A Student's Guide to American Federal Government Statistics.The article is a survey for economics students of the principal elements of federal statistical data series. The point of departure is the census of manufacturers and thus the body of the article, even though some historical reference is employed, is neither a chronological listing of the growth of data collection nor an analysis of the perception of the problems of and improvements in statistical technique. It is sufficed to stress the themes that constructs were perceived before extensive data were collected, that some constructs, like the consumption function, proved empirically to be so unstable that they were neglected in favor of other a priori constructs, and that data and constructs collected for one area of analysis of the economy are frequently converted for use in other areas of the economy. In the present paper the term statistics is used in the first sense, to signify statistical data in general, and in particular those relating to economics as the field of application. The data on forecasts, anticipations and cyclical and other indicators are excluded.
Separation of powers: An invitation to struggleBruce Peabody is professor of American politics at Farleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, New Jersey. In the following viewpoint, Peabody examines the theory and the practice of maintaining the separation of government powers in the United States. Unlike the constitutions of other countries, the author notes, the US Constitution does not contain an article that explicitly focuses on the appropriate separation of powers between the three branches of the federal government. Due to this omission, Peabody contends, maintaining the separation of powers in the United States relies on the people who compose those branches of government at any given time. The author argues that the system of checks and balances creates conflict and requires elected, appointed, and career officials to behave according to longstanding norms of engagement.
The Statutory Separation of Powers.The nature and extent of presidential power over administrative agencies is a central question in administrative law. The case in favor of expansive presidential control is grounded in the democratic accountability and efficiency that the President can bring to agency action. (1) Opponents of strong presidential control, however, are less convinced that presidential involvement yields true accountability or transparency. (2) Presidential involvement may also undermine rather than promote efficiency, especially when that involvement manifests as painstaking review of agency action by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). (3) Separately, some worry that Presidents will sometimes interfere with the exercise of neutral expertise by administrative actors and thwart congressional intent as embodied in agencies' authorizing statutes. (4) As a result, some argue that Presidents should merely oversee agency action, not substitute their own decisions for those of agency heads. (5)
Polls—Federal Government Power.The federal government's power has been an issue in American politics throughout the history of the United States. How the public views this issue is affected by the dimension of the government's power in question. On the general question of government power, a majority is wary of big government, and this percentage has been increasing in recent years. When the aspect of providing services is included, however, public opinion is more evenly divided, with slightly more people believing that the government should be providing more services than feeling that the government is already doing too much. On the personal dimension—that is, whether the federal government controls too much of daily life—a significant majority of Americans has consistently expressed a wariness of Washington. The public's views on the power of the federal government are complex, and this issue will continue to be at the center of divisions in American politics.
How the First Ten Amendments Became the Bill of RightsThe use of the term "the Bill of Rights" as a proper noun that refers specifically and exclusively to the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution was largely a result of civic education drives in the 1920s and 1930s. Many in the founding generation called for a bill of rights to be attached to the Constitution, but they never called the first ten amendments "the Bill of Rights." In the nineteenth century, these amendments had little power, and the bill of rights (usually not capitalized) was often thought to be an abstract set of principles, existing prior to and not co-equal with the first ten amendments. Through a gradual linguistic evolution, driven by a need to define and apply political principles, Americans created "the Bill of Rights " and imbued it with iconic status. This occurred first in legal language in the 1890s, and spread into textbooks, before entering the vocabulary of contributors to newspapers. In the 1930s, while courts and political leaders looked to the Bill of Rights to justify the federal expansion of power, Americans discovered that this iconic document could be used to resist the same. As they debated the nature, purpose, and application of the Bill of Rights, Americans clarified the meaning of the term and empowered it.
A Political Outlier: the Distinct Politics of the Millennial GenerationThe generation one comes of age politically is an important determinant in one’s political identity. As a result, there is the potential for a disparity of the vote choice among different generations. Today, the youngest generation of American adults—the so-called Millennial Generation—have developed distinct political leanings that are significantly to the left of older generations Since Millennials have achieved adulthood and gained the right to vote the generation has consistently been a generational outlier. The strong pro-Democratic vote of the Millennials has its roots in the generation being both very pro-Obama and very anti-Bush. The Millennials support for the Democratic Party, however, is also due to the generation’s liberal views on policy that are a product of Millennials’ relative diversity, high education levels, global perspective on politics, and lack of religiosity. The huge generation gap that has emerged since Millennials have entered the electorate suggests that there is an emerging realignment of the electorate along generational lines. With generational replacement, Millennials thus have the potential to alter the direction of American politics.
