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Newsroom: Order Violates Roger Williams' Principles 01-30-2017, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The Erosion Of Congressional Checks On Presidential Power, Neal Devins

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Trending @ Rwu Law: Michael Bowden's Post: Obama, Biden Counsel To Deliver Mlk Address 1-19-2017, Michael Bowden

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Newsroom: Manning Lead Counsel On Commutation 01-17-2017, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The President's Private Dictionary: How Secret Definitions Undermine Domestic And Transnational Efforts At Executive Branch Accountability, Sudha Setty

Faculty Scholarship

The 2016 EU-U.S. Privacy Shield is an agreement allowing companies to move customer data between the European Union and the United States without running afoul of heightened privacy protections in the European Union. It was developed in response to EU concerns that the privacy rights of its citizens have been systematically abrogated by the U.S. government in the name of national security, and contains a variety of assurances that the United States will respect and protect the privacy rights of EU citizens.

How trustworthy are the U.S. assurances under the Privacy Shield? Both the Bush and Obama administrations secretly interpreted …

Government Speech And The War On Terror, Helen Norton

Publications

The government is unique among speakers because of its coercive power, its substantial resources, its privileged access to national security and intelligence information, and its wide variety of expressive roles as commander-in-chief, policymaker, educator, employer, property owner, and more. Precisely because of this power, variety, and ubiquity, the government's speech can both provide great value and inflict great harm to the public. In wartime, more specifically, the government can affirmatively choose to use its voice to inform, inspire, heal, and unite -- or instead to deceive, divide, bully, and silence.

In this essay, I examine the U.S. government's role as …

Confirming Judge Restrepo To The Third Circuit, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

From the moment that the Grand Old Party (GOP) won the Senate in November 2014, Republicans have directly and incessantly vowed to establish “regular order” in the upper chamber again. Lawmakers employed this phrase to depict the purported restoration of strictures that prevailed until Democrats subverted them. In January 2015, when the 114th Congress began, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the Majority Leader, proclaimed, “[w]e need to return to regular order,” while the legislator has dutifully recited that mantra ever since. Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, espoused analogous concepts. Illustrative was his January 2015 pledge …

Combating The Ninth Circuit Judicial Vacancy Crisis, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

When Donald Trump became President, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had four judicial vacancies that the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AO) identified as “judicial emergencies.” The court also faces a larger caseload than all the other regional circuits, and has frequently decided appeals the least swiftly. The 2016 election returns indicate that more confirmations will be necessary due to additional court members’ probable retirement or assumption of senior status during President Trump’s administration. Striking politicization could frustrate this effort, however. Soon after the inauguration, President Trump signed a novel executive order proscribing U.S. …

Law Library Blog (January 2017): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

The Bipartisan Bayh Amendment: Republican Contributions To The Twenty-Fifth Amendment, Joel K. Goldstein

All Faculty Scholarship

It is appropriate that Senator Birch Bayh has been widely recognized as the author and person most responsible for the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. His work was indispensable, and he was helped by other Democrats and nonpartisan actors including the American Bar Association and John D. Feerick, among others. Yet the Amendment was also the product of bipartisan cooperation. Important provisions were based on work done during the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Eisenhower and his Attorney General, Herbert Brownell, played important roles in supporting Bayh’s proposal as did other Republicans in and out of Congress. Republicans like Representative Richard …

Signing Statements And Presidentializing Legislative History, John De Figueiredo, Edward H. Stiglitz

Faculty Scholarship

Presidents often attach statements to the bills they sign into law, purporting to celebrate, construe, or object to provisions in the statute. Though long a feature of U.S. lawmaking, the President has avowedly attempted to use these signing statements as tool of strategic influence over judicial decision making since the 1980s — as a way of creating “presidential legislative history” to supplement and, at times, supplant the traditional congressional legislative history conventionally used by the courts to interpret statutes. In this Article, we examine a novel dataset of judicial opinion citations to presidential signing statements to conduct the most comprehensive …

Does The Constitution Allow President To Ban Muslims?, John M. Greabe

Law Faculty Scholarship

[Excerpt] "The president-elect has stated that he intends to protect national security by banning Muslim immigration into the United States. He also has signaled an openness to some form of Muslim registration program. Does the Constitution impose barriers to the adoption of such policies?"

