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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Brennan Lecture: The Separation Of Powers And The Public, Josh Chafetz
The Brennan Lecture: The Separation Of Powers And The Public, Josh Chafetz
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Executive Opportunism, Presidential Signing Statements, And The Separation Of Powers, Daniel B. Rodriguez, Edward H. Stiglitz, Barry R. Weingast
Executive Opportunism, Presidential Signing Statements, And The Separation Of Powers, Daniel B. Rodriguez, Edward H. Stiglitz, Barry R. Weingast
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Executive discretion over policy outcomes is an inevitable feature of our political system. However, in recent years, the President has sought to expand his discretion through a variety of controversial and legally questionable tactics. Through a series of simple separation of powers models, we study one such tactic, employed by both Democratic and Republican presidents: the use of signing statements, which purport to have status in the interpretation of statutory meaning. Our models also show that signing statements upset the constitutional vision of lawmaking and, in a wide range of cases, exacerbate legislative gridlock. We argue that courts should not …
Congress's Constitution, Josh Chafetz
Congress's Constitution, Josh Chafetz
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Congress has significantly more constitutional power than we are accustomed to seeing it exercise. By failing to make effective use of its power, Congress has invited the other branches to fill the vacuum, resulting in a constitutional imbalance. This Article considers a number of constitutional tools that individual houses—and even individual members—of Congress, acting alone, can deploy in interbranch conflicts. Although the congressional powers discussed in this Article are clearly contemplated in constitutional text, history, and structure, many of them have received only scant treatment in isolation. More importantly, they have never before been considered in concert as a set …
Executive Branch Contempt Of Congress, Josh Chafetz
Executive Branch Contempt Of Congress, Josh Chafetz
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
After former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten refused to comply with subpoenas issued by a congressional committee investigating the firing of a number of United States Attorneys, the House of Representatives voted in 2008 to hold them in contempt. The House then chose a curious method of enforcing its contempt citation: it filed a federal lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment that Miers and Bolten were in contempt of Congress and an injunction ordering them to comply with the subpoenas. The district court ruled for the House, although that ruling was subsequently stayed …
Constitutional Avoidance In The Executive Branch, Trevor W. Morrison
Constitutional Avoidance In The Executive Branch, Trevor W. Morrison
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
When executive actors interpret statutes, the prevailing assumption is that they can and should use the tools that courts use. Is that assumption sound? This Article takes up the question by considering a rule frequently invoked by the courts - the canon of constitutional avoidance.
Executive branch actors regularly use the avoidance canon. Indeed, some of the most hotly debated episodes of executive branch statutory interpretation in recent years - including the initial torture memorandum issued by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, the President's signing statement regarding the McCain Amendment's ban on the mistreatment of detainees, and the …
Constitutional Avoidance In The Executive Branch, Trevor W. Morrison
Constitutional Avoidance In The Executive Branch, Trevor W. Morrison
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
When executive branch actors interpret statutes, should they use the same methods as the courts? This Article takes up the question by considering a rule frequently invoked by the courts-the canon of constitutional avoidance. In addition to being a cardinal principle of judicial statutory interpretation, the avoidance canon also appears regularly and prominently in the work of the executive branch. It has played a central role, for example, in some of the most hotly debated episodes of executive branch statutory interpretation in the "war on terror." Typically, executive invocations of avoidance are supported by citation to one or more Supreme …
Schoolhouses, Courthouses, And Statehouses: Educational Finance, Constitutional Structure, And The Separation Of Powers Doctrine, Michael Heise
Schoolhouses, Courthouses, And Statehouses: Educational Finance, Constitutional Structure, And The Separation Of Powers Doctrine, Michael Heise
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Compulsory Disclosure And The First Amendment - The Scope Of Judicial Review, Robert B. Kent
Compulsory Disclosure And The First Amendment - The Scope Of Judicial Review, Robert B. Kent
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Involvement of the Supreme Court of the United States with highly charged public issues understandably occasions fresh debate concerning the proper role of the Court in determining questions of ultimate governmental power, in short, debate over the doctrine of judicial review.
As it is sometimes difficult for the judge to distinguish between what is unconstitutional and what is merely unwise, so it is difficult for the critic to disassociate his reaction to the results reached in a given case from his evaluation of the competence of the particular judicial performance. For some the failure to draw such a line robs …