Cristina Rodriguez
Appearances
Planet Money
OIRA: The tiny office that's about to remake the federal government
The unitary executive theory is the constitutional theory that all executive power is vested in the president and the president therefore has complete control of the executive branch from top to bottom.
Planet Money
OIRA: The tiny office that's about to remake the federal government
both the history and the theory on which the unitary executive theory are based are unconvincing.
Planet Money
OIRA: The tiny office that's about to remake the federal government
That is their line, that the president needs to be able to control at least who the officers of the United States are because the president is accountable. I think that there are a number of ways— To answer that critique, first and foremost, is that accountability is about more than just having someone who was elected make choices. Accountability also has to be to the law.
Planet Money
OIRA: The tiny office that's about to remake the federal government
Congress makes the decision that some domains of regulation require installation from politics. So you might want the judgment about whether to prosecute someone for a violation of the securities law to come from independent decision-making, not political decision-making. So you want the decision-making to be unbiased.
Planet Money
OIRA: The tiny office that's about to remake the federal government
So I do expect the court to continue what it has already started, which is to eliminate certain forms of independence from the executive branch.
Planet Money
OIRA: The tiny office that's about to remake the federal government
I think that's right. I think that's right.
Planet Money
OIRA: The tiny office that's about to remake the federal government
I don't know, based on any kind of inside or external information, whether they want to go after the Federal Reserve and challenge the independence of the Federal Reserve. That would be the five alarm fire that everyone who is interested in a stable global economy would rally against.
Planet Money
OIRA: The tiny office that's about to remake the federal government
I think the number one on the list of things that keep me up at night about what this administration is doing is the creation of Doge and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency and the efforts to fire tens of thousands of civil servants. That is enormously concerning. I think the firing of independent officials might be number two.
Planet Money
OIRA: The tiny office that's about to remake the federal government
If you have a system where from top to bottom, from the officers of the United States to the independent commissioners who are independent no more to the civil servants made up of people who are hired because of their loyalty to the president, you have a corrupt and malfunctioning government.
Planet Money
OIRA: The tiny office that's about to remake the federal government
I tend not to use the word constitutional crisis because I don't think it's sufficiently descriptive. I do think that we are approaching autocracy today. We are approaching a world in which the government, especially the executive branch and the president, are unaccountable, either to the people or to the law.
Planet Money
OIRA: The tiny office that's about to remake the federal government
So that sounds like a constitutional crisis, but I'd like to be specific about what we're at risk of losing.