Presidential Pantomime

Kevin Kosar at AEI:

Shortly before he left office, President Joe Biden declared that the Equal Rights Amendment was now part of the Constitution and “the law of the land,” never mind that federal courts and the National Archivist have said otherwise.

Similarly, President Barack Obama responded to a mass shooting at a Newtown, Connecticut school by demanding federal police trace any guns used in mass shootings. That this latter policy had no effect to prevent future shootings was no matter — it gave the appearance of doing something.

And that is a big reason why presidents so often issue toothless executive orders and memoranda, according to University of Michigan Professor, Kenneth Lowande, the author of False Front: The Failed Promise of Presidential Power in a Polarized Age (University of Chicago, 2024).

“Presidents take action — even when it does nothing to affect policy — because our political system is not designed to let presidents solve major problems,” he writes.

The U.S. Constitution fractures governing power among the branches and assigns all legislative authority to Congress. The nation’s chief executive must operate within the powers granted by the Constitution and federal law. “Their first and most direct power,” Lowande writes, “is over the appearance of governing, not governing itself.”