The Federal Government Has an Implied Moral Constitutional Duty to Protect Individuals from Harm Due to Climate Change: Throwing Spaghetti against the Wall to See What Sticks.The continuing failure of the federal government to respond to the growing threat of climate change, despite affirmative duties to do so, creates a governance vacuum that the Constitution might help fill, if such a responsibility could be found within the document. This Article explores textual and non-textual constitutional support for that responsibility, finding that no single provision of the Constitution is a perfect fit for that responsibility. However, the document as a whole might support constitutionalizing an environmental protection norm as an individual right or affirmative government obligation given the norm's importance to the enjoyment of other constitutional rights and growing public support for mitigating or avoiding the adverse effects of climate change.
Why the Constitution Was Written Down.A funny thing about the U.S. Constitution is that it's written down. Words might seem like an obvious feature of any constitution, but they're notably missing from much of the constitution of Great Britain, the country from which the United States seceded. Historians have often assumed that the quirky American practice of putting constitutions into single documents has its origins in the corporate charters of the seventeenth-century trading companies that founded more than half of the thirteen original states. But, as historian Mary Sarah Bilder has written, it is surprisingly difficult to explain the change from corporate charter to modern constitution with precision and persuasive power. This Article attempts to do just that, telling the story of a series of lawsuits that forced the Massachusetts Bay Company to treat its charter's terms as Gospel. Relying on original research of thousands of primary sources from the United States and the United Kingdom spanning from 1607 through 1793, this Article presents an account of how a corporate charter evolved into a "Charter Constitution" in America while the British Constitution remained intangible. This Article demonstrates that written words became a defining feature of American constitutionalism a century before the American Revolution, and that this distinction between the American and British understandings of constitutions contributed to American independence. The historical origins of American constitutionalism can also supply more depth to modern interpretive debates over whether text alone can provide meaningful limits on government power without reference to external traditions, modes of enforcement, or evolving practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
In 2019, women's rights are still not explicitly recognized in US ConstitutionDeana Rohlinger is a sociology professor at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. In the following viewpoint, Rohlinger relays the history of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), asserting that the amendment's fate is unclear. The author asserts that activists continue to work toward ERA ratification, despite a long-passed congressional deadline, because women's rights are not explicitly protected by the Constitution. Rohlinger details periods of bipartisan support for the ERA in the decades leading up to its passage in Congress. The author suggests that the political climate of the late 2010s has contributed to the revitalized prominence of the ERA. Rohlinger contends that the ERA's future is uncertain because there is precedent in Congress for both ratifying and ignoring expired amendments and amendments with rescinded state ratifications.
Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)Federal laws in the United States provide protections against some forms of discrimination, including discrimination based on sex. The proposed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) would expand these protections to eliminate all legal distinctions based on sex. The need for an ERA has been debated in US politics since one was first proposed in the 1920s. In 2020 the amendment finally reached the required number of state ratifications, but it was unclear whether the amendment would move forward to become part of the US constitution due to a controversial expiration date in the original legislation.
Dave Chappelle: First Amendment Only Safe Because of the Second AmendmentJoe Wolverton is a lawyer and featured contributor at the New American, a conservative opinion magazine. In the following viewpoint, Wolverton uses comments made by comedian Dave Chappelle as a springboard to discuss the relationship between the First and Second Amendments to the US Constitution. The author expresses support for a statement made by Chapelle during his acceptance of a national humor award that the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First is only possible because of the right to bear arms granted by the Second. Wolverton compares Chappelle's statements to the writings of James Madison and to opinions expressed by constitutionalists, those who believe that government should be strictly limited in its powers. Wolverton admits that Chappelle may not be a fellow conservative but nevertheless commends him as a public figure for portraying the Second Amendment as the guarantor of the freedom of speech.
Joe Wolverton is a lawyer and featured contributor at the New American, a conservative opinion magazine. In the following viewpoint, Wolverton uses comments made by comedian Dave Chappelle as a springboard to discuss the relationship between the First and Second Amendments to the US Constitution. The author expresses support for a statement made by Chapelle during his acceptance of a national humor award that the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First is only possible because of the right to bear arms granted by the Second. Wolverton compares Chappelle's statements to the writings of James Madison and to opinions expressed by constitutionalists, those who believe that government should be strictly limited in its powers. Wolverton admits that Chappelle may not be a fellow conservative but nevertheless commends him as a public figure for portraying the Second Amendment as the guarantor of the freedom of speech.
