President/Executive Department Commons^™

Navahine V. HawaiʻI Dept. Of Transportation: The Keiki Will Lead Us, Catherine Smith

Seattle University Law Review

The author analyzes the landmark case Navahine v. Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation, which culminated in the world’s first constitutional climate settlement. Catherine Smith, serving as an expert for the youth plaintiffs, situates the case within Hawaiʻi’s legal tradition of prioritizing children’s rights and intergenerational equity. She explores the evolution of children’s constitutional protections, contrasting Hawaiʻi’s progressive jurisprudence with the dominant adult-centric legal framework on the mainland. She critiques four recurring analytical missteps in U.S. courts that marginalize children’s interests and highlights Hawaiʻi’s public trust doctrine and cultural values, such as the Aloha Spirit, as models for addressing climate-related harms. …

Something Concrete: How Labor Advocates Can Best Respond To The Ambiguity Of Glacier Northwest, Ateş Serifsoy

Seattle University Law Review

The Supreme Court’s much-anticipated decision in Glacier North-west, Inc. v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local No. 174 (Glacier) marked a critical moment for workers’ rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and the longstanding practice of Garmon preemption. Yet, initial fears of a significant rollback of workers’ rights, driven by sensational headlines, were met with an unexpectedly narrow Court opinion. This Comment examines Glacier’s implications for Gar-mon preemption and the right to strike. It offers the historical background of the doctrine of labor law preemption before Glacier; presents a detailed analysis of Glacier itself, including its …

Table Of Contents

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Volume 48 Masthead

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

Constitutional Futurism As Pedagogy, Jeremiah Chin

Seattle University Law Review

Constitutional Law has transformed from a course on history to a discussion of current events. Cases like Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard College, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo reveal that the study of constitutional law is not a static, or even linear, discussion of constitutional text and history. Law is a shifting, changing enterprise that reflects social constructions of power, authority, and identity. How do we teach, learn, and understand constitutional law that is so laden with history, riddled with theories of consistency and adherence to precedent, but ultimately subject …

The U.S. Drug Policy Hamster Wheel: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Seattle’S New Drug Ordinance, Hallie Conyers-Tucker

Seattle University Law Review

The author critically examines Seattle’s new drug ordinance using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to reveal how legislative language influences the policy's actual effect. Although the ordinance claims to prioritize diversion and community health, the use of permissive language such as “may” and “shall” grants broad discretionary power to law enforcement and undermines the stated intent. The author situates the ordinance within a broader historical context, highlighting how drug policy in the United States has consistently been shaped by racialized and stigmatizing narratives. Additionally, the author argues that meaningful reform requires reframing the discourse around substance use to support public health …

Brief Of Law Professors As Amici Curiae In Support Of Plaintiff-Appellees, Ira P. Robbins

Amicus Briefs & Court Filings

INTRODUCTION: The Executive Order at issue in these appeals targets a small and uniquely vulnerable minority of transgender women—those currently housed in federal women’s prisons—by commanding the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to transfer them immediately to men’s facilities. Amici file in support of Plaintiffs-Appellees (hereinafter “Plaintiffs”), to address two procedural arguments made by Defendants-Appellants (“the government”). First, Congress has not eliminated federal court jurisdiction to decide Plaintiffs’ challenge to the transfer provisions of the Executive Order. Second, the government overreads the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA); Plaintiffs’ lawsuit is not improper or premature under that statute’s exhaustion requirement because …

The Good Lawyers Of January 6, W. Bradley Wendel

Cardozo Law Review

Much of the response by the community of legal ethics and professional responsibility scholars to the 2020 presidential election has been focused on the wrongs committed by lawyers like John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark, and Kenneth Chesebro, who created the alternate elector scheme to throw the decision regarding the election to the House of Representatives. Yet there was a group of lawyers, that I will refer to as “the good lawyers of January 6,” who forcefully and unequivocally opposed this plan, refused to cooperate in its execution, advised Vice President Mike Pence that it was not legally supportable, and in some …

Necessary Justice: “Political” Trials And Modern Political Philosophy, Rob Howse

Cardozo Law Review

Donald Trump’s election to President of the United States for the second time in November 2024 marked the beginning of the end of a sustained effort to hold him accountable in court for conduct that many Americans viewed as criminal.[1] Trump received not only the majority of Electoral College votes but a decisive plurality of the popular vote as well.[2] At the time of the election, he had already been convicted of thirty-four felonies surrounding a complex fraud to hide the use of campaign funds for hush money to an adult film actor.[3] Prior to this conviction, the decisions of …

