Document Type
Book Review
Publication Date
11-1-2022
ISSN
2330-1295
Publisher
JOTWELL
Abstract
Reviewing Blake Emerson,The Departmental Structure of Executive Power: Subordinate Checks from Madison to Mueller, 38 Yale J. Reg. 90 (2021)
Adherents to the unitary executive theory, which posits that the Constitution grants the President complete and absolute control over the execution of the law, claim that their view is required by the text of the Constitution, especially Article II’s vesting clause which proclaims that the “Executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” As Justice Scalia put it, “this does not mean some of the executive power, but all of the executive power.” In Scalia’s view, the separation of powers demands that the President must have the power even to prevent the prosecution of Executive Branch officials, including those who have engaged in serious job-related criminal misconduct that threatens to undermine the accountability of the Executive Branch. Adherents to the theory on the Supreme Court may be in the process of dismantling all checks Congress has placed on presidential control over the administration of the law, including, among others, limitations on removal of Officers of the United States, the discretion of agency experts, and the independence of independent agencies.
Recommended Citation
Jack M. Beermann,
The Role of Departments in the Design of the Federal Government
,
in
JOTWELL
(2022).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/3554