Trump Is Right. Ending Birthright Citizenship Is Constitutional.Hans von Spakovsky is a senior legal fellow at the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative public policy organization headquartered in Washington, DC. In the following viewpoint, von Spakovsky defends President Donald Trump's announcement that he would end universal birthright citizenship through an executive order. The author contends that people who claim that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees citizenship to every individual born in the United States fail to understand the intent of the amendment. Von Spakovsky asserts that the Fourteenth Amendment only guarantees citizenship to children born of parents who owe political allegiance to the United States—excluding tourists, diplomats, students, and Native Americans. Asserting that undocumented immigrants do not owe political allegiance to the United States, the author contends that their children should not be granted birthright citizenship.
Trump wants to change the rules of citizenship. Here are three reasons his proposal might be unconstitutionalPresident Trump said this week that he intends to issue an executive order that would end birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to undocumented immigrants. Such a move would upset a century of Supreme Court precedent and significantly restructure U.S. immigration and constitutional law.
That's because Section 1 of the 14th Amendment declares, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." The Supreme Court and mainstream legal scholars on the left and right have long held that the phrase "under the jurisdiction thereof" extends citizenship to anyone born under U.S. territorial jurisdiction, including the children of immigrants.
Trump says the Constitution lets him do 'whatever I want as president.' On Constitution Day, students learn otherwiseIn July, President Trump said he believes the U.S. Constitution gives him "the right to do whatever I want as president." On Constitution Day, students learn otherwise.
Constitution Day -- Sept. 17 -- is when students at all grade levels learn through lessons, speeches, debates and other activities what the country's foundational document says about presidential and other powers. Sept. 17 was chosen because it is the day when, in 1787, 39 delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia signed the final version of the newly written document. (It did not become law until 1789, after ratification by the states.)
CONSTITUTION UNDER ATTACK: ARTICLE V CONVENTION GREATER THREAT THAN OPEN ATTACKS: Parts of the political Left are coming right out and admitting that they want to get rid of the U.S. Constitution, in favor of pure democracy--despite the dangers--and many The 19th-century anarchist Lysander Spooner argued that the effort of the Founding Fathers to create a limited government through a written Constitution had failed:"But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain--that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it."
Spooner's complaint was that the U.S. Constitution was not sufficiently restraining the power of government.
But a recent forum at New York University sponsored by Harper's Magazine and reported on in its October 2019 edition attacked the Constitution from the opposite direction. In a cover story entitled "Do We Need the Constitution?" five left-wing "scholars" concluded that the Constitution is what is holding back the progressive agenda, and is the source of most of our modern political problems--at least from their leftist perspective.
ARGUING ABOUT THE CONSTITUTION: THE TOPICS IN CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATIONI. INTRODUCTION
Constitutional construction is the part of constitutional interpretation in which interpreters implement and give effect to the Constitution--for example, by creating doctrines, practices, and institutions. The idea of constitutional construction is central to the New Originalism, which divides constitutional interpretation into two tasks. Interpretation (in the narrower sense) ascertains the text's original meaning; construction implements the text, giving it effect in practice. (1) What most people call constitutional interpretation includes both interpretation, in the narrower sense of ascertaining the meaning of the text, and constitutional construction, which creates and applies doctrines and practices that implement the Constitution. (2)
The Strange Story of the Second Amendment in the Federal Courts, and Why It Matters.The "Second Amendment" is everywhere--on tee shirts, hats, signs, bumper stickers and even tattoos. Funny thing, though, is that few people seem to have actually read it; and when they do, they're often confused. (1)
That's fair; the wording seems a little awkward. Then again, for most of our country's history--actually until the 1990s--federal judges had no problem interpreting these 27 words:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. (2)
Regardless of their partisanship or ideology, judges agreed that the first part of the Amendment told the story. (3) Lacking (and distrusting) standing armies, the colonies organized their own militias to respond to emergencies. (4) These citizen soldiers were expected to provide their own weapons and to muster regularly. (5) As one New Englander remarked, the "near neighbourhood of the Indians and French quickly taught them the necessity of having a well regulated militia." (6) With independence, the ideal (if not the reality) lived on in the Second Amendment as a reassuring guarantee that citizens of the newly federated states would be able to stop the federal government from meddling with their state militias. For this reason, federal judges uniformly saw the Second for what it was: a states' rights amendment.
