When President Trump took the oath of office, he inherited an executive branch far more powerful than the one Andrew Jackson and Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson inherited hundreds of years earlier. In the eyes of many constitutional scholars the power of the modern Presidency has grown well beyond what the Framers originally intended, and the tipping point occurred well before the 2016 election. We’re taught in school that the American system of government has three co-equal branches. The truth of it is that the powers of the individual branches are constantly expanding and contracting over time -- usually at the expense of one another. For most of our history, it has been Congress, the “People’s Branch,” steering the ship of state. But in the 1930s the power of the Presidency began to expand. And with few exceptions, it never stopped expanding. We’ve now reached a point where any conversation about the modern Presidency must consider whether the office has been operating beyond its constitutional limits for decades. This special and distinctly non-partisan President’s Day Olio will explore the history of what Arthur Schlesinger called the “Imperial Presidency,” and trace the dangerous expansion of the executive branch under both political parties from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Donald J. Trump. **This Olio is free and open to the public but please rsvp so we can keep a guestlist.**