Guardrails For Discretionary Powers: A Case Comment On The State Of Tamil Nadu V The Governor Of Tamil Nadu And Another, Pranav Verma

National Law School Journal

This Case Comment argues that by prescribing timelines for the president and the governors to grant or withhold assent to bills in The State of Tamil Nadu v the Governor of Tamil Nadu, decided in April 2025, the Supreme Court did not exceed its constitutional role, as argued by some critics. Instead, it applied established administrative law principles—relevant considerations, natural justice, and absence of mala fides—to the specific power of granting or withholding assent to bills. These principles have been long used to guide the other powers of the president, the governors, and the speaker/chairman. The court thereby reinforced …

Keynote Address: The Future Of Environmental Enforcement, David M. Uhlmann

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Panel 1: Environmental Enforcement Under New Administrative Law Principles, Sommer H. Engels, Jeffrey W. Mccoy, Melissa A. Scacchitti, David M. Uhlmann

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

A Modern Moby-Dick: The First Circuit Reveals How Man's Unchecked Fixations Still Impact Nantucket's North Atlantic Right Whale In Nantucket Residents Against Turbines V. U.S. Bureau Of Ocean Energy Management, Julia A. Snyder

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

A Monumental Tug Of War: The Clash Over Presidential Authority And National Monuments In Murphy Co. V. Biden, Benjamin S. Levy

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Pressure In The Pipeline? Hidden Tensions Beneath The Surface In The D.C. Circuit's Analysis Of Alabama Municipal Distributors Group V. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Marina Campo

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

What Are “Wartime Authorities” And When Can The President Use Them? An Expert Q&A, Tess Bridgeman, Rebecca Ingber, Scott Roehm

Online Publications

The first several months of President Donald Trump’s second administration have been marred by the chaotic and often unlawful use, or threatened use, of wartime and terrorism-related authorities for what are essentially domestic immigration or criminal law enforcement purposes. This is not the first time a president has sought to push the boundaries of his wartime powers, or outright claimed those he did not have, but it may well be the most extreme. Indeed, Trump’s reliance on wartime authorities in contexts entirely divorced from armed conflict, or even the threat of force against the United States, puts the country on …

Presidential Supremacy Over Administrative Agencies, Gary Gensler, Lev Menand

Faculty Scholarship

In the United States, the public has long benefited from the role played by administrative agencies with a degree of autonomy from the White House, each agency with distinct duties and authorities to implement the law as set out by Congress.

In its first hundred days, the second Trump administration has moved rapidly to centralise control over all administrative agencies, including so-called independent agencies, which have long operated at a greater remove from the White House than ‘executive’ agencies like the Department of State and the Department of Commerce. The administration is asserting an interpretation of the Constitution known as …

The Financial Sector And Global Dollar System, Gary Gensler, Lev Menand, Joshua Younger

Faculty Scholarship

The second Trump administration’s approach to financial markets and institutions mixes familiar deregulatory policies with a range of other policies (financial and non-financial) that are largely without precedent and may lead to significant structural change in the long term. Combined, these policies have the potential to affect the financial sector in at least four ways. First, they could threaten the foundations of the global dollar system – mutual cooperation, trust, and interdependency, both between the producers and consumers of financial instruments and among the nations that constitute the dollar bloc. Second, they may undermine financial stability by loosening prudential standards, …

Selected Artificial Intelligence Provisions In U.S. Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

The 2025 Fiscal Year National Defense Authorization Act contains multiple provisions relating to artificial intelligence (AI). These congressionally mandated provisions direct various sections of the Department of Defense (DOD) and individual U.S. armed service branches to execute congressional intent for AI policymaking. Examples of such intent include identifying and planning DOD's AI workforce, demonstrating AI biotechnology applications for national security, improving the human usability of AI systems, and establishing an AI security center. This presentation will note that reports on these initiatives must be prepared for relevant congressional oversight committees, and, in many cases, are in many cases, publicly released …

The President's Orders Targeting Law Firms As Unconstitutional Bills Of Attainder-- Damning Lessons From The Past, Gary Simson

Articles

“Sentence first, verdict afterwards,” the Queen in Alice in Wonderland insisted at the trial of the Knave of Hearts for stealing the Queen’s tarts. Such an upsidedown process obviously leaves quite a bit to be desired, but compared to the process provided by President Donald Trump’s executive orders announcing and inflicting debilitating penalties on particular law firms, it’s not all that bad. After all, the Knave of Hearts, unlike the targeted firms, at least got some sort of trial before punishment was announced.

Also, it’s one thing to be punished for stealing the Queen’s tarts—something that any law-abiding citizen of …