State secrets and executive accountabilityObservers have criticized the state secrets privilege for some time. Although ostensibly a common law privilege designed to prevent disclosure of certain evidence potentially damaging to national security, (1) critics argue that it has morphed into a device by which the federal government maintains nearly total secrecy about its actions. It does so, they claim, because officials have convinced courts to defer to their argument that certain evidence must be suppressed (2) or, more invidiously, because officials have convinced courts to dispose of lawsuits altogether, prior to discovery occurring at all. (3) As a result, critics argue that improper use of the privilege interferes with constitutional and statutory rights, (4) prevents public scrutiny of the government's actions, (5) and harms our system of separated powers because courts abdicate their role as a check on executive action. (6)
Policymaking in the United States: constraining a runaway executive branch.The American executive branch has mastered tools that allow it broad discretion while receiving little oversight from other branches. This article provides valuable insights on the complex legislative-executive relations, as Congress is often unable to effectively check the executive branch. This article provides an overview of the broad policymaking discretion that the presidency and federal agencies in the United States have acquired. It details the constraints that curb executive discretion including the doctrines courts utilise to discipline the executive branch. It discusses how judicial doctrines can be utilised to prevent the executive branch from gaining excessive powers. This article considers a timely debate on the nature and scope of expansive executive actions. Its analysis can inform future controversies surrounding unilateral actions and other executive initiatives by the current administration and future presidents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Ethics in the Executive Branch: Enforcing the Emoluments ClauseWe live in an extraordinary moment for government ethics in the United States. Throughout American history, Presidents have, in general, proactively complied with the evolving ethical standards associated with the office. These include restrictions codified at the nation's founding: the Foreign and Domestic Emoluments Clauses of the Constitution. Today, these standards are regulated by mechanisms that are self-policing--triggered by the voluntary consent of the President himself. But this dependence upon fragile cultural norms have proven a fallibility during the Trump Presidency.
The Trump presidency has applied extraordinary and novel pressure to this ethics apparatus. Under the current pressure, traditional safeguards to manage conflicts of interest by executive branch officials have proven ineffective. A system of ethics that was rooted in fragile norms is in the midst of an existential crisis. The result is litigation that is testing our nation's judiciary, and straining our separation of powers jurisprudence. The situation calls for a reckoning by ethics lawyers and elected officials about the future of ethical oversight in the United States.
Executive branch legal analysis for national security policy: who controls access to legal memos?Legal interpretation of governmental authority in the national security realm has attracted extraordinary prominence recently, in light of constantly emerging revelations of controversial policies. Lawsuits seeking access under the Freedom of Information Act to confidential executive branch legal analysis justify ing these policies have started in the federal courts, only to be met with refusals by the Department of Justice to release its legal opinions. This article examines litigation seeking Office of Legal Counsel opinions justifying the Obama administration's targeted killing program and Federal Bureau of Investigation authority to gather call information, without using any legal process, from telecommunications companies.
Shifting currents: Dwight Eisenhower and the dynamic of presidential opportunity structureThe opportunity structure framework has become a cornerstone of presidency research over the past generation. Yet the way scholars have construed opportunity structure has been too narrow. Where they have stressed the partisan regime context in which a president is situated, other contextual elements often weigh more heavily on a president's calculation of what he can and cannot do. Further, the regime context is relatively static within any administration, but the opportunity structure a president faces will change rapidly. These choices are often the consequence of a president's earlier actions. His choices will set in motion new forces to which he will later have to respond. The presidency of Dwight Eisenhower serves to illustrate the value of a broadened and more dynamic conception of the opportunity structure approach.
Interpreting Presidential PowersJustice Holmes famously observed that "[g]reat cases ... make bad law."The problem may be especially acute in the domain of national security, where presidents frequently interpret their own powers without judicial review and where executive precedents play a large role in subsequent interpretive debates. On the one hand, some of the historical assertions of presidential authority that stretch constitutional and statutory language the furthest seem hard to condemn in light of the practical stakes. On the other hand, to credit the authority of executive precedent risks leaving the president dangerously unbound. To address the conundrum posed by executive precedent, this Article proposes a two-tiered theory for the interpretation of presidential powers. Framed as an analogy to a position in moral philosophy known as "threshold deontology," two-tiered interpretive theory treats rules that restrict executive power as normally inviolable, not subject to a case-by-case balancing analysis. Analogously to threshold deontology, however, two-tiered theory also recognizes that when the costs of adherence to ordinary principles grow exorbitantly high, extraordinary interpretive principles should govern instead and should result in the upholding of broad presidential power. For reasons that the Article explains, resort to extraordinary reliance on second-tier justifications for assertions of sweeping executive authority involves a legal analogue to "dirty-handed" moral conduct and should be labeled accordingly. And executive precedents set in extraordinary, second-tier cases should not apply to more ordinary ones. Through its conjunction of elements, two-tiered interpretive theory furnishes analytical and rhetorical safeguards against executive overreaching, but also allows accommodations for truly extraordinary cases.