#Betterrules: The Appropriate Use Of Social Media In Rulemaking, Stephen M. Johnson

Articles

In December 2015, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) use of various social media tools in a rulemaking under the Clean Water Act violated prohibitions in federal appropriations laws against publicity, propaganda, and lobbying. Although academics previously explored whether the use of technology in rulemaking might violate the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), the Paperwork Reduction Act, or the Federal Advisory Committee Act, none predicted that one of the first firestorms surrounding the use of social media in rulemaking would arise out of federal appropriations laws. ...

As the Administrative Conference of the United States …

The President's Role In Advancing Criminal Justice Reform, Barack Obama

United States Department of Justice: Publications and Materials

Criminal justice is a complex system, administered at all levels of government and shaped by a range of actors. Thanks to the dedicated efforts of so many in my Administration, the bipartisan push for reform from federal, state, and local officials, and the work of so many committed citizens outside government, America has made important strides. We have reduced overlong sentences for offenders and removed barriers for those with criminal records. We have made progress in helping people, especially young people, avoid getting entangled in the justice system in the first place. This Commentary talks about those achievements — and …

Rapid Analysis Of Forensic-Related Samples Using Two Ambient Ionization Techniques Coupled To High-Resolution Mass Spectrometers, Eshwar Jagerdeo, Amanda Wriston

United States Department of Justice: Publications and Materials

RATIONALE: This paper highlights the versatility of interfacing two ambient ionization techniques, Laser Diode Thermal Desorption (LDTD) and Atmospheric Solids Analysis Probe (ASAP), to high-resolution mass spectrometers and demonstrate the method’s capability to rapidly generate high-quality data from multiple sample types with minimal, if any, sample preparation.

METHODS: For ASAP-MS analysis of solid and liquid samples, the material was transferred to a capillary surface before being introduced into the mass spectrometer. For LDTD-MS analysis, samples were solvent extracted, spotted in a 96-well plate, and the solvent was evaporated before being introduced into the mass spectrometer. All analyses were performed using …

Co-Belligerency, Rebecca Ingber

Faculty Scholarship

Executive branch officials rest the President’s authority in today’s war against ISIS, al Qaeda, and other terrorist groups on an expansive interpretation of a 15-year-old statute, the 2001 “Authorization for Use of Military Force” (AUMF), passed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. They rely on that statute to justify force against groups neither referenced in – nor even in existence at the time of – the 2001 statute, by invoking a creative theory of international law they call “co-belligerency.” Under this theory, the President can read his AUMF authority flexibly, to justify force against not only those groups covered …

Pentagon’S Discretion In Trump Trans Military Directive, Arthur S. Leonard

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Despite Trump, Federal ‘Tort Reform’ Makes A Hasty Retreat, Joanne Doroshow

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Congress To Judges: We’Re The Boss Of You Now, Joanne Doroshow

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Keynote Speaker: Don Graves, Deputy Assistant To President Obama And Counselor To Vice President Biden: January 24, 2017, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Restoring The Legitimacy Of Private Antitrust Enforcement, Robert H. Lande, Joshua P. Davis

All Faculty Scholarship

This is a draft chapter from the American Antitrust Institute's 2017 recommendations to the 45th President of the United States. It contains a brief but well-deserved defense of the benefits of private antitrust enforcement and a critique of the claims that private enforcement in the United States is excessive, that it leads to overdeterrence, and that the courts are plagued with widespread frivolous antitrust lawsuits. It also offer a number of specific recommendations for the new administration to implement in the private antitrust enforcement area, including:

