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‘The accumulation of all powers legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny,” James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 48. Montesquieu, quoted therein, warned that “when the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person or body, there can be no liberty, because apprehensions may arise lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws to execute them in a tyrannical manner.”Madison and Montesquieu are perhaps not much remembered today. Separation of powers, once celebrated as a hallmark of the American experiment, is decidedly out of fashion. Our system delegates lawmaking to Congress, implementation to the executive, and the resolution of disputes to the courts, but there is a clamor to have it otherwise — everyone wants his preferred policies enacted and no one really trusts Congress with the job, so what does it matter if our constitutional order goes out the window in the service of a creative solution? . . .. . . If the point of politics is to get your preferred policy implemented, consequences be damned, and your party controls the White House, it is useful to have the president’s allies in Congress act primarily as a voting bloc for his proposals. The president commands an immense amount of authority and prestige — far more, generally, than congressional leaders — and so will have an easier time unifying the party and mobilizing the electorate. Moreover, he is concerned about his legacy and insulated from many of the petty congressional preoccupations that have always bothered Americans — the frequent pace of elections, the need to forge long-term relationships, the pet projects, the local constituents — so his proposals tend to be more ambitious and more inspiring. This is why liberals were so unperturbed by Obama’s involvement in the legislative process, and it is why many conservatives have been frustrated by Trump’s failure to help guide Republican lawmaking.But think of Madison and Montesquieu. Though their concerns may seem idealistic now, in our age of partisan warfare, it’s worth remembering that the Constitution already disposes to the president a tremendous amount of power. The power to enforce the laws carries with it a great enough potential for abuse; it is downright dangerous to gift the president the power to write the laws as well . . .. . . Whenever the president effectively writes a piece of legislation and Congress dutifully passes it, the natural competition between the two branches erodes slightly and they began to view each other more as allies than as distinct political units working in tension with each other. It is a worrisome commentary on the condition of American politics that many punditshave begun to ignore this tension completely and view, say, House Republicans as the policymaking wing of the Trump administration.This is not to say, of course, that there is no room for coordination between the OMB and the Senate over tax reform, or that Trump’s lack of interest in mastering the details of health-care reform is healthy. The president will naturally be involved in policymaking to some degree, the executive branch can offer useful guidance to lawmakers, and parties must coordinate their actions internally. But it is no tragedy that the path to health-care reform so far has been navigated by Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell rather than by Trump.It’s just the proper way of things.