General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: DUers post the thing about post Katrina that shocked you the most [View all]Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)BushCo and his unitary presidency cadre were muscling LA authorities to submit to federal authority, and delays ensued. The aim, I believe, was to establish a precedent for federal top-down command in ANY emergency the feds chose to declare. For a short time immediately after Katrina, the Posse Comitatus Act was amended by Congress to allow the president to supersede state authorities in ANY emergency he deemed worthy of interventio (2007). This amendment would have made the unitary presidency philosophy a matter of law. Congress repealed the amendment shortly thereafter (2008). The Posse Comitatus Act was passed in the 1870s to ensure federal troops could not be used to prevent the forcible institutionalization of the Jim (large, raucous black bird) Era, so it has dubious beginnings. But it also keeps a check on an overreaching president and on dictatorial rule by authoritarians who pushed the notion of the "unitary presidency."
I realize this resonates with conspiracy theories, but the recent history of the Act and its near-gutting is required reading. See Wikipedia.