Presidential power faces the courts, Congress and the clock

Crisis changes expectations of the presidency

Franklin D. Roosevelt entered office in March 1933 as banks failed and unemployment devastated families. The New Deal expanded federal programs and regulation, and Congress supplied statutory authority for many of the administration’s projects. The Supreme Court invalidated some measures, while the administration defended broader national action as necessary to meet an extraordinary collapse. After winning reelection in 1936, Roosevelt proposed a judicial reorganization plan in 1937 that would allow additional justices under specified conditions. Critics charged that it would pressure the Court; the plan failed in Congress. A president who enjoyed great electoral success still encountered a separate legislature and judiciary.

Roosevelt won third and fourth terms in 1940 and 1944, breaking Washington’s two-term tradition amid world war. After his death, Americans debated whether one person should be allowed to hold the presidency indefinitely. The Twenty-Second Amendment, ratified in 1951, established an enforceable limit of two presidential elections, with a special provision for a person who assumes the office during another term. It made a convention of political restraint part of the written constitutional system.

A court order confronts the president

The Watergate scandal began with the June 17, 1972, break-in at Democratic National Committee offices and developed into an investigation of presidential conduct and obstruction of justice. Special prosecutor Leon Jaworski sought recordings from President Richard Nixon. Nixon invoked executive privilege, a recognized interest in confidential presidential communications, to resist production. On July 24, 1974, the Supreme Court ruled that a generalized claim of privilege could not override the demonstrated need for evidence in a criminal trial.

The tapes that followed, together with congressional investigation and the possibility of impeachment, destroyed Nixon’s position. He resigned on August 9, 1974; Gerald Ford became president under the constitutional succession process. Ford later pardoned Nixon, a controversial exercise of presidential authority that did not erase the preceding constitutional confrontation. The republic had not been protected by the wisdom of one officeholder. It had depended on investigators gathering evidence, courts deciding cases, legislators carrying out oversight and an official accepting the loss of power.

The restraint that matters most

Checks and balances can appear obstructive during emergencies. Yet the 1937 and 1974 episodes illustrate why resistance by institutions is a feature rather than an accident: a popular or powerful president cannot lawfully substitute personal judgment for every other constitutional office. Congress must still legislate and fund; courts must still adjudicate; elections and constitutional terms must still come due.