In this episode of Thoughts from Maharrey Head, I talk about the proper constitutional role and powers of the president. During the recent presidential debate, both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump talked extensively about what they plan to “do” if elected president. As I watched, it occurred to me that the Constitution authorizes virtually nothing…
What would the Founding generation say about the time, energy, and money spent on the modern presidential elections? After all, if we followed the Constitution’s prescription for the separation of powers, specifically the power of the executive branch, the presidential election would largely be a non-event. Because the powers delegated by the states to the…
Under the Constitution, the president was delegated the authority to execute laws passed by Congress, not create them with the stroke of a pen.
In this episode of Thoughts from Maharrey Head I talk about presidential executive orders and the constitutional limits of executive power. Earlier this week, President Obama issued his promised executive orders relating to firearms. Many Democrats and gun control advocates praised the president for “taking action when Congress won’t.” Meanwhile, Republicans hammered Obama for exceeding…
Apparently, a lot of Republicans only hate executive orders when President Obama signs them. Last week, Donald Trump announced he would sign an executive order mandating the death penalty for “cop-killers.” “One of the first things I do, in terms of executive order if I win, will be to sign a strong, strong statement that…
It’s reported that President Obama will change the name of Alaska’s highest peak from Mount McKinley to Denali. But wait, does the President have constitutional power to rename mountains? Almost certainly not. (And, even worse for him, the name McKinley appears to be incorporated into a statute. And, even worse than that, apparently there have…
As Madison quoted Montesquieu in Federalist 47, "When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person or body, there can be no liberty, because apprehensions may arise lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws to execute them in a tyrannical manner."
Here is a speech I recently gave at the Minnesota Tea Party Alliance’s quarterly event. The topic was “Powers of the President,” where I compared the original constitutional understanding of the executive with the behavior of modern presidents. Spoiler Alert: there is a stark contrast between the two.
I can accept, as an original matter, the general proposition that the "Case or Controversy" language means at minimum that everyone can't sue everyone for everything. How modern standing law derives its particular intricacies from this basic proposition is a mystery to me. But that doesn't matter in this case, which seems fundamentally about an abstract injury common to everyone.
The answer, in my view, depends on whether the U.S. can be “at war” with a non-state actor such as the Sunni rebel force in Iraq. Here’s my analysis: (1) The President has executive power and commander-in-chief power, and thus can direct the military and conduct foreign relations, so long as he does not do…