Executive Accountability and National SecurityThe protection of national security has traditionally been an exception to general norms of public accountability, based on prerogative powers. The last three decades have seen efforts to bring national security closer to the normal constitutional control mechanisms of parliament and the courts. The design of and changes to mechanisms of accountability have, however, been accepted without discussion of the often narrower purposes for which they were first established (most notably for oversight of surveillance), the extent of their departure from constitutional principles, or their impact in embedding new forms of exceptionalism in the constitutional framework. This article critically assesses these developments, prompted for example by the Law Commission's recommendations to reform official secrets laws, which adopted trusted intermediary and indirect accountability models without full consideration of historical and contemporary concerns or the exceptionalism on which they were based. Though focused on the UK, our account provides a cautionary tale for national security law reform in any modern democracy.
A New Model of Executive Power: A Montesquieuan Explanation of the Obama Presidency.The perennial concern over executive overreach continues well into Obama's presidency, leading many to wonder if the “unitary executive” is here to stay. Discussions of executive war powers focus on three models. The Hamiltonian perspective gives presidents the lead position in foreign affairs; the second model, following Madison, presents Congress as the leader when initiating hostilities. Finally, Jeffersonians present emergency powers as extra-legal, giving presidents a sphere of actions that cannot be contained within constitutional discussions. Problematically, current scholarship implicitly or explicitly grounds these explanations in Locke's political philosophy. This occurs despite a dearth of references to Locke during the Constitutional Convention and infrequent references to his thought during early debates over executive-congressional divisions of war powers. Comparatively, all of these seminal American figures frequently mention Montesquieu, often fighting over the specifics of his theory. While scholars widely acknowledge this influence, they rarely mention him during discussions of war powers or the nature of executive power in general. This article examines the Montesquieuan understanding of executive power and shows how this model represents a viable alternative to the Lockean one. Most importantly, examining the executive from a Montesquieuan perspective provides solutions to current problems that the Lockean perspective does not
STATE ATTORNEYS GENERAL AS AGENTS OF POLICE REFORM.State attorneys general can and should play an important role in remedying police violations of constitutional rights. In 1994, Congress enacted 34 U.S.C. [section] 12601 to authorize the U.S. attorney general to seek equitable relief against state and local police departments engaged in patterns or practices of misconduct. The Department of Justice ("DOJ") has used this statute to reform some of the nation's most troubled police departments. However, the DOJ has lacked the resources to pursue more than a few cases each year, and in 2017 the Trump administration announced it would no longer enforce [section] 12601.
"But We're in a Court of Law. We're Not in a Legislature.": The Promise and Pitfalls of Educational Policy Reform through the Judicial BranchWhen courts engage in educational policymaking through what is called "public law litigation," they set foot in unsettled territory. Framing the authors' work in legal studies literature, this article relays how one court engaged in a sweeping reform of special education in Chicago and teacher certification in the entire state of Illinois. Based on an extensive document analysis from primary and secondary sources, three specific ways in which public law litigation differs from policy making in the legislative branch and from traditional court behavior are examined: (a) the fit between problem and solution, (b) the issue of participation and representation, and (c) the tension between finality and flexibility. The conclusion is that policy entrepreneurs, government officials, and courts need to be aware of the issues and tensions in the process of judicial policy making to enhance the effectiveness and legitimacy of public law litigation remedies.
Statutory Rules of Constitutional Interpretation and the Original Understanding of Judicial Power and IndependenceINTRODUCTION In Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton argued that "[t]he interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution is in fact... fundamental law. [...]
