over him four years earlier
(4.5 percentage points), was
dwarfed by Mr. Nixon in 1972,
DAVID SHRIBMAN when the 37th president was re-
elected by 23.2 percentage points.
The Trump victory roughly re-
ANALYSIS sembles the 1976 triumph of Jim-
my Carter over Gerald Ford (2.1
T
he concepts of governmen- percentage points), but he didn’t
tal checks and balances and claim a mandate to create prece-
the separation of powers dent-shattering actions.
are customarily introduced in In both his terms, Mr. Trump
Grade 9 civics courses and then has maintained he has broad
swiftly are assumed to be funda- powers. In 2019, he contended
mental, unassailable elements of that Article II of the Constitution
the government of the United gave him “the right to do whatev-
States. But in Donald Trump’s er I want as president.” This
second term they are moving month, referring to the national
from the classroom to the cour- crisis he perceives, he argued, “He
troom and, in recent days, have who saves his Country does not
been prompting a fresh, vigorous violate any Law.”
and enormously consequential The Supreme Court may give
debate in the public square. People protest what organizers say are ‘the anti-democratic and illegal actions of the Trump administration’ the President broad deference in
This new debate, accompanied during the Not My President’s Day rally in Washington on Feb. 17. CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES cases involving the dismissal of
by important disputes about the officials; courts generally resist
limits of presidential power, is military and in universities, Court can and should define the elegant equipoise among the ex- telling presidents whom they can
more urgent than it has been in among other items, comprise an limits of presidential power,” ecutive, legislative and judicial promote or fire.
100 years – with implications emergency as great as that faced Laurence Tribe, a constitutional branches. But John Yoo, a University of
more significant than it has been by Lincoln (during the Civil War, law expert at Harvard University, All this is being considered at a California, Berkeley, law profes-
in more than a century and a half. when the territorial integrity of said in an interview. “What’s new time of unusual impatience if not sor widely respected among con-
Donald Trump’s reach for pow- the country and the survival of is a president with no respect for contempt for government. Just servatives, said in an interview
er, and his tests of the bounds of slavery were in the balance) and these boundaries. He’s treating last week, the respected Quinni- that Mr. Trump wasn’t likely to
presidential prerogatives, have Roosevelt (when severe econom- the Constitution as a plaything – piac University poll found that prevail in questioning the Consti-
two antecedents, and even those ic distress during the Great De- as if it is up to him to define the only one in 11 Americans sur- tution’s birthright citizenship
comparisons are imperfect. One pression imperilled the survival limits of presidential power. He’s veyed said they believed that the clause or to force universities and
is Abraham Lincoln, who sus- of democratic capitalism). running around breaking things system of checks and balances private corporations to abandon
pended habeas corpus, the con- The resolution of these ques- every 10 minutes.” was working very well. A majority diversity, equity and inclusion
stitutional guarantee of individu- tions in courtrooms and in voting There also is a related ques- thinks it was working either not (DEI) programs.
als’ rights to argue in court they booths will determine whether tion, quiet now, but potentially so well or not well at all. “He may try to end DEI in gov-
are being held illegally. The other Mr. Trump’s actions are within historically significant: Does Con- Mr. Trump claims he received a ernment, but he’ll have a harder
is Franklin Delano Roosevelt, his rights as head of the executive gress assert its rights, particularly huge permission slip from the time saying those doing business
who argued he needed “broad Ex- branch or whether he has in regard to agencies it created or voters. “America has given us an with the government also have
ecutive power to wage a war stretched beyond established spending initiatives it ordinarily unprecedented and powerful to,” said Mr. Yoo, a former general
against the [economic] emergen- constitutional limits. At stake are sets out independently of the ex- mandate,” he said in his 2024 counsel for the Senate judiciary
cy, as great as the power that Mr. Trump’s dismissals of top of- ecutive branch – or, given the election victory speech. committee and a Justice Depart-
would be given to me if we were ficials with time remaining in President’s sway over the Repub- But since 1888, only two other ment official in the George W.
in fact invaded by a foreign foe.” their terms, the firing of adminis- licans who control both cham- presidents, John F. Kennedy Bush administration. “The courts
The question that will be trative law judges, the sweeping bers of Congress, does it remain (1960) and Richard Nixon (1968), have long given government a
weighed by the courts in deci- terminations of government passive? won both the Electoral College free hand, but when it comes to
sions this year – and then by the workers with civil-service protec- This question has roots in the and the popular vote with small- ordering private corporations
voters in midterm congressional tion, the freezes on congression- English Bill of Rights, where in er margins than Mr. Trump’s 1.5 how to conduct themselves, the
elections next year – is whether ally authorized spending and the 1689 Parliament limited the pow- percentage points. In the four- courts regularly defend them
the threat Mr. Trump perceives shuttering of governmental agen- ers of the monarchy, and nearly a way 1860 election, Lincoln fin- against the government.”
from migrants, transgender peo- cies. century later in 1787, when the ished about 10 percentage points
ple and diversity initiatives in the “It’s not new that the Supreme American founders created an over his closest rival, Stephen A. Special to The Globe and Mail
CANADIANS HELPING CANADIANS
Thank you to every Tims restaurant owner, team member and customer who
promised to #ChooseToInclude by purchasing a Special Olympics Donut.
$1.3 MILLION
raised to provide community sport programming for more than
47,000 athletes with intellectual and development disabilities.
“Seeing Canadians support athletes
like me... has shown me how powerful
inclusion can be. Thank you for believing
in me, my fellow athletes, and a future
where everyone belongs.”
- Julia Romualdi,
Special Olympics athlete
Visit www.specialolympics.ca to learn more
Proud National Partner of Sepcial Olympics Canada since 2016.
©Tim Hortons, 2024. @SpecialOCanada | specialolympics.ca
