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Command And Control: Operationalizing The Unitary Executive, Gary S. Lawson
Command And Control: Operationalizing The Unitary Executive, Gary S. Lawson
Faculty Scholarship
The concept of the unitary executive is written into the Constitution by virtue of Article II’s vesting of the “executive Power” in the President and not in executive officers created by Congress. Defenders and opponents alike of the “unitary executive” often equate the idea of presidential control of executive action with the power to remove executive personnel. But an unlimitable presidential removal power cannot be derived from the vesting of executive power in the President for the simple reason that it would not actually result in full presidential control of executive action, as the actions of now-fired subordinates would still …
Congressional Meddling In Presidential Elections: Still Unconstitutional After All These Years; A Comment On Sunstein, Gary S. Lawson, Jack M. Beermann
Congressional Meddling In Presidential Elections: Still Unconstitutional After All These Years; A Comment On Sunstein, Gary S. Lawson, Jack M. Beermann
Faculty Scholarship
In a prior article, see Jack Beermann & Gary Lawson, The Electoral Count Mess: The Electoral Count Act of 1887 Is Unconstitutional, and Other Fun Facts (Plus a Few Random Academic Speculations) about Counting Electoral Votes, 16 FIU L. REV. 297 (2022), we argued that much of the 1877 Electoral Count Act unconstitutionally gave Congress a role in counting and certifying electoral votes. In 2022, Congress amended the statute to make it marginally more constitutional in some respects and significantly less constitutional in others. In response to a forthcoming article by Cass Sunstein defending the new Electoral Count …