In American legal culture today, it is widely acknowledged that the Supreme Court of the United States has the final authority 'to say what the law is.' Whether they agree or disagree with a decision of the Supreme Court, the coordinate branches of the federal government, state governments, and citizens everywhere respect and adhere to those decisions. On the whole, it seems that little stands in the way of the Supreme Court exercising its fundamental duty to issue authoritative interpretations of the Constitution using its own independent judgment. Yet this assumption may be flawed. This note draws attention to a subtle and underappreciated way in which proposed legislation in Congress, if enacted, would undermine the power and independence of the Supreme Court in interpreting the Constitution. For example, the Constitution Restoration Act of 2005 purported to outlaw the consideration of foreign legal or political materials in the interpretation of the Constitution. This note argues that this kind of proposed statutory rule of constitutional interpretation is unconstitutional for two reasons. First, the federal courts, and in particular the Supreme Court, retain a limited set of inherent powers by their very nature as a court of law that can be traced back to English common law. Among these inherent powers is the power to choose and apply an interpretive methodology in carrying out the judicial function of deciding a case. The Framers would have understood that courts exercised some inherent powers, and the Constitution did nothing to displace those inherent powers. Second, under the original meaning of 'judicial Power' in Article III, the federal courts have the authority to choose a particular interpretive methodology and arrive at a definitive interpretation of the Constitution without interference from Congress. This authority is not only consistent with the text of Article III, it is also supported by the structural independence of the federal courts under the Constitution as the framing and ratification debates make clear. Table of Contents Introduction 288 I. Inherent Judicial Power and Article III Courts 290 A. Inherent Judicial Power at English Common Law 292 B. Inherent Judicial Power and the Framing and Ratification of the Constitution 294 C. Inherent Judicial Power to Interpret the Constitution 296 II. Constitutional Interpretation and the Structural Independence of the Federal Courts 301 A. First Conceptions of the Need for an Independent Judiciary 303 B. An Independent Judiciary Is Born 304 C. Article III and the Supreme Court's Independent Power of Constitutional Interpretation 308 III. Statutory Rules of Constitutional Interpretation and the Supreme Court's Independence 310 Conclusion 313
Conservative Judicial Activism: The Politicization of the Supreme Court Under Chief Justice Roberts.The article focuses on the introduction of judicial activism in the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts. It explore the ways in which Roberts and the conservative bloc have advanced their agenda including selective adherence to traditional conservative principles, advance strategic planning to shape policy and a failure to promote consensus. It also focuses on the promotion of corporate and ideological interests at the expense of the democracy.
Legislative Capacity and Executive Unilateralism.This article develops a theory of presidential unilateralism in which both ideological divergence with Congress and legislative capacity influence the president's use of executive orders. We argue that when Congress is less capable of constraining the executive, the president will issue more executive orders during periods of divided government. Conversely, in periods of high legislative capacity, the president is less likely to issue executive orders when faced with an opposed Congress. Based on an examination of institutional changes, we identify years prior to the mid-1940s as characterized by low congressional capacity and the subsequent period as characterized by high capacity. Testing the theory between 1905 and 2013, we find strong support for these predictions and demonstrate that legislative capacity conditions the role of ideological disagreement in shaping presidential action. Overall, this article deepens our current understanding of the dynamics of separation-of-powers politics and the limits of executive power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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Gender and Foreign Policy: Are Female Members of Congress More Dovish than Their Male Colleagues?Research shows that female legislators tend to support liberal, pacifistic approaches to foreign policy. But it remains unclear whether they are dovish because they seek to represent the dovish values of women generally or because they tend to represent mostly liberal voters. To answer this question, we examine all foreign policy votes cast in Congress over the last five decades to estimate the ideological locations of House and Senate members on a hawk-dove dimension. Once we control for partisan and constituency effects, we find only limited evidence that female legislators are more dovish than their male counterparts are.
The Limits on Congress's Power To Do Nothing: A Preliminary Inquiry.The article offers arguments for limiting U.S. Congress's authority to do nothing. Topics discussed include former U.S. President Obama's response to congressional obstruction; designing of U.S. Constitution for fostering system of checks and balances on exercise of too much power; and political structure of the country.
