Presidential Inaction and the Separation of Powers

Presidential Inaction and the Separation of Powers

Supreme Court Nominee Elena Kagan: Presidential Authority and the Separation of Powers

In light of Elena Kagan's nomination to serve as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, this report analyzes then-Professor Kagan's views of executive power and the doctrine of separation of powers as laid most extensively out in her 2001 Harvard Law Review article Presidential Administration. This report will proceed as follows. First, it will briefly describe the constitutio...

The New Separation of Powers

The Vertical Separation of Powers

Standard understandings of the separation of powers begin with the concept of function. Professor Nourse argues that function alone cannot predict important changes in structural incentives and thus serves as a poor proxy for assessing real risks to governmental structure. To illustrate this point, the Article returns to proposals considered at the Constitutional Convention and considers diffic...

Are All Presidents Created Equal? Presidential Powers and the Shadow of Presidential Elections

Presidential elections with few candidates held in temporal proximity to legislative elections are believed to promote the nationalization and consolidation of the legislative party system. However, contrary to the existing literature, we argue here that the shadow presidential elections cast over legislative elections is contingent upon the relative powers of the president vis-à-vis the legisl...