Josh Chafetz
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Agnes Williams Sesquicentennial Professor of Law & Politics, @GeorgetownLaw. Author of _Congress's Constitution_: a.co/9x2pmdC
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Articles by Josh Chafetz
Impounding Appropriated Funds | Constitution Annotated | Congress.gov | Library of Congress
Article II, Section 3: He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care...
No, Trump Can’t Just ‘Dismiss’ the Senate
The threat from House Republicans should be seen and called out for what it is: an autocratic move that is not just unlawful but contemptuous of constitutionalism. Donald Trump has not even returned to office, and already a constitutional crisis may be in the making. Trump has started announcing the people he intends to nominate for positions in his new administration. That is his prerogative. Several senators have criticized some of Trump’s choices.
No, Trump Can't Just ‘Dismiss’ the Senate Original
Donald Trump has not even returned to office, and already a constitutional crisis may be in the making. Trump has started announcing the people he intends to nominate for positions in his new administration. That is his prerogative. Several senators have criticized some of Trump’s choices. That is their prerogative (and two Trump nominees have already withdrawn under pressure).
The First Name of a Supreme Court Justice Is Not Justice
The First Name of a Supreme Court Justice Is Not Justice Stephan: Georgetown University Law Professor Josh Chafetz does an excellent job in this exegetic essay describing exactly what the most corrupt Supreme Court in the nation’s history is about, and what they are doing. And, do I even need to say it, sucks its collective thumb and does nothing. As a result the laws of America have many attributes, but justice is not one of them.
The Roberts Supreme Court Has Earned a Little Contempt - The New York Times
Guest Essay Credit...Berke Yazicioglu By Josh Chafetz Mr. Chafetz is the author of “Congress’s Constitution.” Although the Supreme Court has been deciding cases at a glacial pace this term — and that with an almost comically small docket of only 59 merits cases — the justices have found other ways to keep busy.
The Roberts Supreme Court Has Earned a Little Contempt - The New York Times
Guest Essay Credit...Berke Yazicioglu Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share. By Josh Chafetz Mr. Chafetz is the author of “Congress’s Constitution.” Although the Supreme Court has been deciding cases at a glacial pace this term — and that with an almost comically small docket of only 59 merits cases — the justices have found other ways to keep busy.
The New Judicial Power Grab
Recommended Citation Josh Chafetz, The New Judicial Power Grab, 67 St. Louis U. L.J. (2023). Available at: https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/lj/vol67/iss4/7 DOWNLOADS Since June 21, 2023 COinS
Opinion | What You Can Expect if Republicans Take the House
Opinion|What You Can Expect if Republicans Take the House https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/03/opinion/midterms-republicans-house-majority.html Guest Essay Nov. 3, 2022 Credit...Sarah van Rij for The New York Times Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.
Opinion | Trump's subpoena gambit highlights the hubris of America's judges. And it's getting worse.
Oct. 29, 2022, 12:00 PM UTC By Allen Sumrall, Ph.D. student in the Department of Government at the University of Texas at Austin and Josh Chafetz, professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center On Oct. 21, the House issued a subpoena to former President Donald Trump requiring him to testify before the Jan. 6 committee and to produce documents about his role in the Capitol attack.
Beating a Dead Corpse
Abstract A Review of Sovereignty, RIP. By Don Herzog. Recommended Citation Josh Chafetz, Beating a Dead Corpse, 120 Mich. L. Rev. 1187 (2022). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol120/iss6/14 DOWNLOADS Since April 25, 2022 COinS
The Filibuster: MLK, Voting Rights, and Constitutionality
Podcast Lawyer 2 Lawyer is a legal affairs podcast covering contemporary and relevant issues in the news with a legal perspective. Listen & Subscribe Recent Episodes 01/07/22 January 6th: One Year Later Greg Magarian takes a look back at the January 6th Capitol insurrection, First Amendment issues surrounding that day, and the investigation by the January...
Nixon/Trump: Strategies of Judicial Aggrandizement
In Trump v. Vance and Trump v. Mazars, the Supreme Court applied very different standards for subpoenas issued for the personal papers of the president, making it easier for a grand jury to acquire such materials than a congressional committee. The two opinions, both authored by Chief Justice Roberts, have been widely praised for suggesting that the president is not wholly above the law; indeed, they have been treated as the second coming of the Nixon Tapes Case.
