Topeka ? President-elect Barack Obama will take the reins of power from a man who has redefined the presidency, experts on the role of the chief executive said Thursday.

Whether President Bush has changed the office for better or worse is something that will be debated for years to come, they said at a symposium put on by the Washburn University School of Law.

The two-day event, titled “The Rule of Law and the Global War on Terrorism” brought experts from around the country to discuss Bush administration policies on war, detainees, interrogations and spying since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

One of the most controversial aspects of Bush’s presidency has been his adherence to the unitary executive theory, where the power of the government related to foreign policy has been centralized in the Oval Office to the exclusion of Congress and the courts.

David Graham, a retired Army colonel, and executive director of The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School, said the Bush administration has overstepped its authority.

“They have broken the law of war,” Graham said. To justify using the unitary executive theory, the administration has declared a war on terrorism, which he described as “enduring, comprehensive, indefinite, all-encompassing.”

But Robert Turner, a professor and associate director of the Center for National Security Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the unitary executive is part of the U.S. Constitution, and backed by actions of the founders of the country and several Supreme Court decisions.

It wasn’t until the Vietnam War that Congress began approving several bills chipping away at that power, he said.

“Those statutes, I would submit, are unconstitutional,” he said.

Sean Watts, a Creighton University law professor, said the executive branch seems better suited to respond to national security emergencies.

The problem with the Bush administration is that it didn’t rely on the expertise of professionals in the government, but instead “politically appointed legal advisers.”

William Banks, law professor at Syracuse University and director of the Institute for National Security and Counter-terrorism, said most Americans believe in the separation of powers of the three branches of government, and that each branch is limited by checks and balances.

“There are no plenary powers within our Constitution,” he said.