Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to require that the Supreme Court of the United States be composed of nine justices.

— 560 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise The next conservative Administration should embrace the Constitution and understand the obligation of the executive branch to use its independent resources and authorities to restrain the excesses of both the legislative and judicial branches. This will mean ensuring that the leadership of the Department of Justice and its components understand the separation of powers, that pushback among the branches is a positive feature and not a defect of our system, and that the federal system is strengthened, not weakened, by disagreement among the branches. One example includes potentially seeking the overruling of Humphrey's Exec- utor v. United States.62 This case approved so-called independent agencies whose directors are not removable by the President at will. The Supreme Court has chipped away at Humphrey's Executor in cases like Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,63 but the precedent remains. The next conservative Adminis- tration should formally take the position that Humphrey's Executor violates the Constitution's separation of powers. Zealously Guarding Other Constitutional Protections. The next conserva- tive Administration must ensure that the DOJ zealously guards the constitutional rights of all Americans in all that it does. This extends not only to rights implicated in the department’s criminal activities, but to all rights enjoyed by the American people—such as the First Amendment. The department should reject any invi- tation to limit these fundamental promises based on the political ideology of the speech at issue. A recent Supreme Court case illustrates the problems that arise when the DOJ takes a cramped interpretation of the First Amendment in service of a political ideology. In 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, the department argued in favor of the government’s ability to coerce and compel what the lower courts all found to be pure speech.64 The oral argument made clear the department’s view that it was the viewpoint expressed that gave the government power to censor and compel speech. During oral argument, the United States took the remarkable position that government can compel a Christian website designer to imagine, create, and publish a custom website celebrating same-sex marriage but cannot compel an LGBT person to design a similar website celebrating opposite-sex marriage.65 In the government’s view, declining to create the latter website was based on an objec- tion to the message, while the former was based on status rather than message, but this argument inevitably turns on the viewpoint expressed. It means that the government gets to decide which viewpoints are protected and which are not—a frightening and blatantly unconstitutional proposition. Just as troubling, the government’s arguments against free speech are not lim- ited to the facts of 303 Creative. As Colorado admitted to the lower courts, all sorts of artists and speakers like speechwriters, photographers, and videographers can be compelled to design custom messages that violate their most fundamental convic- tions as long as it serves a certain viewpoint that the government wants to promote. — 561 — Department of Justice In fact, it was only a few years ago, in Masterpiece Cakeshop, that the govern- ment acknowledged the constitutional problems involved in compelling artists to speak government-favored messages. In that case, the United States acknowl- edged “a basic First Amendment principle that ‘freedom of speech prohibits the government from telling people what they must say.’”66 The department had it right when it argued that the government may not “compel the dissemination of its own preferred message,” because the First Amendment protects the “individual freedom of mind.”67 It was also correct when it argued that “[a]n artist cannot be forced to paint, a musician cannot be forced to play, and a poet cannot be forced to write.”68 The United States’ directly contrary position in 303 Creative is hard to explain based on anything other than its support for the message the State of Colorado was attempting to compel. It is black letter law that no official “can prescribe what shall be orthodox…or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”69 Rather, the First Amendment places “the decision as to what views shall be voiced largely into the hands of each of us, in the hope that use of such freedom will ultimately produce a more capable citizenry and more perfect polity.”70 As the Supreme Court has noted, government officials have frequently sought to “coerce uniformity of sentiment in support of some end thought essential to their time and country.”71 In the face of such attempts to coerce orthodoxy, the DOJ should maintain its commitment to upholding the Constitution’s neutral principles of free speech, which commit the government “to preserve an uninhibited marketplace of ideas in which truth will ultimately prevail.”72 Pursuing Equal Protection for All Americans by Vigorously Enforcing Applicable Federal Civil Rights Laws in Government, Education, and the Private Sector. Entities across the private and public sectors in the United States have been besieged in recent years by an unholy alliance of special interests, rad- icals in government, and the far Left. This unholy alliance speaks in platitudes about advancing the interests of certain segments of American society, but that advancement comes at the expense of other Americans and in nearly all cases vio- lates long-standing federal law. Even though numerous federal laws prohibit discrimination based on notable immutable characteristics such as race and sex,73 the Biden Administration— through the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and other federal entities—has enshrined affirmative discrimination in all aspects of its operations under the guise of “equity.” Federal agencies and their components have established so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices that have become the vehicles for this unlawful discrim- ination, and all departments and agencies have created “equity” plans to carry out these invidious schemes.74 To reverse this trend, the next conservative Adminis- tration should:

