Our System of Checks and Balances Might Not Survive Another Year

"On Wednesday, the Supreme Court and its carefully manufactured conservative majority will hear the first in a chain of cases that may well determine for the foreseeable future the survival of the system of checks and balances, and which also may well determine whether or not the presidency is turned into everything the founders were afraid it might."

"The President of the United States has no Constitutional Council (a thing unknown in any safe and regular government), he will therefore be unsupported by proper information and advice; and will generally be directed by minions and favoritesor he will become a tool to the Senateor a Council of State will grow out of the principal officers of the great departments; the worst and most dangerous of all ingredients for such a Council in a free country; for they may be induced to join in any dangerous or oppressive measures; to shelter themselves, and prevent an enquiry into their own misconduct in office."

"On Wednesday, the Court will hear arguments on the legitimacy of the president's unilaterally imposing tariffs under what he maintains is a legitimate use of a 1977 emergency powers law. The president's emergency consists of a vague combination of his fantasies about an immigrant "invasion" and his interpretation of the drug war as an actual war."

A Supreme Court conservative majority will hear a case challenging a president's unilateral tariff imposition under a 1977 emergency powers law. The outcome could determine the survival of checks and balances and whether the presidency expands into powers the founders feared. George Mason's 1787 warning described a president without a constitutional council becoming dependent on favorites, a tool of the Senate, or leading a dangerous council of department officers that shields misconduct. The claimed emergency combines assertions of an immigrant "invasion" with treating the drug war as an actual war. The case is pivotal to the administration's economic strategy and personal interests.

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