* Educate the courts, the public, and federal and state legislatures about the virtues …

Cognitive Competence In Executive-Branch Decision Making, Anna Spain Bradley

Publications

The decisions Presidents and those operating under their authority take determine the course of our nation and the trajectory of our lives. Consequently, understanding who has the power and authority to decide has captured both the attention of legal scholars across a variety of fields for many years and the immediate worry of the public since the 2016 Presidential election. Prevailing interventions look for ways that law can offer procedural and institutional reforms that aim to maintain separation of powers and avoid an authoritarian regime. Yet, these views commonly overlook a fundamental factor and a more human one: the individuals …

Introducing Govinfo: A New Source For Federal Government Documents Online, Erik Beck

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Emptiness Of Decisional Limits: Reconceiving Presidential Control Of The Administrative State, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

The heads of administrative agencies exercise authority delegated directly to them through legislation. To what extent, then, may presidents lawfully direct these agency heads to carry out presidential priorities? A prevailing view in administrative law holds that, although presidents may seek to shape and oversee the work of agency officials, they cannot make decisions for those officials. Yet this approach of imposing a decisional limit on presidential control of the administrative state in reality fails to provide any meaningful constraint on presidential power and actually risks exacerbating the politicization of constitutional law. A decisional limit presents these problems because the …

From Treaties To International Commitments: The Changing Landscape Of Foreign Relations Law, Jean Galbraith

All Faculty Scholarship

Sometimes the United States makes international commitments in the manner set forth in the Treaty Clause. But far more often it uses congressional-executive agreements, sole executive agreements, and soft law commitments. Foreign relations law scholars typically approach these other processes from the perspective of constitutional law, seeking to determine the extent to which they are constitutionally permissible. In contrast, this Article situates the myriad ways in which the United States enters into international commitments as the product not only of constitutional law, but also of international law and administrative law. Drawing on all three strands of law provides a rich …

Administrator-In-Chief: The President And Executive Action In Immigration Law, Ming H. Chen

Publications

This Article provides a framework for understanding the role of the President as the Administrator-in-Chief of the executive branch. Recent presidents, in the face of heated controversy and political division, have relied on executive action to advance their immigration policies. Which of these policies are legitimate, and which are vulnerable to challenge, will determine their legacy. This Article posits that the extent to which the President enhances the procedural legitimacy of agency actions strengthens the legacy of the policies when confronted regarding their substance. This emphasis on shoring up administrative procedure is a form of expertise that should be counted …

Blocking The Courts: The Trump Triple Threat, Joanne Doroshow

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

A History Of Prosecutorial Independence In America, Rebecca Roiphe

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

A Us Clean Energy Transition And The Trump Administration, Joseph P. Tomain

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

The Obama administration undertook several steps giving the US federal government a leadership role in a clean energy transition. Among other actions, the administration develop a Climate Action Plan, successfully negotiated higher fuel vehicle standards with car manufacturers, passed the Clean Power Plan, and signed the Paris Climate Agreement. Although the United States had been party to other international climate agreements and was a signatory to the Rio Declaration, other federal efforts were lax at best.

During his election campaign, Donald Trump promised his supporters to eliminate the Clean Power Plan, withdraw from the Paris Agreement, curtail the Environmental Protection …

Making Treaty Implementation More Like Statutory Implementation, Jean Galbraith

All Faculty Scholarship

Both statutes and treaties are the “supreme law of the land,” and yet quite different practices have developed with respect to their implementation. For statutes, all three branches have embraced the development of administrative law, which allows the executive branch to translate broad statutory directives into enforceable obligations. But for treaties, there is a far more cumbersome process. Unless a treaty provision contains language that courts interpret to be directly enforceable, they will deem it to require implementing legislation from Congress. This Article explores and challenges the perplexing disparity between the administration of statutes and treaties. It shows that the …