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By Adrian Vermeule

A trope of tyrannophobic political discourse compares the American presidency with the government of the Caesars. T.B. Macaulay addressed a comparison between the Caesars and the Tudor monarchs (Henry VII, his son, and his grandchildren) in terms both withering and illuminating:

It has been said … that the Tudors were as absolute as the Caesars. Never was a parallel so unfortunate. The Caesars ruled despotically, by means of a great standing army, under the decent forms of a republican constitution. Our Tudors, on the other hand, under the titles and forms of monarchical supremacy, were essentially popular magistrates. Though the legal checks on their activities were feeble, the natural checks were strong. It was impossible for them to carry oppression beyond a certain point. They knew that, if the patience of the nation were severely tried, the nation would put forth its strength, and that its strength would be found irresistible.(Macaulay, Burleigh and His Times, in the Essays).

In The Executive Unbound: After the Madisonian Republic, Eric Posner and I offer a picture of the American presidency, and the executive branch generally, that partakes of both the Caesars and the Tudors (as Macaulay portrays them). On one hand, the President commands a great standing army or indeed several of them, if we count his army of bureaucrats and advisers. Although the President rules “under the decent forms of a republican constitution” – the one from 1789 – his powers vastly exceed anything that could be inferred from the text of that document, principally because of the ever-increasing rate of change in the policy environment in the 20^th century and the ever-diminishing institutional capacities of the Congress, both of which conspire to ensure that an ever-increasing amount of policy is made by the executive under broad and vague statutory delegations. Moreover, the presidency is the sole institution capable of acting in the real world, beyond the law books, and often proceeds through unilateral action, wielding “power without persuasion.”

On the other hand, the President, like the Tudor monarchs, is substantially constrained by the ambient force of mass public opinion and the implicit threat of political backlash. “Though the legal checks on [his] activities [are] feeble, the natural checks [are] strong.” Any modern President is a curious pushme-pullyu: possessing sweeping statutory and constitutional powers, he is enslaved to the opinion polls. Indeed, the administrative state over which the President reigns, and which is both a wellspring and a symptom of his power, itself tends to generate and sustain those political checks, in part because it helps to create a large class of secure, educated and wealthy elites who have both time and inclination to scrutinize executive action, donate to the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights, and agitate against executive abuses.

So the answer to “the Caesars or the Tudors?,” as to the American presidency, might be “some of both.” But the even better answer – and this is actually the answer we give – is “neither,” because neither the Caesars nor the Tudors were elected (putting aside the need to maintain the loyalty of the legions or nobility). We envision the Constitution in 2020 as a plebiscitary, president-centered electoral democracy in which Congress and the courts have been reduced to marginal actors , who carp fr

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The relevant constitutional provision of our CNMI Constitution reads:

If a balanced budget is not approved (by the legislature) before the first day of the fiscal year, no money shall be drawn from the General Fund, provided that certain government services and employees shall remain available as provided by law, in order to deliver services essential to the health, safety, and welfare of the people of the Commonwealth and to protect against damage to and destruction of property.

The exact contours of this provision are now being tested by our current situation. And the limitations and protections of this provision seem to have already been stretched beyond reason and good sense in service of political motives.

1. The Saipan Tribune reports that Attorney General Ed Buckingham has used and is using public funds to hire a private attorney to represent him in the OPA investigation into his use of public office to support federal election (House of Representatives) candidate Joe Camacho. The hire of attorney G. Anthony Long occurred on September 17, 2010 --so predates the constitutional restriction on expenditures of public funds. But now the question becomes whether the continued services of Mr. Long can possibly be considered "essential services" during this government "shut-down." The answer seems obvious--NO! Legal services to cover Mr. Buckingham's ass in the investigation are not vital to "health, safety, and welfare OF THE PEOPLE."

No time that Mr. Long puts in from October 1, 2010 to the enactment of a budget should be billed to the public or paid for with public funds.


2. The Marianas Variety reports that Deputy Police Commissioner Ambrosio Ogumoro told DPS supervisors during work hours in a meeting to have their subordinate police officers bring food to a political gathering for US House candidate Joe Camacho. Almost worse than this political pressure is the report that police officers, while on duty, "delivered picnic tables, cut fish and helped in the preparation" for the political gathering.

Not only is it a violation of law for state government workers to aid in a federal election campaign as part of their state government work, we are in a SHUT-DOWN and only essential services are to be provided and paid for.

Helping on a political campaign is not essential service for the "health, safety, and welfare of the people of the Commonwealth."


We need a full investigation of both of these. We may need a lawsuit challenging expenditure of taxpayer funds in derogation of the Constitution. And for this, we need leaders to take the lead. They must step up and insist on behalf of all of us that the tyranny end; that our rights be protected; and that our government remain and return to democratic principles.

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