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Drawing on White House and congressional documents as well as on personal interviews, Mark Rozell provides both a historical overview of executive privilege and an explanation of its importance in the political process. He argues for a return to a pre-Watergate understanding of the role of executive privilege.
For over 200 years, Congress and the President have locked horns on an issue that will not, and cannot go away: legislative access to executive branch information. Presidents and their advisers often claim that the sought-for information is covered by the doctrine of executive privilege and other principles that protect confidentiality among presidential advisers. For its part, Congress will articulate persuasive reasons why legislative access is crucial. In terms of constitutional principles, these battles are largely a standoff, and court decisions in this area are interesting but hardly dispositive. What usually breaks the deadlock is a political decision: the determination of lawmakers to use the coercive tools available to them, and political calculations by the executive branch whether a continued standoff risks heavy and intolerable losses for the President. Many useful and thoughtful standards have been developed to provide guidance for executive-legislative disputes over access to information. Those standards, constructive as they are, are set aside at times to achieve what both branches may decide has higher importance; settling differences and moving on. Legal and constitutional principles, finely-honed as they might be, are often overridden by the politics of the moment and practical considerations. Efforts to discover enduring and enforceable norms in this area invariably fall short. Efforts to resolve interbranch disputes on purely legal grounds may have to give ground in the face of superior political muscle by a Congress determined to exercise the many coercive tools available to it. By the same token, a Congress that is internally divided or uncertain about its institutional powers, or unwilling to grind it out until the documents are delivered, will lose out in a quest for information. Moreover, both branches are at the mercy of political developments that can come around the corner without warning and tilt the advantage decisively to one side. It is tempting to see the executive-legislative clashes only as a confrontation between two branches, yielding a winner and a loser. It is more than that. Congressional access represents part of the framers' belief in representative government. When lawmakers are unable (or unwilling) to obtain executive branch information needed for congressional deliberations, the loss extends to the public, democracy, and constitutional government. The system of checks and balances and separation of powers are essential to protect individual rights and liberties. This book is also available in paper binding. "[T]ightly reasoned, nuanced, and thoroughly researched." -- Athan Theoharis, Marquette University Political Science Quarterly
This book provides an in-depth history and analysis of executive privilege from President Nixon to President Obama, and its relation to the proper scope and limits of presidential power.
Mark Rozell's Executive Privilege has provided for the past decade an in-depth review of the historical exercise of executive privilege and an analysis of the proper scope and limits of presidential power. Now Rozell has updated this important work to cover two new presidents, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and show how both have revived the national debate over executive privilege. Book jacket.
Tells the story behind the development of the Freedom of Information Act and explores its legacy today The Freedom of Information Act, developed at the height of the Cold War, highlighted the power struggles between Congress and the president in that tumultuous era. By drawing on previously unseen primary source material and exhaustive archival research, this book reveals the largely untold and fascinating narrative of the development of the FOIA, and demonstrates how this single policy issue transformed presidential behaviour. The author explores the policy's lasting influence on the politics surrounding contemporary debates on government secrecy, public records and the public's 'right to know', and examines the modern development and use of 'executive privilege'.
Contents: (1) Introduction: The Watergate Cases; Post-Watergate Cases; Executive Branch Positions on the Scope of Executive Privilege: Reagan Through George W. Bush; Implications and Potential Impact of the Espy and Judicial Watch Rulings for Future Executive Privilege Disputes; Recent Developments: George W. Bush Claims of Executive Privilege ; (2) Concluding Observations; (3) Appendix: Presidential Claims of Executive Privilege From the Kennedy Administration Through the George W. Bush Administration: 1. Kennedy; 2. Johnson; 3. Nixon; 4. Ford and Carter; 6. George H. W. Bush; 7. Clinton; 8. George W. Bush.