Opinion | Why Steve Bannon's House subpoena defiance should end in prosecution
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection will vote Tuesday on whether to hold former Trump White House aide Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress for his refusal to comply with its subpoena. If the contempt citation is approved — and given the statements of the two Republicans on the committee, it seems almost certain to be — it will go to the full House for a vote.
Trump's Second Impeachment Defends the Constitution
Republican arguments against impeachment misunderstand history, the intentions of the Founding Fathers and the law.
Trump's Second Impeachment Defends the Constitution
Trump's Second Impeachment Defends the Constitution | RealClearPolitics
Trump is impeachment's most important constitutional test yet
© Provided by NBC News In January 1642, King Charles I was fed up with malcontents in the English Parliament who would not accede to his high-handed rule. He accused five members of the House of Commons of treason and then marched on Parliament with an armed guard, demanding that they be turned over. Not only did the Commons refuse to surrender the offending lawmakers; it passed a resolution authorizing armed resistance to any royal official attempting to arrest a member.
The Power of Impeachment: Historical Background
Article I, Section 2, Clause 5: The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.
Congressional Overspeech
Home > FLR > Vol. 89 > Iss. 2 (2020) congress; speech Josh Chafetz, Congressional Overspeech, 89 Fordham L. Rev. 529 (2020). Available at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr/vol89/iss2/7 DOWNLOADS COinS
How Constitutional Norms Break Down
Abstract From the moment Donald Trump was elected president, critics have anguished over a breakdown in constitutional norms. History demonstrates, however, that constitutional norms are perpetually in flux. The principal source of instability is not that these unwritten rules can be destroyed by politicians who deny their legitimacy, their validity, or their value.
Opinion | Don’t Be Fooled, Trump Is a Winner in the Supreme Court Tax Case
His taxes will probably not become public before the election. And that is what he most cares about. By Josh Chafetz Mr. Chafetz is a law professor. July 9, 2020 Details of President Trump’s finances will still remain cloaked in legal challenges, despite today’s Supreme Court ruling. The first reports on Thursday’s Supreme Court decisions dealing with the subpoenas for President Trump’s financial records sounded like bad news for the president in his effort to keep them hidden. But don’t be fooled.
The Lawfare Podcast: Congressional Overspeech with Josh Chafetz
Jen Patja is the editor of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security, and serves as Lawfare’s Director of Audience Engagement. Previously, she was Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics and Deputy Director of the Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier, where she worked to deepen public understanding of constitutional democracy and inspire meaningful civic participation. Margaret L.
Trump Is Already Trying to Get Around CARES Act Oversight. How to Stop Him.
How we can stop him. By Richard Blumenthal and Josh Chafetz April 16, 20205:53 PM Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin listens to President Donald Trump speak during the daily briefing on the novel coronavirus at the White House on Monday.
Why We Should Abolish the Electoral College (Published 2020)
nonfiction Published March 17, 2020Updated Oct. 4, 2020 LET THE PEOPLE PICK THE PRESIDENT The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College By Jesse Wegman It’s hard to imagine a political institution less suited to a 21st-century liberal democracy than the Electoral College.
Delegation and Time … and Staff
Without an adequate amount of staff Congress cannot govern effectively. In their forthcoming article, “Delegation and Time,” Jonathan Adler and Chris Walker have made an incisive and important contribution to the literature on the statutory delegation of authority from Congress to executive and independent agencies. They note that, for all the scholarly, and occasionally judicial, focus on the scope of delegations, there has been very little attention paid to “the temporal problems” of delegation.
The bright side of the appeals-court decision saying it wouldn’t force Don McGahn to testify.
A three-judge panel of the federal appeals court for the District of Columbia ruled Friday that it lacked the power to order former White House counsel Donald McGahn to testify before the House Judiciary Committee.
Opinion | The House Can Play Hardball, Too. It Can Arrest Giuliani.
Two ways that Democrats in the House can match the White House’s aggressive tactics. By Josh Chafetz Josh Chafetz is the author of “Congress’s Constitution.” Oct. 10, 2019 In his letter to House leadership, the White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, drew a line in the sand: The administration will not “participate in” the impeachment proceedings in any way.
Congress's Constitution
Description Praise A leading scholar of Congress and the Constitution analyzes Congress’s surprisingly potent set of tools in the system of checks and balances. Congress is widely supposed to be the least effective branch of the federal government. But as Josh Chafetz shows in this boldly original analysis, Congress in fact has numerous powerful tools at its disposal in its conflicts with the other branches.
