Issue Archives

The scope of the President’s legal authority is determined in part by historical practice. This Essay aims to better understand how such practice-based law might operate as a constraint on the presidency. In part because of the limited availability of judicial review in this area, some commentators have suggested that presidential authority has become “unbounded” by law and is now governed only or primarily by politics. At the same...

The Immigration and Nationality Act contains a provision, commonly referred to as the “persecutor bar” or “persecution of others bar,” which prohibits granting asylum to an alien who, although otherwise meeting the criteria for asylum, is determined to have been a “persecutor” in her native country. Use of the persecutor bar by the Board of Immigration Appeals and circuit courts leads to situations of legal complexity because...

Equity ownership in the United States no longer reflects the dispersed share ownership of the canonical Berle-Means firm. Instead, weobserve the reconcentration of ownership in the hands of institutional investment intermediaries, which gives rise to “the agency costs of agency capitalism.” This ownership change has occurred because of (i) political decisions to privatize the provision of retirement savings and to require funding of such...

Scholars have long treated the Exceptions Clause of Article III as a serious threat to the Supreme Court’s central constitutional function: establishing definitive and uniform rules of federal law. This Article argues that scholars have overlooked an important function of the Clause. Congress has repeatedly used its broad “exceptions power” to facilitate, not to undermine, the Supreme Court’s constitutional role. Drawing on insights...

In August 2011, President Barack Obama signed the Budget Control Act, allowing the United States to continue borrowing money to fulfill its legal obligations. The Act includes a provision that raises the debt ceiling by an additional $1.5 trillion if both houses of Congress pass a Balanced Budget Amendment.

This Note argues that the use of the Article V amendment process to achieve a legislative result is constitutionally suspect, and...

A relatively unheralded aspect of the Supreme Court’s controversial decision in Citizens United v. FEC is its strong affirmation of the constitutionality and utility of disclosure requirements for individuals and groups engaged in political advocacy. In both Citizens United and Doe v. Reed, decided a few months later, the Court issued prodisclosure holdings indicating its support for such laws. Nevertheless, the...