Law Commons^™

The Runaway Presidential Power Over Diplomacy, Jean Galbraith

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The President claims exclusive control over diplomacy within our constitutional system. Relying on this claim, executive branch lawyers repeatedly reject congressional mandates regarding international engagement. In their view, Congress cannot specify what the policy of the United States is with respect to foreign corruption, cannot bar a technology-focused agency from communicating with China, cannot impose notice requirements for withdrawal from a treaty with Russia, cannot instruct Treasury officials how to vote in the World Bank, and cannot require the disclosure of a trade-related report. And these are just a few of many examples from recent years. The President’s assertedly exclusive …

Rights And Retrenchment In The Trump Era, Stephen B. Burbank, Sean Farhang

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Our aim in this essay is to leverage archival research, data and theoretical perspectives presented in our book, Rights and Retrenchment: The Counterrevolution against Federal Litigation, as a means to illuminate the prospects for retrenchment in the current political landscape. We follow the scheme of the book by separately considering the prospects for federal litigation retrenchment in three lawmaking sites: Congress, federal court rulemaking under the Rules Enabling Act, and the Supreme Court. Although pertinent data on current retrenchment initiatives are limited, our historical data and comparative institutional perspectives should afford a basis for informed prediction. Of course, little in …

Testimony Before The House Committee On Science, Space And Technology, Charles Tiefer

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Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I served in the House General Counsel’s office in 1984-1995, becoming General Counsel (Acting). (Since 1995, I have been Professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law,)

So, I have lengthy fulltime experience, including extensive work on Congressional subpoenas. My work takes in whether the House, or this Committee, may justifiably try to enforce subpoenas against state Attorneys General (the answer being: no). I have had more years of experience than almost anyone else in House history focused on this area. While the other professors on this panel have done various …

Interpretation: Article I, Section 5, Ronald Weich, Martin B. Gold

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In Article I of the Constitution, the Framers vest the legislative authority of the United States government in a bicameral Congress, and over the ten sections of the Article they systematically flesh out the structure, duties, and powers of that Congress. In the early sections of Article I they describe the membership of each House, giving life to the “Great Compromise” of the Constitutional Convention under which each state has equal representation in the Senate but population-based representation in the House of Representatives. In Section 5, they grant Congress the power to govern itself.

Section 5 consists of four separate …

Book Review (Reviewing Louis Fisher's Congress: Protecting Individual Rights), Adeen Postar

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Fisher is currently the Scholar in Residence at the Constitution Project, and is well known for his many years as Senior Specialist on Separation of Powers at the Congressional Research Service and as Specialist in Constitutional Law at the Law Library of Congress. He has extensive experience testifying before Congress on topics that include Congress and the constitution, war powers, executive power and privilege, and several aspects of the federal budget and its processes. He has written numerous books on these topics, including (to name only a few) The President and Congress: Power and Policy (1972); Defending Congress and the …

Defining Lawmaking Power, Kimberly L. Wehle

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This Article teases apart the various permutations of what the federal lawmaking power means, canvases the Court's historical treatment of that question, and describes its practical implications as a matter of both constitutional and administrative law. It proposes a taxonomy of lawmaking in an effort to bring coherence to the task of defining the lawmaking power as well as Congress's prerogative to exercise it.

Agenda-Setting In The Regulatory State: Theory And Evidence, Cary Coglianese, Daniel E. Walters

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Government officials who run administrative agencies must make countless decisions every day about what issues and work to prioritize. These agenda-setting decisions hold enormous implications for the shape of law and public policy, but they have received remarkably little attention by either administrative law scholars or social scientists who study the bureaucracy. Existing research offers few insights about the institutions, norms, and inputs that shape and constrain agency discretion over their agendas or about the strategies that officials employ in choosing to elevate certain issues while putting others on the back burner. In this article, we advance the study of …

Federalism And Phantom Economic Rights In Nfib V. Sibelius, Matthew Lindsay

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Few predicted that the constitutional fate of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would turn on Congress’ power to lay and collect taxes. Yet in NFIB v. Sebelius, the Supreme Court upheld the centerpiece of the Act — the minimum coverage provision (MCP), commonly known as the “individual mandate” — as a tax. The unexpected basis of the Court’s holding has deflected attention from what may prove to be the decision’s more constitutionally consequential feature: that a majority of the Court agreed that Congress lacked authority under the Commerce Clause to penalize people who decline to purchase health insurance. …

Speaking Of Science: Introducing Notice And Comment Into The Legislative Process, Gregory Dolin

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Congress enacts, on a nearly continuous basis, a variety of laws that affect scientific research and progress. Some of these laws have an unquestionably positive effect. For instance, Congress's creation of the National Institutes of Health, the National Academy of Sciences, and NASA; its various appropriations to fund ground-breaking research; and a multitude of other laws have incalculably advanced human knowledge, and it is to Congress's great credit that these laws have been and are continuing to be enacted. However, not all laws that affect the progress of sciences are an unalloyed good. Quite the opposite, often the laws aim …

Congress's Treaty-Implementing Power In Historical Practice, Jean Galbraith

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Historical practice strongly influences constitutional interpretation in foreign affairs law, including most questions relating to the treaty power. Yet it is strikingly absent from the debate presently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court over whether Congress can pass legislation implementing U.S. treaties under the Necessary and Proper Clause, even if this legislation would otherwise lie outside its enumerated powers. Drawing on previously unexplored sources, this piece considers the historical roots of Congress’s power to implement U.S. treaties between the Founding and the seminal case of Missouri v. Holland in 1920. It shows that time after time, members of Congress relied …

Copyright’S Private Ordering And The 'Next Great Copyright Act', Jennifer E. Rothman