Constitutional Maturity, or Reading Weber in the Age of Trump
Abstract Anxiety abounds about the state of American constitutional democracy in “the age of Trump.” A wide range of commentators have raised serious and profound questions about the resilience of our political institutions and the capacity of our current political leadership.
Why Congress has the power to make arrests.
Congress, go get Condi, Karl, and Monica yourself! Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice On Wednesday, the House oversight committee voted to subpoena testimony from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as part of its inquiry into the Bush administration’s claims that Iraq sought to buy uranium from Niger. Today, Rice responded by saying she would reply by letter only—effectively refusing to comply with the subpoena.
"1/ I appreciate Michael McConnell's citing my work in this piece (and as a "leading scholar of the subject," no less!), but I disagree with [â¦]"
1/ I appreciate Michael McConnell's citing my work in this piece (and as a "leading scholar of the subject," no less!), but I disagree with his reading of the situation. washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/⦠2/ As I've told numerous reporters this week, when Bush II / Obama / et al. had their disputes with Congress over access to information, it was about very specific information demands (US Attorney firings, Fast & Furious, etc.), and the rest of oversight went on as usual.
"Executive Branch Contempt of Congress" by Josh Chafetz
Home > FACSCH > FACPUB > 21 Publication Date Summer 2009 Keywords Constitution, separation of powers, contempt of Congress, contempt of Parliament, legislature Disciplines Constitutional Law Abstract After former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten refused to comply with subpoenas issued by a congressional committee investigating the firing of a number of United States Attorneys, the House of Representatives voted in 2008 to hold them in contempt.
Shutdowns and their discontents
To: The Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress From: Josh Chafetz, Cornell Law School Reform: Shutdowns and their discontents Almost no one is a fan of government shutdowns. They’re messy, disruptive, inefficient, and unfair to federal employees and contractors.
Perspective | Trump’s emergency declaration doesn’t show his power. It shows his weakness.
Trump does have authoritarian impulses, but he lacks the political strength to act on them President Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Friday night. (Kevin Lamarque) February 16 From the moment he announced his campaign for the presidency, Donald Trump has provoked concerns of an authoritarian turn in American politics.
To End a (Republican) Presidency
The full text of this Book Review may be found by clicking on the PDF link to the left. I. The Pernicious Problem of Partisanship Alexander Hamilton foresaw it perfectly: impeachments of Presidents are by their nature political proceedings, conducted by political institutions exercising political judgment about the public wrongfulness of a President’s asserted misconduct.
What Can Nancy Pelosi Do Now?
Getty Images Congress Expect House Democrats to pursue a singular goal: laying the groundwork to oust Trump in 2020. Democrats more or less met expectations on Tuesday, taking clear control of the House of Representatives by a large margin (as well as winning a number of governorships and other state offices), even as they lost Senate seats due in large part to a brutal map. Clearly, a backlash against Trump and Trumpism in the GOP was at least partly responsible for Democrats’ successes.
What Do Presidents Need to Know?
Brettschneider’s book, addressed to a presidential aspirant, begins with the question “What do you need to know to be president?” The answer: “Most of all, you need to know the U.S. Constitution.” This framing is one of the book’s great virtues: It moves the focus away from the too-common and too-narrow question of what the courts might force a president to do in the name of the Constitution to the more capacious question of how a president herself should understand her constitutional role.
In My Name - TCS Daily
The rallying cry of those who opposed war in Iraq has been " Not in My Name ." They sought to wash their hands of the war, to abdicate moral responsibility for its consequences. Fair enough. But I have been arguing the necessity of this war for some time now. So let me now talk about my moral responsibility.In my name, statues of a tyrant have been cast down, portraits of a tyrant have been stomped upon, and fear of a tyrant has dissipated.
Unprecedented? Judicial Confirmation Battles and the Search for a Usable Past
“Unprecedented” is a dirty word — at least in the context of constitutional politics. The claim that some behavior is unprecedented carries with it a distinct whiff of impermissibility: if it’s never been done before, then at the very least the burden is on those who would want to do it to show that it is permissible. A thumb is very firmly placed on the scale against constitutional novelty. The claim that some activity is constitutionally novel is therefore a politically potent one.
Unprecedented? Judicial Confirmation Battles and the Search for a Usable Past
Political Process Essay by Josh Chafetz The full text of this Essay can be found by clicking the PDF link to the left. “Unprecedented” is a dirty word — at least in the context of constitutional politics.
