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Full-Text Articles in Law

The Obama War Powers Legacy And The Internal Forces That Entrench Executive Power, Rebecca Ingber Oct 2016

The Obama War Powers Legacy And The Internal Forces That Entrench Executive Power, Rebecca Ingber

Faculty Scholarship

In exploring the Obama war powers legacy, this essay examines the systemic forces inside the executive branch that influence modern presidential decision-making and, barring a total reimagining of the executive branch, will operate on administrations to come. These mechanisms and norms fall broadly within two categories: (1) features that favor continuity and hinder presidents from effecting change, including both novel assertions of executive power and attempts to dial back that power; and (2) features that incrementally aggrandize such power claims. Together, these two sets of forces operate as a one-way ratchet, slowly expanding and ultimately entrenching executive branch power.


The Judicial Role In Constraining Presidential Non-Enforcement Discretion: The Virtues Of An Apa Approach, Daniel E. Walters Jun 2016

The Judicial Role In Constraining Presidential Non-Enforcement Discretion: The Virtues Of An Apa Approach, Daniel E. Walters

Faculty Scholarship

Scholars, lawyers, and, indeed, the public at large increasingly worry about what purposive presidential inaction in enforcing statutory programs means for the rule of law and how such discretionary inaction can fit within a constitutional structure that compels Presidents to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." Yet those who have recognized the problem have been hesitant to assign a role for the court in policing the constitutional limits they articulate, mostly because of the strain on judicial capacity that any formulation of Take Care Clause review would cause. In this Article, I argue that courts still can and …


International Law Constraints As Executive Power, Rebecca Ingber Jan 2016

International Law Constraints As Executive Power, Rebecca Ingber

Faculty Scholarship

The use of international law to understand domestic authority has a long pedigree. It is also the subject of heated debate, which focuses predominantly on the extent to which international law can or should serve as a limit on political actors, in particular the President, and the extent to which it can be invoked to expand our understanding of domestic individual rights. Yet there is another significant dynamic at work in this interplay between international and domestic law. This is the invocation of international law not as a constraining force on government actors, but as an enabling force within the …


Elections, Ideology, And Turnover In The U.S. Federal Government, Alexander D. Bolton, John De Figueiredo, David E. Lewis Jan 2016

Elections, Ideology, And Turnover In The U.S. Federal Government, Alexander D. Bolton, John De Figueiredo, David E. Lewis

Faculty Scholarship

A defining feature of public sector employment is the regular change in elected leadership. Yet, we know little about how elections influence public sector careers. We describe how elections alter policy outputs and disrupt the influence of civil servants over agency decisions. These changes shape the career choices of employees motivated by policy, influence, and wages. Using new Office of Personnel Management data on the careers of millions of federal employees between 1988 and 2011, we evaluate how elections influence employee turnover decisions. We find that presidential elections increase departure rates of career senior employees, particularly in agencies with divergent …


Obama's Aumf Legacy, Curtis A. Bradley, Jack Landman Goldsmith Jan 2016

Obama's Aumf Legacy, Curtis A. Bradley, Jack Landman Goldsmith

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


A Response To Professor Rascoff's Presidential Intelligence, Philip C. Bobbitt Jan 2016

A Response To Professor Rascoff's Presidential Intelligence, Philip C. Bobbitt

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Samuel Rascoff’s Presidential Intelligence reflects both the conceptual and research strengths of the author, which are formidable, and the practical difficulties of intelligence reform, which are no less so. Rascoff is certainly right that to be effective – in the still-unfolding constitutional environment that must contend with terror groups armed with unprecedented weapons and communications technology – the intelligence community (IC) must act within the law and the rules governing that community must be reformed to make this possible. He is inclined to believe that the answer lies in heightened presidential management. I’m not so sure. The actual presidential …


Things Left Unsaid, Questions Not Asked, Peter L. Strauss Jan 2016

Things Left Unsaid, Questions Not Asked, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

The University of Pennsylvania Law Review’s symposium on executive discretion, held in the fall of 2015 but just published this November, is an important undertaking, but it is remarkable for several silences – for things left unsaid on this important subject – and for questions not asked. First, although the Constitution’s “Take Care” Clause is extensively discussed, the one power Article II gives the President over domestic administration – to require the “Opinion, in writing” of the heads of the agencies Congress has invested with administrative duties – is not. Second, the discussion of the President’s undoubted but possibly …


Politics And Agencies In The Administrative State: The U.S. Case, Peter L. Strauss Jan 2016

Politics And Agencies In The Administrative State: The U.S. Case, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

The pending American presidential election, culminating a period of extreme political partisanship in our national government generally, gives point to an essay on politics and agencies in the American regulatory state. In our two-party system, it has often been the case in recent times, including the last six years, that the President comes from one of our two major political parties and one or both houses of Congress are controlled by the other. All American agencies (including, in the American case, the so-called independent regulatory bodies) are associated with the President in the executive branch, yet dependent on the Senate …