When Thomas Sullivan approached Richard Painter in 2023 to co-author a book on the U.S. presidency, Painter readily agreed. Both are leading scholars on the topic and were interested in exploring the remarkable growth in the power of the presidency since the founding of the republic 250 years ago.
Neither was thinking about a second term for Donald Trump. And neither had imagined that presidential responsibility and authority would be one of the most prominent issues before the courts and in public life by the time the book was published.
Sullivan is the former dean of Minnesota Law. He later served as the executive vice president and provost of the University of Minnesota and is president emeritus of the University of Vermont. Painter is the Walter S. Richey Professor of Corporate Law at the University of Minnesota Law School and a former White House ethics attorney for the George W. Bush administration. They turned in their final draft of The U.S. Presidency: Power, Responsibility, and Accountability (Cambridge University Press, 2026), 10 days after President Trump’s 2025 inauguration. Six months later, when the page proofs were ready for review, they had to make extensive edits given the dizzying number of executive orders and injunctions issued between January and June.
Sullivan and Painter say the book seeks to present a balanced overview of the evolving state of presidential power in the United States. They pose questions about how presidential power is acquired, how it is used or misused, how the president’s powers are checked, and how presidents are held accountable by and to the people.
“We do not advance a single theory of presidential power, and this is not a book about Donald Trump,” says Sullivan. “Rather, we explore a wide range of arguments for and against power, grounding the topic in the intersection of law, history, and politics to help us understand the tremendous transformation of the United States presidency.”
The book is divided into three parts: Part I explores presidential power, including the emergence of Unitary Executive Theory. Part II focuses on the president’s duties and responsibilities, which are grounded in the “Take Care” clause of the Constitution. Part III centers on the president’s transparency and accountability of executive power in a constitutional republic.
Throughout the book, the authors consider what the founders intended for the presidency and provide examples of how the office has grown far beyond those intentions.
“The founders clearly designed three branches of government with separate powers and checks and balances to ensure Congress would predominate over the president,” says Sullivan. “Remember, King George III was on their minds, and they were seeking to prevent a dictatorial, tyrannical president. But despite those efforts, power has shifted significantly over the past 236 years, mainly through inaction or acquiescence by Congress.”
Sullivan and Painter weigh credible evidence from the founders’ deliberations, the historical record of the courts’ decisions, and competing scholarly viewpoints. They explore questions related to presidential power as commander in chief, in the lawmaking process, and regarding pardons and declarations of emergencies — issues that have long been debated but have recently come to dominate public conversations and court dockets. The book also examines the responsibilities of the presidency regarding conflicts of interest, corruption, and stewardship of federal lands, as well as the mechanisms for holding the president accountable, including impeachment and removal, prosecution, and term limits.
“We want our readers, indeed the general public, to consider whether the founders got the balance of power among the branches of government right and whether the courts have followed the intent of the Constitution,” says Painter.
Ultimately, Sullivan and Painter suggest that the presidency is more powerful and less accountable than the founders ever imagined. They also argue that the responsible exercise of presidential power today depends more on the character of the person in the office and that Americans, for good reason, have less confidence in the checks and balances that the founders believed would restrain the abuse of presidential power.
“I learned a great deal about presidential power while serving as chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush,” says Painter. “This is not an issue of just the past few years. With the steady increase in presidential power, we are going to have this problem far beyond President Trump. Our country’s foundation rests on the rule of law and democratic accountability, so the question remains: In our constitutional republic, do presidents have the final word, or do the people?”