Governing by Decree: The Trump Presidency and the Decline of “Legislating Together”

Abstract During his two terms as president, Donald Trump has asserted exceptional executive power, diluting Congress's governing responsibilities. The Trump presidencies deploy a strategy of concentrated executive ballast for governing, including, but not limited to, the extensive use of executive orders. The conventional political science view that presidents and Congress “legislate together” through bargaining and bipartisan negotiation, a view associated particularly with Richard Neustadt's scholarship, is found wanting. Governance by decree is established through six developments: increased unilateralism; norm-testing implied by White House action; unitary executive theory as jurisprudence; judicial upholding of executive power; tepid legislative oversight of the executive; and enforcement through threats. Each element disrupts a commonplace in American government textbook orthodoxy.