Tag: George Thomas

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Nondelegation and the Unwritten Constitution

Greg Weiner

George and I had a brief exchange on Twitter (here, here, here and here) about the nondelegation doctrine, and since The Constitutionalist allows more than 280 characters, I thought it might be interesting to continue it here. George wrote, quite correctly, that the nondelegation doctrine depends on understandings of the separation of powers that cannot be found in the constitutional text. (On the “unwritten constitution” generally, see George’s excellent new book of that title and his essay at this site regarding it.) My question was whether structural arguments are separable from textual ones. In other words, there are unwritten understandings, … Continue reading Nondelegation and the Unwritten Constitution

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The Reasons for Political Exhaustion

Benjamin A. Kleinerman

George might be right that I missed the point of Sykes’s essay, but it seems that he missed the point of my post. It’s all-too-easy to blame all of our political exhaustion on Trump and the Republicans. But, as I also suggested in my other post today, I don’t see how that gets us anywhere. The answer to all of our political problems can’t just be: the Republicans did it. There is a crisis of confidence in our democracy that can’t be solved merely by changing the party in power and re-litigating January 6 so that we can remind ourselves … Continue reading The Reasons for Political Exhaustion

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Restraining Judicial Restraint

Greg Weiner

I agree with George that judicial restraint in and of itself does not provide a standard for judging. It may be worth separating two questions: the scope of judicial authority on the one hand and how it should be used on the other. Left wholly to itself, judicial restraint would be agnostic as to how cases should be decided. It would only care whether they should be decided. In other words, one could be an originalist or a living constitutionalist and still believe judges should be restrained. That is inextricable from a belief that constitutional questions are not the exclusive … Continue reading Restraining Judicial Restraint

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What the 12th Amendment Presumes

Greg Weiner

I want to amplify one point in George Thomas’ excellent essay about John Eastman’s attempt to subvert the constitutional will of the public in 2020. Eastman’s reading of the Twelfth Amendment as giving the Vice President wholesale authority over the counting of votes is constitutionally implausible. The only official duty of the Vice President is to open the ballots. The Twelfth Amendment says, in what one can only assume was a deliberately separate sentence, that the ballots “shall then be counted.” To believe the Vice President wields total authority over the counting, one must assume that the separate sentence is, … Continue reading What the 12th Amendment Presumes

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Thoughts on Revisiting New York Times v. Sullivan

Greg Weiner

I appreciate George’s thoughtful post on Justice Gorsuch’s view that the framework of New York Times v. Sullivan may facilitate the spread of falsehood. I have a handful of questions but few solutions. First, it strikes me that the problem is less the Sullivan standard than the subsequent cases that expanded its coverage from public officials to increasingly hazy categories of public figures. For reasons I suggest below, I do not see libel law as a viable means of ensuring that actual public officials–or aspirants to office–are spoken about truthfully. I would like to hear more about how the “actual … Continue reading Thoughts on Revisiting New York Times v. Sullivan

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Constitutionalism in Congress

Greg Weiner

I agree with George that constitutionalism has eroded in Congress in addition to the presidency. That seems most evident when Congress sues the executive branch, thereby asking the courts to confront the bully on the block as opposed to flexing its own institutional muscle. It is also evident in the House’s decision to attempt to extort Mike Pence into invoking the 25th Amendment before exercising the impeachment power. The threat there seems to be: Do your job or we’ll do ours. Setting aside whether the 25th Amendment is an appropriate solution for the current crisis, impeachment has the advantage of … Continue reading Constitutionalism in Congress