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Private ordering plays a significant role in the application of intellectual property laws, especially in the context of copyright law. In this Article, I highlight some of the dominant modes of private ordering and consider what formal copyright law should do, if anything, to engage with private ordering in the copyright space. I conclude that there is not one single approach that copyright law should take with regard to private ordering, but instead several different approaches. In some instances, the best option is for the law to get out of the way and simply continue to provide room for various …

Roundtable Discussion Transcript: The Legal And Ethical Limits Of Technological Warfare Symposium, February 1, 2013, University Of Utah, S.J. Quinney College Of Law, Amos N. Guiora, Harry Soyster, David R. Irvine, Geoffrey S. Corn, James Jay Carafano, Claire O. Finkelstein, Laurie R. Blank, Monica Hakimi, George R. Lucas, Trevor W. Morrison, Frederic Megret

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The Utah Law Review brought in a panel of experts for a symposium on the legal and ethical limits of technological warfare. This roundtable discussion crystalized the issues discussed throughout the symposium. The collective experience and diversity of viewpoints of the panelists produced an unparalleled discussion of the complex and poignant issues involved in drone warfare. The open dialogue in the roundtable discussion created moments of tension where the panelists openly challenged each other’s viewpoints on the ethics and legality of drone warfare. The discussion captured in this transcript uniquely conveys the diversity of perspectives and inherently challenging legal and …

Can The President And Congress Establish A Legislative Veto Mechanism For Jointly Drawing Down A Long And Controversial War?, Charles Tiefer

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In the simplest case: Congress declares war, and does not intrude on the President's solo decision about when the troops come home. However, in our time, long wars, such as in Afghanistan and Iraq, occur with great tension between the two elected branches of government over the pace of a drawdown. Sometimes it may be a hawkish Congress that disagrees with a President reluctant to continue the war at full troop levels. To find a joint way to draw down the American troops in the war zone, they may seek congressional mechanisms to resolve their differences with interactive processes. Then, …

Congress' Primary Role In Determining What Full Faith And Credit Requires: An Additional Argument, Mark D. Rosen

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No abstract provided.

Immigration As Invasion: Sovereignty, Security, And The Origins Of The Federal Immigration Power, Matthew Lindsay

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This Article offers a new interpretation of the modern federal immigration power. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Supreme Court and Congress fundamentally transformed the federal government’s authority to regulate immigration, from a species of commercial regulation firmly grounded in Congress’ commerce authority, into a power that was unmoored from the Constitution, derived from the nation’s “inherent sovereignty,” and subject to extraordinary judicial deference. This framework, which is commonly referred to as the “plenary power doctrine,” has stood for more than a century as an anomaly within American public law. The principal legal and rhetorical rationale for the …

Citizen Mccain, Michael I. Meyerson

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No abstract provided.

Detention And Interrogation In The Post-9/11 World, Kermit Roosevelt Iii

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Our detention and interrogation policies in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 have been a disaster. This paper, delivered as a Donahue Lecture at Suffolk University Law School in February 2008, explores the dimensions and source of that disaster. It first offers a clear and intelligible narrative of the construction and implementation of executive detention and interrogation policy and then analyzes the roles played by the different branches of government and the American people in order to understand how we have ended up in our current situation.

Litigating Presidential Signing Statements, Michele E. Gilman

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In response to President George W. Bush's aggressive use of presidential signing statements, several members of Congress as well as a prominent Taskforce of the American Bar Association have proposed legislation to provide for judicial review of signing statements. These critics assert that the President must veto legislation with which he disagrees, rather than use signing statements to refuse to enforce statutes that he signs into law. This article explores whether Congress can litigate presidential signing statements, concluding that they are not justiciable even if Congress enacts a law granting itself standing to raise such a challenge. Congress might be …

Congress's Transformative Republican Revolution In 2001-2006 And The Future Of One-Party Rule, Charles Tiefer

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In 2001 - 2006, Republican leadership in the legislature circumvented procedural norms to implement an ideological agenda that precluded the minority party from making alternative proposals and voicing criticisms. With the Republican majority in the Senate falling to 50-50 in 2000, President Bush's assumption of office, despite having lost the popular vote, set the tone for what would become an era of illegitimate procedural reform cloaked in secrecy and deniability. Through closed-door conferences and closed-rules, Republican leadership in the House and Senate turned the clock back on civil liberties, passed unfavorable and convoluted tax cuts, and used transformed health care …

Federalism Re-Constructed: The Eleventh Amendment's Illogical Impact On Congress' Power, Marcia L. Mccormick

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The Constitution is designed to protect individual liberty and equality by diffusing power among the three branches of the federal government and between the federal and state governments, and by providing a minimum level of protection for individual rights. Yet, the Supreme Court seems to think that federalism is about protecting states as states rather than balancing governmental power to protect individuals. In the name of federalism, the Supreme Court has been paring away at Congress' power to enact civil rights legislation. In doing so, it has transformed the Fourteenth Amendment into a vehicle for protecting states rights rather than …

Procedure, Politics And Power: The Role Of Congress, Stephen B. Burbank

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No abstract provided.

Note: United States V. Harvey: Are Criminal Defense Fees More Vulnerable Than Necessary?, Eric Easton

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In United States v. Harvey, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that Congress may not constitutionally require convicted racketeers and drug traffickers to forfeit property used to pay legitimate defense attorney fees. To the extent that such forfeitures and related pre-conviction restraints on transfer are authorized by provisions of the Comprehensive Forfeiture Act of 1984 (the Act), those provisions violate an accused's right to counsel of choice as secured by the Sixth Amendment.This article argues that the court's holding in Harvey was more narrowly drawn than necessary, and that as a consequence criminal defense attorney …