Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
- Publication
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Law
Presidential Signing Statements: A New Perspective, Christopher S. Yoo
Presidential Signing Statements: A New Perspective, Christopher S. Yoo
All Faculty Scholarship
This Article offers a new perspective on Presidents’ use of signing statements. Following the dichotomy reflected in the literature, I will analyze signing statements raising constitutional objections and those offering interpretive guidance for ambiguous provisions separately. With respect to constitutional interpretation of statutes by the executive branch, Presidents have long asserted the authority and obligation to consider constitutionality when executing statutes. The widespread acceptance of the President’s power to construe statutes to avoid constitutional problems and to refuse to defend the constitutionality of or to enforce statutes in appropriate cases confirms the propriety of this conclusion. If these fairly uncontroversial …
Party As A 'Political Safeguard Of Federalism': Martin Van Buren And The Constitutional Theory Of Party Politics, Gerald F. Leonard
Party As A 'Political Safeguard Of Federalism': Martin Van Buren And The Constitutional Theory Of Party Politics, Gerald F. Leonard
Faculty Scholarship
In the last decade or so, the Supreme Court has revitalized judicial enforcement of federalism. This development has spurred the partisans of Herbert Wechsler's "political safeguards of federalism" to begin a serious investigation of the ways in which extra-judicial politics can and does substitute for and complement the judicial role in enforcing federalism and the Constitution. Similarly, constitutional scholars have turned in increasing numbers to the question of how even judicially promulgated doctrines of constitutional law turn out to be more derivative of popular politics than vice versa. Necessarily, much of the investigation on both fronts has turned historical and …