Law Commons^™

Brief Of Political Scientists And Historians As Amici Curiae In Support Of Respondent, National Labor Relations Board, Petitioner V. Noel Canning, No. 12-1281, United States Supreme Court (Nov. 25, 2013), David F. Forte, Hadley P. Arkes, Joseph M. Bessette, Nelson Lund, Jeremy A. Rabkin, Ralph A. Rossum

Law Faculty Briefs and Court Documents

The Recess Appointments Clause does not permit the unilateral appointments to the NLRB made by the President in this case. Those appointments - made during a three-day “intra-session” break when the Senate was meeting pro forma - are unique in the history of the Republic. They are also the culmination of unnecessary and inappropriate Executive overreaching. This overreaching has undermined a valuable Senate prerogative in a manner unfathomable to the Founders and inconsistent with the design of the Constitution.

The primary purpose of this brief is to show that adhering to the original meaning of the Recess Appointments Clause has …

Avoiding Constitutional Questions As A Three-Branch Problem, William K. Kelley

William K. Kelley

This article criticizes the cardinal rule of statutory construction known as the avoidance canon - that statutes must be interpreted to avoid raising serious constitutional questions - as failing to respect the proper constitutional roles of both Congress and the Executive. It argues that the avoidance canon in practice cannot be grounded in legislative supremacy, which is the common justification for it offered by the Supreme Court, because it assumes without foundation that Congress would always prefer not to come close to the constitutional line in enacting statutes. Instead, the avoidance canon creates pressure for courts to adopt statutory meanings …

The Commerce Clause And Executive Power: Exploring Nascent Individual Rights In National Federal Of Independent Business V. Sebelius (2012), Ronald Kahn

Schmooze 'tickets'

No abstract provided.

Reforming Affirmative Action For The Future: A Constitutional And Consequentialist Approach, Quinn Chasan

CMC Senior Theses

In my analysis of affirmative action policy, I began the search without having formed any opinion whatsoever. The topic was interesting to me, and after reading a mass of news editorials and their op-eds, I decided to take up the argument for myself. Other than the fact that I am a student, I have no stake in affirmative action policy. This paper relies primarily on the foremost half-dozen or so notable mismatch theory scholars, a close reading of an innumerable number of Supreme Court opinions, affirmative action related studies from higher education academics and policy institutes, and how historical executive …

Congress Underestimated: The Case Of The World Bank, Kristina Daugirdas

Articles

This article challenges the oft-repeated claim that international organizations undermine democracy by marginalizing national legislatures. Over the past forty years, Congress has established itself as a key player in setting U.S. policy toward the World Bank. Congress has done far more than restrain executive branch action with which it disagrees; it has affirmatively shaped the United States’ day-to-day participation in this key international organization and successfully defended its constitutional authority to do so.

The President's Enforcement Power, Kate Andrias

Articles

Enforcement of law is at the core of the President’s constitutional duty to “take Care” that the laws are faithfully executed, and it is a primary mechanism for effecting national regulatory policy. Yet questions about how presidents oversee agency enforcement activity have received surprisingly little scholarly attention. This Article provides a positive account of the President’s role in administrative enforcement, explores why presidential enforcement has taken the shape it has, and examines the bounds of the President’s enforcement power. It demonstrates that presidential involvement in agency enforcement, though extensive, has been ad hoc, crisis-driven, and frequently opaque. The Article thus …

What Is Intermediate Legislative Power?, Shubhankar Dam

Shubhankar Dam

The President in India’s parliamentary system is authorized to promulgate legislation under Article 123.1 While such legislation, or ‘ordinances’, enjoy the same force and effect as Acts, they are distinct in some ways. First, ordinances lack legislative deliberation: the President promulgates them ‘except when both Houses of Parliament are in session’. Secondly, it depends on the President’s satisfaction that ‘circumstances exist that render it necessary for him to take immediate action’. And they are transient: ordinances cease to operate on the expiry of six weeks from the reassembly of Parliament unless withdrawn earlier or formally enacted into law. Ordinances, then, …