The Sweeping Domestic War Powers of CongressWith the Habeas Clause standing as a curious exception, the Constitution seems mysteriously mute regarding federal authority during invasions and rebellions. In truth, the Constitution speaks volumes about these domestic wars. The inability to perceive the contours of the domestic wartime Constitution stems, in part, from unfamiliarity with the multifarious emergency legislation enacted during the Revolutionary War. During that war, state and national legislatures authorized the seizure of property, military trial of civilians, and temporary dictatorships. Ratified against the backdrop of these fairly recent wartime measures, the Constitution, via the Necessary and Proper Clause and other provisions, rather clearly augmented federal legislative power to prevail in domestic wars. The "Sweeping Clause" grants Congress far-reaching authority to carry federal powers--legislative, executive, and judicial--into execution. Using this authority, Congress may suspend the ordinary forms of government and some civil liberties as a means of implementing federal powers. For example, Congress may suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus or authorize military trial of civilians if it supposes that such measures will help ensure that federal authority extends throughout the United States. Hence Congress has something of a domestic wartime power that permits it to enact laws meant to defeat rebels and invaders and thereby ensure the continuity of the Constitution and the federal and state governments that sustain it.
Congress and Administrative Policymaking: Identifying Congressional Veto Power.The ability of presidents to unilaterally shape administrative policymaking challenges a foundation of congressional power: Rarely can Congress statutorily veto administrative actions over presidential opposition. Consequently, Congress has turned to other means of influence, including the appropriations and oversight processes, although questions remain about the degree to which they have been effective. To investigate, I study a spatial model of administrative policymaking that assumes Congress can execute a legislative veto, as well as a baseline model in which congressional influence requires a coalition with the president. I compare the two models and develop empirical tests that exploit instances when their implications differ. Applying the tests to data on federal regulatory policymaking shows consistent evidence that Congress exerts veto power over administrative activity, even over those actions endorsed by the president. I conclude by discussing some broader implications, including the extent to which existing studies understate the constraints on presidential power.
Procedural Checks: How the Constitution (and Congress) Control the Power of the Three BranchesThis article proceeds in four parts. In part one, the article lays the foundation for the rest of the paper by discussing the differing
approaches taken by scholars and the Supreme Court with respect to the structural Constitution. Some scholars favor formalist approaches that emphasize strictly enforced lines of division between the branches, while others prefer a functionalist interpretation that allows for greater legislative freedom in creating structural innovations as long as they do not disrupt the balance of power among the branches. The Court’s apparent wavering between these formalist and
functionalist approaches reflects the Court’s greater suspicion and greater scrutiny of statutory expansions of authority than of statutory restrictions on how a branch exercises its power.
In part two, the article looks at cases limiting the statutory augmentation of a branch’s constitutional power. With respect to the
judicial branch, the case or controversy requirement should be seen as a procedural check that is the framers’ response to concerns about the absence of significant inter-branch checks on the authority of federal Powers and the Requirement of Adequate Reasons for Agency Decisions,
judges. The cases restricting the statutory enhancement of Congress’s powers recognize the Bicameralism and Presentment Clause as creating an analogous procedural check on how Congress exercises
substantive power. This part then examines the Court’s failure to recognize a similar constitutional check on the exercise of executive power, the reasons for this failure, and the ways in which Congress might reinvigorate at least some constitutional protections against the arbitrary exercise of executive authority.
In part three, the article discusses why the apparent imbalance between the constitutional checks on the executive as compared with the legislative and judicial branches is not a cause for significant
concern because of Congress’s power to impose analogous procedural checks on the executive branch. Finally, in part four, the article concludes by arguing that the effectiveness of these congressionally
imposed procedural checks has several important implications for the separation of powers.
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(EBSCO) - History Reference Center offers full text from more than 750 history reference books and encyclopedias, and cover-to-cover full text from nearly 60 history magazines. Further, the database contains 58,000 historical documents; 43,000 biographies of historical figures; more than 12,000 historical photos and maps; and 87 hours of historical film and video.
(Bloomsbury) - From terrorism to climate change, current events are an immutable part of our culture. But news sound bites and traditional databases often only scratch the surface in guiding us through a thoughtful examination of the issues. Now, from the publisher with over 45 major educational technology awards, comes Issues: Understanding Controversy and Society, a rich online resource that offers a more thorough, informative path to studying enduring issues: one that not only provides clear answers but also helps users frame their questions.
(Gale) - Aligned to state and national curriculum standards, U.S. History in Context provides a complete overview of our nations past that covers the most-studied events, decades, conflicts, wars, political and cultural movements, and people. Comprehensive, contextual, media-rich information is provided on topics ranging from the arrival of Vikings in North America, to the stirrings of the revolution, through to the Civil Rights movement, 9/11, and the War on Terror. An always-intuitive experience supports the development of critical thinking and information literacy skills.
