When it comes to executive actions, Americans’ partisan and policy preferences trump constitutional concerns

Facing a gridlocked Congress, the last 18 months have seen President Obama make increasing use – as promised – of his “pen and phone” to implement policy via executive actions. While Obama has been roundly criticized from the right for taking such unilateral actions, do Americans instinctively oppose them? Using survey experiments to test this question, Dino Christenson and Douglas Kriner find little evidence that Americans oppose unilateral actions as threats to checks and balances. Instead, constitutional concerns are overwhelmed by partisanship and policy preferences. The means through which the president pursues his policy priorities – be it legislation or unilateral action – is largely irrelevant.