U.S. citizens are not of the opinion that the president must have the freedom to act unchecked by the courts and Congress, declares latest U.S. survey evidence on attitudes about checks and balances. Opinion, however, remains divided by party as President Donald Trump engages in his constant sparring match with judges over policy by his administration.
Increasing numbers of policy reversals directed by Trump since he took office have been temporarily halted by federal judges after being legally challenged, including his actions to end birthright citizenship, grant Department of Government Efficiency staff access to the Treasury Department’s payment systems, reduce the indirect cost recovery rate for all assistance granted by the National Institutes of Health, destroy the U.S. Agency for International Development, and more.
Around 17 guidelines were barred in this way during the first two months of the second government, a analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service discovered, in contrast to 19 such jams throughout the entire Obama government and 24 during the Biden government.
The statistics highlight the extent to which the Trump administration’s actions have faced legal challenges, prompting retaliation from Trump and his supporters against the judiciary as judges voiced their dissent. Following a judge’s ruling against him, Trump suggested impeaching the judge, which led to an unusual reprimand from Chief Justice John Roberts. Vice President JD Vance commented on X, “Judges don’t get to exert control over the executive’s legitimate authority,” while border czar Tom Holman stated, “I don’t care what judges think” in response to inquiries about judicial efforts to halt deportations.
Should a president disregard the courts and Congress, according to public opinion?
In the previous month, investigators from the Annenberg Public Policy Center condcuted a study as part of the center’s Institutions of Democracy panel survey, which contained a nationwide representative representation of 1,363 participants. Americans from March 6-16 on six questions that are aimed at measuring their backing for the system of democratic checkpoints.
The evidence was strikingly unequivocal: Americans don’t believe that the president should be able to act free of constraint by the courts and Congress. With one minor exception, a majority of the public declines to make claims about expansive presidential powers. While Republicans are more open to growing executive authority with Trump in the Oval Office, most still object declarations of unilateral power.
Instead, Democrats, Republicans and independents generally agree that Congress and the courts should be able to limit what the president can do. One significant exception is that most Republicans believe the president should handle how executive agencies enforce the law. But even there, it is only a narrow majority, and it is arguably a more nuanced item than the rest of the questions.
Just 16%, for instance, said that a president should be able to disregard court rulings he thinks encroach on his constitutional powers, including 27% of Republicans. Regarding the question of whether a president should have the power to enact policies without prior first approval, 20% of respondents supported this view, which includes a third of Republicans.
In a broader context, 58% of participants overall agreed that the courts prevent elected officials from misusing their power, with 51% of Republicans sharing this sentiment. And 84% overall concurred that courts are essential to our system of government, with little variation along partisan lines.
The fact that the public — Republicans included, notwithstanding Trump’s exceptionally high levels of intraparty support — is not in favor of attempting to ignore and cow the other branches is significant, particularly at a time when so many of the great challenges to executive action are percolating through the courts.
The ability of judges to prevent these types of policies is one manifestation of America’s system of checks and balances: People can sue and request a court to review administration activities, and if the court determines that the move is against the rule or the U.S. Constitution, they can discourage those guidelines from being enforced.
The courts’ limit is that they cannot enforce themselves, but must rely on the president, Congress and the people believing in our constitutional system so much that they will obey. But as Thomas Paine set down in “Common Sense” during the early days of America, “in America the law is king.”. For as the King is in absolute governments law, so in free states the law should be king; and there should be no other.
