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University of Michigan Law School

Decision making

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Michigan Law Review First Impressions

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

Power Games, Aneil Kovvali Jan 2014

Power Games, Aneil Kovvali

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

According to the traditional account, Congress has the "necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments" by the president. As commentators have recognized, however, the traditional account does not match reality. Individuals in Washington, D.C., are more interested in fighting for their political party than for their branch of government, and the essentially reactive legislative branch lacks the capacity to respond to a rapidly changing policy environment. But the traditional account suffers from a more basic flaw. The president can decide whether or not to cooperate with Congress on a situation-by-situation basis. By contrast, Congress's tools for disciplining the …


The Rule Of Law And The Perils Of Precedent, Randy J. Kozel Jan 2013

The Rule Of Law And The Perils Of Precedent, Randy J. Kozel

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

In a world where circumstances never changed and where every judicial decision was unassailably correct, applying the doctrine of stare decisis would be a breeze. Fidelity to precedent and commitment to sound legal interpretation would meld into a single, coherent enterprise. That world, alas, is not the one we live in. Like so much else in law, the concept of stare decisis encompasses a series of trade-offs-and difficult ones at that. Prominent among them is the tension between allowing past decisions to remain settled and establishing a body of legal rules that is flexible enough to adapt and improve over …