— 560 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise The next conservative Administration should embrace the Constitution and understand the obligation of the executive branch to use its independent resources and authorities to restrain the excesses of both the legislative and judicial branches. This will mean ensuring that the leadership of the Department of Justice and its components understand the separation of powers, that pushback among the branches is a positive feature and not a defect of our system, and that the federal system is strengthened, not weakened, by disagreement among the branches. One example includes potentially seeking the overruling of Humphrey's Exec- utor v. United States.62 This case approved so-called independent agencies whose directors are not removable by the President at will. The Supreme Court has chipped away at Humphrey's Executor in cases like Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,63 but the precedent remains. The next conservative Adminis- tration should formally take the position that Humphrey's Executor violates the Constitution's separation of powers. Zealously Guarding Other Constitutional Protections. The next conserva- tive Administration must ensure that the DOJ zealously guards the constitutional rights of all Americans in all that it does. This extends not only to rights implicated in the department’s criminal activities, but to all rights enjoyed by the American people—such as the First Amendment. The department should reject any invi- tation to limit these fundamental promises based on the political ideology of the speech at issue. A recent Supreme Court case illustrates the problems that arise when the DOJ takes a cramped interpretation of the First Amendment in service of a political ideology. In 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, the department argued in favor of the government’s ability to coerce and compel what the lower courts all found to be pure speech.64 The oral argument made clear the department’s view that it was the viewpoint expressed that gave the government power to censor and compel speech. During oral argument, the United States took the remarkable position that government can compel a Christian website designer to imagine, create, and publish a custom website celebrating same-sex marriage but cannot compel an LGBT person to design a similar website celebrating opposite-sex marriage.65 In the government’s view, declining to create the latter website was based on an objec- tion to the message, while the former was based on status rather than message, but this argument inevitably turns on the viewpoint expressed. It means that the government gets to decide which viewpoints are protected and which are not—a frightening and blatantly unconstitutional proposition. Just as troubling, the government’s arguments against free speech are not lim- ited to the facts of 303 Creative. As Colorado admitted to the lower courts, all sorts of artists and speakers like speechwriters, photographers, and videographers can be compelled to design custom messages that violate their most fundamental convic- tions as long as it serves a certain viewpoint that the government wants to promote.

— 21 — Section 1: Taking the Reins of Government Above all, the President and those who serve under him or her must be commit- ted to the Constitution and the rule of law. This is particularly true of a conservative Administration, which knows that the President is there to uphold the Constitu- tion, not the other way around. If a conservative Administration does not respect the Constitution, no Administration will. In Chapter 1, former deputy chief of staff to the President Rick Dearborn writes that the White House Counsel “must take seriously the duty to protect the powers and privileges of the President from encroachments by Congress, the judiciary, and the administrative components of departments and agencies.” Equally important, the President must enforce the Constitution and laws as written, rather than proclaiming new “law” unilaterally. Presidents should not issue mask or vaccine mandates, arbitrarily transfer student loan debt, or issue monarchical mandates of any sort. Legislatures make the laws in a republic, not executives. It is crucial that all three branches of the federal government respect what Mad- ison called the “double security” to our liberties: the separation of powers among the three branches, and the separation of powers between the federal government and the states. This double security has been greatly compromised over the years. Vought writes that “the modern executive branch…writes federal policy, enforces that policy, and often adjudicates whether that policy was properly drafted and enforced.” He describes this as “constitutionally dire” and “in urgent need of repair,” adding: “Nothing less than the survival of self-governance in America is at stake.” When it comes to ensuring that freedom can flourish, nothing is more import- ant than deconstructing the centralized administrative state. Political appointees who are answerable to the President and have decision-making authority in the executive branch are key to this essential task. The next Administration must not cede such authority to non-partisan “experts,” who pursue their own ends while engaging in groupthink, insulated from American voters. The following chapters detail how the next Administration can be responsive to the American people (not to entrenched “elites”); how it can take care that all the laws are “faithfully exe- cuted,” not merely those that the President desires to see executed; and how it can achieve results and not be stymied by an unelected bureaucracy. — 23 — 1 WHITE HOUSE OFFICE Rick Dearborn From popular culture to academia, the American presidency has long been a prominent fixture of the national imagination—naturally so since it is the beating heart of our nation’s power and prestige. It has played, for instance, a feature role in innumerable movies and television shows and has been prodded, analyzed, and critiqued by countless books, essays, and studies. But like nearly everything else in life, there is no substitute for firsthand experience, which this manual has compiled from the experience of presidential appointees and provides in accessible form for future use. With respect to the presidency, it is best to begin with our Republic’s founda- tional document. The Constitution gives the “executive Power” to the President.1 It designates him as “Commander in Chief”2 and gives him the responsibility to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”3 It further prescribes that the President might seek the assistance of “the principal Officer in each of the execu- tive Departments.”4 Beginning with George Washington, every President has been supported by some form of White House office consisting of direct staff officers as well as a Cabinet comprised of department and agency heads. Since the inaugural Administration of the late 18th century, citizens have chosen to devote both their time and their talent to defending and strengthening our nation by serving at the pleasure of the President. Their shared patriotic endeavor has proven to be a noble one, not least because the jobs in what is now known as the White House Office (WHO) are among the most demanding in all of government. The President must rely on the men and women appointed to the WHO. There simply are not enough hours in the day to manage the affairs of state single-handedly,