Presidential Primacy Amidst Democratic Decline

Abstract

We read Cristina Rodríguez’s Foreword as a compelling and nuanced defense of presidential primacy (although, importantly, she does not claim that exact term). She offers a description of the contemporary legal and political landscape in which the inauguration of a new President sometimes initiates a political “regime change,” marked by Executive-led efforts to make consequential changes in law and policy (that is, to instantiate a new “legal regime”). She then urges readers to be comfortable with both types of change — to accept that electoral victories bring with them “control of the machinery that turns political visions into everyday realities” and, moreover, to want a government that can be nimble and energetic, even when a new regime does not align with one’s personal preferences. Put simply, she offers a vision of contemporary democratic governance in which “regime change,” emanating from the executive branch, is both what we have and what we need. That one regime will undo some of the work of a previous regime is not an argument against presidential primacy, but rather an argument in its favor.

Our Response makes one major point: however appealing we may find Rodríguez’s argument from a pragmatic and presentist perspective, we should recognize that it exists amidst — and sometimes draws its appeal from — troubling historical developments in the workings of our democratic institutions. The urgency of our current problems, the relative ease of government by “pen” and “phone” — these are reasons to be attracted to Rodríguez’s vision, but they are also arguably symptomatic of structural failings. They should be recognized as such, alongside a recognition of forces that now threaten democracy itself. A broader theoretical and historical view makes this clear.