Law Commons^™

Energy Emergencies, Amy L. Stein

Northwestern University Law Review

Emergency powers are essential to the proper functioning of the government. Emergencies demand swift and decisive action; yet, our system of government also values deliberation and procedures. To enable such agility in a system fraught with bureaucracy, Congress frequently delegates unilateral statutory emergency powers directly to its most nimble actor: the President. The powers Congress delegates to the President are vast and varied, and often sacrifice procedural requirements in favor of expediency. Most scholars and policymakers have come to terms with this tradeoff, assuming that the need to respond quickly is outweighed by any loss of accountability.

This Article challenges …

From The Spirit Of The Federalist Papers To The End Of Legitimacy: Reflections On Gundy V. United States, J. Benton Heath

Northwestern University Law Review

The revival of the nondelegation doctrine, foreshadowed last term in Gundy v. United States, signals the end of a distinctive style of legal and political thought. The doctrine’s apparent demise after the 1930s facilitated the development of a methodological approach that embodied what Lon Fuller once called “the spirit of the Federalist Papers”: an open-ended engagement with the problem of designing democracy and controlling public power. At its best, this discourse was critical and propulsive, with each purported solution generating more questions than it answered. The turn against congressional delegations will likely bring to a close this period of …