Process not main problem with Arpaio’s pardon
After days of hinting about it, President Donald Trump finally pardoned Joe Arpaio, the former Maricopa County, Ariz., sheriff best known for his hostility toward undocumented immigrants and his brutality toward prisoners in his custody. Arpaio had been convicted in July of criminal contempt of court for defying an order to stop detaining suspected undocumented immigrants who had not broken any state law. Trump’s pardon ensures that Arpaio will not serve any time for the offense.
Problem isn’t with the pardon process - it’s with Arpaio
After days of hinting about it, President Donald Trump finally pardoned Joe Arpaio, the former Maricopa County, Arizona, sheriff best known for his hostility toward undocumented immigrants and his brutality toward prisoners in his custody. Arpaio had been convicted in July of criminal contempt of court for defying an order to stop detaining suspected undocumented immigrants who had not broken any state law.
Josh Chafetz: The problem with Joe Arpaio’s pardon isn’t the process. The problem is Joe Arpaio.
Josh Chafetz: The problem with Joe Arpaio’s pardon isn’t the process. The problem is Joe Arpaio. After days of hinting about it, President Donald Trump finally pardoned Joe Arpaio, the former Maricopa County, Arizona, sheriff best known for his hostility toward undocumented immigrants and his brutality toward prisoners in his custody.
Perspective | The problem with Joe Arpaio’s pardon isn’t the process. The problem is Joe Arpaio.
After days of hinting about it, President Trump finally pardoned Joe Arpaio, the former Maricopa County, Ariz., sheriff best known for his hostility toward undocumented immigrants and his brutality toward prisoners in his custody. Arpaio had been convicted in July of criminal contempt of court for defying an order to stop detaining suspected undocumented immigrants who had not broken any state law. Trump’s pardon ensures that Arpaio will not serve any time for the offense.
Why Congress has the power to make arrests.
On Wednesday, the House oversight committee voted to subpoena testimony from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as part of its inquiry into the Bush administration's claims that Iraq sought to buy uranium from Niger. Today, Rice responded by saying she would reply by letter only—effectively refusing to comply with the subpoena. This, of course, is only the latest in a series of subpoena skirmishes between Congress and the White House.
The filibuster was already doomed before the nuclear option vote
Senate Democrats have more than 40 votes to filibuster Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court. In response, Republicans appear to have more than 50 votes to invoke the “nuclear option” — that is, to vote Thursday morning to lower the cloture threshold for Supreme Court nominations to a bare majority. Apocalyptic rhetoric abounds. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) referred to the likely filibuster as “a new low,” while Patrick J.
The Phenomenology of Gridlock
Assertions that our legislative process is gridlocked — perhaps even "hopelessly" so — are endemic. So many more of our problems would be fixed, the thinking goes, if only our political institutions were functioning properly. The hunt for the causes of gridlock is therefore afoot. This brief Essay, written for the Notre Dame Law Review's 2012 "The American Congress: Legal Implications of Gridlock" Symposium, argues that this hunt is fundamentally misguided, because gridlock is not a phenomenon.
Capitol steps: Even a Republican Congress might block some of Trump’s agenda
Congress is not, to put it mildly, the most popular institution in the United States. Its approval ratings are low. It has developed a reputation for mindless obstructionism. And when Donald Trump promises to “drain the swamp” in Washington, he seems to be talking in large part about the legislature. Congress may also be the last, best hope of those who fear substantial parts of Mr. Trump’s announced agenda. Our national legislature has a reputation for fecklessness in disputes with the White House.
Even a Republican Congress might block some of Trump’s agenda
Congress is not, to put it mildly, the most popular institution in the United States. Its approval ratings are low. It has developed a reputation for mindless obstructionism. And when Donald Trump promises to “drain the swamp” in Washington, he seems to be talking in large part about the legislature. Congress may also be the last, best hope of those who fear substantial parts of Trump’s announced agenda. Our national legislature has a reputation for fecklessness in disputes with the White House.
Policy creates politics
Policy creates politics. It's not a new observation, but it is a somewhat counterintuitive one. Normally, we think of the causation as running the other way: Politics is often conceived of as the process of competing for the authority to determine policy. Politics, as we normally think about it, causes policy. But as political scientist E.E. Schattschneider first observed in the 1930s, the causal arrow runs the other way, too.
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