The Election, the Supreme Court, and the Unitary Executive

The power of the executive branch can only expand further with the consent of the judiciary. If the Supreme Court approves efforts to expand executive power, the unitary executive may become a permanent. The direction the court will take depends on which justices are appointed to make those decisions.

One of the underlying, though dormant, issues in the upcoming election is the assumption that McCain is more likely to make appointments favorable to expanded executive power and Obama will not.

Here are readings making that case. They tend to come from the left, so I'll balance these at some point.

- Andrew Sullivan.
- New York Review of Books.
- Esquire.