Victoria M. DeFrancesco Soto Asst. Professor of Political Science, Northwestern University :
Obama is not much different from Bush and Bush was not that much different from Clinton, and we can trace the expansion of presidential authority back to roughly Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency. FDR’s presidency marks the beginning of the “modern presidency.” Up until then, there was a great deference to Congress. The rules of the game were set up so that presidential selection was based on congressional leaders – through the electoral college and the lack of a primary system until the turn of the 19th Century.
It is short-sighted to make such a narrow comparison between Bush and Obama. There is a much larger historical context to consider in addition to an appreciation for path dependency -- that the formal and informal rules Obama is employing were set into motion before his arrival and not that he is simply taking a page out of Bush’s playbook. The early institutional incentives of this country produced what came to be known as the King Caucus, where congressional, not presidential authority was expansive. Congress ran the show up until FDR, with the exception of Andrew Jackson who temporarily bucked the King Caucus and went straight to the public. He was able to win and harness of the support of the public, hence allowing for the expansion of presidential authority. Jackson, foreshadowed Roosevelt, and ultimately laid the groundwork for the czars and other demonstrations of presidential power we see today.