Law Commons^™

War Powers: Congress, The President, And The Courts – A Model Casebook Section, Stephen M. Griffin, Matthew C. Waxman

Faculty Scholarship

This model casebook section is concerned with the constitutional law of war powers as developed by the executive and legislative branches, with a limited look at relevant statutes and federal court cases. It is intended for use in Constitutional Law I classes that cover separation of powers. It could also be used for courses in National Security Law or Foreign Relations Law, or for graduate courses in U.S. foreign policy. This is designed to be the reading for one to two classes, and it can supplement or replace standard casebook sections on war powers that are shorter and offer less …

The Presidential Signing Statements Controversy, Ronald A. Cass, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

Presidential signing statements have come out of obscurity and into the headlines. Along with salutary attention to an interesting issue, the new public visibility of signing statements has generated much overblown commentary. The desire to make these little-known documents interesting to the public – and to score points in the inevitable political battles over any practice engaged in by a sitting President – has produced a lot of discussion that misleads the public and has tended to obscure the significant issues surrounding the use of signing statements. Reflection may help put the discussion in a more useful perspective. We offer …

The President And Choices Not To Enforce, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

The executive branch is often called upon to assess how a particular statute it is charged to administer fits within the larger framework of the law. Professor Dawn Johnsen's thoughtful analysis addresses an important subset of these challenges: situations in which the President believes a particular statute is inconsistent with one or another provision of the Constitution and, therefore, should not be enforced. My purpose here is to explore the context of executive non-enforcement more broadly, in a way that may help in understanding the particular problem she addresses.

Issues of constitutional structure and function are among the most daunting …

Beyond The Independent Counsel: Evaluating The Options, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

The Independent Counsel Act expires on June 30, 1999. Should it be extended? Extended with modifications? Radically reformed? Or should it be allowed to sunset with nothing put in its place? To answer these questions, we need to address some more fundamental questions: (1) Do we truly need an independent office to investigate alleged wrongdoing by high-ranking officers of the executive branch? (2) If so, what are the options for the organizational structure of such an office? (3) By what criteria should the different institutional options be evaluated? (4) Under these criteria, which option represents the best, or perhaps more …

Ronald V. Dellums V. George Bush (D.D.C. 1990): Memorandum Amicus Curiae Of Law Professors, Bruce A. Ackerman, Abram Chayes, Lori Fisler Damrosch, John Hart Ely, Erwin N. Griswold, Gerald Gunther, Louis Henkin, Harold Hongju Koh, Philip B. Kurland, Laurence H. Tribe, William W. Van Alstyne

Faculty Scholarship

This joint memorandum is submitted to the court hearing Dellums v. Bush. This amicus brief advocates that the President may not order American armed forces to make war without consultation with and approval by Congress. The brief also argues that the case is justiciable.

The Role Of The President And Omb In Informal Rulemaking, Peter L. Strauss, Cass R. Sunstein

Faculty Scholarship

Regulatory reform has been a subject of frequent discussion in the last decade, especially in the context of presidential efforts to assert control over the rulemaking process. Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan have all attempted to increase presidential authority over regulation. In particular, President Reagan has issued two executive orders that give the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) considerable power over the rulemaking activities of executive agencies.

In this article, we set forth our views on the role of presidential supervision in the regulatory process, with particular attention to the questions raised by the recent executive orders.