Czars in America

This next edition of Liberty Law Talk is a conversation with Mitchel Sollenberger and Mark Rozell on the use of ‘czars’ by American Presidents. Sollenberger and Rozell are authors of The President’s Czars: Undermining Congress and the Constitution. The conversation places this twentieth century presidential phenomenon in constitutional, political, and historical context. We focus on exactly what constitutes and defines a public official being labeled a czar. Of course, most importantly is the constitutional legerdemain engaged in by presidents who create and appoint czars, outside of the senate confirmation process, to exercise power in a manner that is accountable to the president alone. Sollenberger and Rozell also provide an interesting historical perspective on the use of czars by Woodrow Wilson (the first president to create a czar), Franklin D. Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, and, of course, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, where the practice has flourished like never before.