Presidential Power and Federal Elections
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Description
The president of the United States occupies what the Supreme Court has described as “a unique position in the constitutional scheme.” As “the chief constitutional officer of the Executive Branch,” he has duties “of unrivaled gravity and breadth,” “rang[ing] from faithfully executing the laws to commanding the Armed Forces.” Election administration, however, is not among them. Neither the Constitution nor any federal statute grants the president any direct role in the administration of federal elections. Yet as one scholar recently observed, in a variety of more indirect ways that are not always appreciated, “the President … routinely exercises control over elections.” This chapter discusses some illustrative dimensions of that control and considers important limitations on it as well. Part of the undertaking here will relate to the familiar problem of self-dealing in American election law. Because virtually all of the rules for how elections are conducted are made by elected officials who are often candidates in those very elections, there is a risk that incumbents will manipulate the rules for their own electoral advantage. This phenomenon is perhaps most acute when it comes to state legislators who draw the electoral maps governing their own races. By configuring their districts to include more voters likely to support them, incumbents can entrench themselves in a way that violates “the core principle of republican government, namely, that the voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around.” The president has no direct role in electoral boundary setting or election administration. Perhaps for that reason, until recently little sustained attention has been paid to whether and in what ways the self-dealing problem applies to the presidency. But especially in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election and attempts by former president Donald Trump and his supporters to overturn its results, those questions call out for attention.
First Page
107
DOI
https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479830930.003.0009
Source Publication
Our Nation at Risk: Election Integrity as a National Security Issue
Source Editors/Authors
Julian E. Zelizer, Karen J. Greenberg
Publication Date
7-1-2024
Publisher
New York University Press
Recommended Citation
Trevor W. Morrison,
Presidential Power and Federal Elections,
Our Nation at Risk: Election Integrity as a National Security Issue
107
(2024).
Available at:
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/2101
