Quinn LiPuma is a junior majoring in Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy in MSU’s James Madison College. During his summer internship with WCDP, Quinn will write short explanatory pieces for us about the Heritage Foundation’s terrifying but little-understood blueprint for American fascism, titled Project 2025. This is the third piece in Quinn’s series.
As noted in this series’ introduction, the official title of Project 2025 is “The Mandate for Leadership”. This is misleading, as it is moreso a mandate for dictatorship. This claim is not just substantiated by examining Project 2025’s disdain for the administrative state, but also in what they claim the powers of the President are.
The very core of Project 2025’s belief in what a president is can be found in how the proponents of it interpret Article II of the Constitution, the article outlining presidential powers. Article II, Section I, states, “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” Because this sentence does not highlight anyone other than the president as worthy of wielding executive power, the proponents of Project 2025 insist that the president alone has exclusive right to executive power. If that sounds hyperbolic, Project 2025 reads:
“Article II of the U.S. Constitution makes it abundantly clear that “[t]he executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” That enormous power is not vested in departments or agencies, in staff or administrative bodies, in nongovernmental organizations or other equities and interests close to the government.”
This idea that executive departments have no inherent power, but rather exist solely to serve the President, stems from a legal philosophy called Unitary Executive Theory. This “theory” is absurd for two reasons. Firstly, an executive branch where all power resides with one person flies in the face of the separation of powers and effectively transforms the president into a monarch with advisors. For it is evident that as long as the departments are destined to be entirely subjected to the will of the Executive, it will be loyalty, not expertise, that secures oneself a federal position. Second, and far more critically, is that the President swears their loyalty to the Constitution. Due to this, the President is bound by the entire Constitution. Article II has four sections that lay out exactly what the powers of the president are. Article II, Section II, Clause III states, in part, “[the president] may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices,”. The Constitution provides for the formation of semi autonomous departments because the president cannot oversee the vast expanse of the country’s needs. Therefore, it isn’t unconstitutional to have departments run vast parts of the government. They answer to the president, but they are meant to run autonomously because it is infeasible for one executive to run every single department, or assume their responsibilities.
The proponents of Project 2025 are ignoring one section of the Constitution to provide for the Constitutional interpretation that the president should have an active role in running every single department. These proponents are subverting and twisting the Constitution for their own ends. If the Constitution vaguely supports their ideas, they leap to justify them with the Constitution. If the Constitution doesn’t support their ideas, they ignore them, and hope you don’t read the actual document. Unitary Executive Theory is being supported in spite of the Constitution, not in conjunction with it.