Gonzaga Debate Institute 2010

Executive Power Bad Adv. – 1AC 6/8

Solves extinction

Diamond 95 (Larry, Hastings fellow, Foreign Policy)

The impact on democracies demonstrates the fallacy in thinking that “real” interests can be distinguished from the U.S. Interest in fostering democracy. A more democratic world would be a safer, saner, and more prosperous world for the United States. The experience of this century bears important lessons. Democratic countries do not go to war with one another or sponsor terrorism against other democracies. They do not build weapons of mass destruction to threaten one another. Democratic countries are more reliable, open, and enduring trading partners, and offer more stable climates for investment. Because they must answer to their own citizens, democracies are more environmentally responsible. They are more likely to honor international treaties and value legal obligations since their openness makes it much more difficult to breach them in secret. Precisely because they respect civil liberties, rights of property, and the rule of law within their own borders, democracies are the only reliable foundation on which to build a new world order of security and prosperity. A truly new world order means qualitatively different world, not just the temporary leashing of dictatorships or incremental progress on arms control, terrorism, and trade. Promoting democracy must therefore be at the heart of America’s global vision. Democracy should be the central focus--the defining feature – of US foreign policy.

No risk of their turns – unchecked executive authority outweighs congressional hindrance of military effectiveness

Lobel 8 (Jules, Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh Law School, Ohio State Law Journal, 69 Ohio St. L.J. 391, Lexis) jl

One might argue, however, that the potential danger that Congress could enact impractical, and unduly restrictive legislation controlling the movement of troops in battle supports a constitutional rule that accords the President sole power in this area, even if the line that was drawn was somewhat vague or logically indefensible.

That argument fails for two reasons. First, such a line is unnecessary. Congress has never interfered with battle plans or troop movements in the course of battle, even during the Civil War when congressional intermeddling in military matters was at its height. There is no reason to believe that Congress is even remotely likely to do so in the future, or that it is even capable of doing so. The line drawing would not be in response to a real problem, but a speculative, highly remote hypothetical. Important constitutional distinctions ought not be based on imaginary problems.

Worse still, the purely speculative danger that Congress might in the future interfere with battle plans or troops movements in the course of warfare must be balanced against the very real and present danger that Presidents will use an exclusive power over troop movements to expand their power dramatically at Congress's expense.

Modern Presidents have done just that. They have sought to expand their narrow constitutional power to repel sudden attacks into a power to introduce U.S. troops into hostilities anywhere in the world where, in the President's opinion, the United States' national interests are threatened. They have argued that the President's narrow power to protect our troops precludes Congress from limiting offensive actions that significantly expand a war.

The current administration has gone further, arguing that the President's power to direct the movement of troops precludes Congress from absolutely forbidding torture, or warrantless spying against Americans. The potential for abuse of a narrow but theoretically expandable rule is enormous, ever-present, and demonstrated by history.

Congress has also generally not restricted the President's power to repel attacks on American troops. n288 But the President's power to repel attacks  [*462]  should be viewed as an independent power that permits the Executive to act with speed and flexibility in the absence of congressional authority, but that Congress has the right to regulate and limit that power.

Executive Power Bad Adv. – 1AC 7/8

Russia models lack of US Congressional constraints.

Becker 6 (Jonathan, Writer for Soft Skull Press - Independent News Organization, http://www.softskull.com/files/Bush_and_Putin.pdf, AD: 6/23/10) jl

If the war on terror is the policy that drives and unites Presidents Putin and Bush, a commitment to the supremacy of the executive branch gives them a shared approach to governance. The wars on terror have no doubt given pretext for the assertion of executive authority, but for both presidents the commitment to executive superiority reaches far beyond that. Three terms sum up Putin’s approach to governance: “managed democracy,” “dictatorship of the law,” and the “vertikal” (vertical power). Taken together, they mean that Putin has taken the Yeltsin-era constitution, which already places inordinate authority in the presidency, to an extreme. Russia will have a strong state, the state will be controlled by the president, and potential challenges to the state, whether they emerge from wealthy “oligarchs” or from upstart governors, will be crushed. Putin is unapologetic in this regard, as he said in his millennium speech “Russia will not become a second edition of, say, the U.S. or Britain, where liberal values have deep historic traditions. . . . For Russians, a strong state is not an anomaly to be got rid of. Quite the contrary, it is a source of order and the main driving force of any change.” Managed democracy, as its name suggests, implies significant limits on political freedoms, something which is far more akin to authoritarianism than democracy. In the political sphere, it has meant that the state and its allies have taken control over all major national television stations, which now serve to promote the policies of the president and that television and other so-called “administrative resources” have been manipulated generously to ensure the re-election of Putin and the election of his loyal majority parliamentary party, Unified Russia. It has also meant that electoral laws have been altered to make it more difficult for potential opposition parties to become elected in the future. Substantial limits have also been placed on civil society, including onerous registration requirements for non-governmental organizations that could challenge the government. These and other steps are designed to ensure that Russia will avoid the popular uprisings that led to the removal of old-guard governments in the “colored” revolutions of Ukraine (orange) and Georgia (rose). Dictatorship of law essentially boils down to the selective application of legal principles, often the tax code, to eliminate potential rivals. It has been particularly effective in being wielded against those from the private sector who deign to interfere with the actions of the state. Dictatorship of law has ensured that the likes of Vladimir Gusinsky and Mikhail Khodarkovsky have been, respectively, exiled and jailed, and that the state has stripped them of their media and energy assets. The vertikal has seen the further centralization of power through the emasculation of Russia’s system of federalism. The process began in the year 2000 with the creation of seven “super-regions,” overseen by presidentially appointed plenipotentiaries, to oversee the activities of the governors and legislatures in Russia’s eighty-nine territorial units. The process accelerated after the Beslan tragedy when Putin implemented a “reform” to ensure that that henceforth governors would no longer be popularly elected, but named by Moscow (subject to nominal approval by regional legislatures). To top things off, governor after governor then appeared on state-run television to stress how wise the decision was to ensure that they no longer be elected by the people. Such is the state of affairs in managed democracy. If Putin uses dictatorship of law to emasculate potential rivals, Bush uses unique legal interpretations, which are seemingly cooked up in the basement of the conservative Federalist Society, to arrogate to himself powers unheard of in U.S. history. The philosophy of the Bush administration, as is so often the case, was best articulated by Vice President Dick Cheney, who declared, “I believe in a strong, robust executive authority, and I think that the world we live in demands it.” This philosophy has led to a number of actions that, in the words of Elizabeth Drew, have made the executive “less accountable than at any time in modern American history.”7 The administration asserts that the primary sources of executive supremacy rest in the president’s power as commander in chief, under Article II of the Constitution, and Congress’ Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), passed in the in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, which calls for “the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States.” The scope of actions which the Bush administration believes is justified under current circumstances knows no bounds. According to a white paper issued by the Bush’s Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the combination of Article II and AUMF “places the president at the zenith of his powers,” granting him “all that he possesses in his own right plus all that Congress can delegate.” Since the “war on terror” is, almost by definition, limitless in terms of time and space, this interpretation means that according to the White House, President Bush and future presidents will be at the apex of their powers in perpetuity. This Bush approach