The United States faces an increasingly fragile democracy due to the steady expansion of presidential authority, and the decline of the other two branches of government, according to globally renowned constitutional law scholar Erwin Chemerinsky, who was the featured speaker at the University of Houston Law Center’s 2025 Yale L. Rosenberg Lecture.
The UC Berkeley Law School dean delivered a talk recently titled “Constitutional Separation of Powers,” where he outlined the erosion of checks and balances across all three branches of government.
He reminded the audience that the framers of the Constitution in 1787 wanted a functional system of government and intentionally established three distinct branches with unique powers and responsibilities – the legislative, executive and judicial.
“American history shows that when we abandon the structure the framers intended, it often leads to disaster,” Chemerinsky said.Chemerinsky traced the roots of today’s expanded executive power back to pivotal moments in the 20th century, including the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. These crises, he said, led to greater reliance on federal authority and helped establish a long-term pattern of expanded presidential control.
Citing James Madison’s warning in Federalist No. 10, Chemerinsky said that the “accumulation of executive, legislative, and judicial power in a single branch is the very definition of tyranny” and highlighted recent developments including increased presidential immunity, the rise of the Unitary Executive Theory, and controversial executive orders as signs of a system increasingly out of balance.
Constitutional law expert Erwin Chemerinsky signs a copy of his latest book, “No Democracy Lasts Forever” for a fan.
He also pointed to past examples of presidential overreach, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and the Bush administration’s post-9/11 torture memos.
“You find [that] administration after administration, Presidents are trying to do more and more by executive order,” he said.
Calling for a constitutional recalibration, Chemerinsky urged Congress to reassert its authority and the judiciary to vigorously check executive overreach.
"If the president can violate court orders, then there's no limit on what the president could do," Chemerinsky said.
The lecture wrapped up with a question-and-answer session, where a 3L law student asked Chemerinsky, given the current situation, what he had to say to his generation of future lawyers.
“If our democracy is going to survive — if the rule of law is upheld — it will be because of the efforts of lawyers and judges,” Chemerinsky said in response.
The lecture was streamed online and attended by UH Law students, faculty, and members of the public, underscoring the ongoing importance of legal scholarship in addressing the challenges in American society.
A prolific scholar with 20 books and more than 200 law review articles to his name, Chemerinsky has long warned of the dangers of unchecked executive authority. He shared that his latest book, “No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States,” was inspired by a previous visit to the UH Law Center. He added that this year’s lecture could lay the foundation for another book—this time focused on the presidency.
The evening concluded with a reception and a book signing.
The Yale L. Rosenberg Memorial Fund was established to fund a student-writing prize and to bring distinguished speakers to UH Law Center.
Original source can be found here.