Law Commons^™

Taking Care With Text: "The Laws" Of The Take Care Clause Do Not Include The Constitution, And There Is No Autonomous Presidential Power Of Constitutional Interpretation, George Mader

Faculty Scholarship

“Departmentalism” posits that each branch of the federal government has an independent power of constitutional interpretation—all branches share the power and need not defer to one another in the exercise of their interpretive powers. As regards the Executive Branch, the textual basis for this interpretive autonomy is that the Take Care Clause requires the President to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” and the Supremacy Clause includes the Constitution in “the supreme Law of the Land.” Therefore, the President is to execute the Constitution as a law. Or so the common argument goes. The presidential oath to “execute …

Generation Gaps And Ties That Bind: Constitutional Commitments And The Framers' Bequest Of Unamendable Provisions, George Mader

Faculty Scholarship

“We the People.” That phrase conjures a vision of present-day U.S. citizens taking part of a continuous enterprise of constitutional development, each succeeding generation stepping into the shoes of those who framed and ratified the Constitution and, as the new performer in the role of “We the People,” reinterpreting a centuries-old role. Like those who created the role, we have power to modify the Constitution. But is each succeeding generation really allowed the same creative and expressive power to alter the role, to amend the Constitution?

The subject of this Article, in general, is the relationship between “We the People,” …

Binding Authority: Unamendability In The United States Constitution–A Textual And Historical Analysis, George Mader

Faculty Scholarship

We think of constitutional provisions as having contingent permanence—they are effective today and, barring amendment, tomorrow and the day after and so on until superseded by amendment. Once superseded, a provision is void. But are there exceptions to this default state of contingent permanence? Are there any provisions in the current United States Constitution that cannot be superseded by amendment—that are unamendable? And could a future amendment make itself or some portion of the existing Constitution unamendable?

Commentators investigating limits on constitutional amendment frequently focus on limits imposed by natural law, the democratic underpinnings of our nation, or some other …

Exclusionary Land Use Controls And The Takings Issue, Robert R. Wright

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.