I had hoped that the info shared in our @demchiefexecpod series on Project 2025 would help make the series irrelevant after the election. Alas, they may now help in seeing what’s coming. Our earliest episodes on law and the presidency also urgent. https://t.co/xD5Rryrkqs
Last month, I published an essay on the conservative divide over "major questions doctrine" in Trump's tariff loss, and how it might defeat his civil service shenanigans. I am grateful to Touro Law for inviting me to share the thoughts in podcast form. https://t.co/SdsSpBxbH9
The Supreme Court rebuke of Trump tariffs might mean serious problems for other Trump initiatives, like gutting the civil service. Much depends on the Court’s internal fight over the “major questions doctrine,” @petermshane writes.
https://t.co/gUREUkJlfD
The logic behind the use of the major questions doctrine in Trump's tariff loss suggests that the three conservatives who joined the liberal Justices in denying POTUS tariff power should also oppose his attempts to politicize the civil service. https://t.co/14FlNstqz6
Turns out the surge at the border started before Biden and receded before Trump 2.0. And the shifts happen too early to suggest that migrants were anticipating a change in the next election. Fact Checking the “Success” of Trump Border Patrol Policies at https://t.co/59sPegGg6W
Something about the Fed seems to put the Roberts Court in a pragmatic mood. I wish it were equally attentive to the institutional dangers of applying its unitary executive narrative to the rest of government. Today's @monthly essay: https://t.co/BMkFj1Hma8
My July @monthly essay on the bipartisan embrace of presidential unilateralism in deploying military force explains how political practice has eviscerated the Framers' emphasis on interbranch deliberation as a constitutional precondition for warmaking. https://t.co/DaDdMHg5Vn
Not that I'm expecting it, but I explain in Washington Monthly why upholding Congress's power to create independent multimember agencies could coexist with the Roberts Court's other holdings on POTUS removal power and would enhance the Court's legitimacy. https://t.co/6QApyQY1ta
A modest proposal for how the justices can do the right thing and be true to themselves as they decide the fate of independent agencies. From @petermshane:
https://t.co/7DqCKB3eMq
SCOTUS has let stand the bar to Trump's use of the National Guard for law enforcement in Illinois. As I mentioned recently in @monthly, the Court has an easier time policing Trump's overreading of statutes than his simply disobeying or ignoring them.
https://t.co/JvgRAwg0Ki
Perhaps fitting in this season of year-end wrap-ups, I published an essay in @monthly trying to sum up how the Roberts Court throughout 2025 has been enabling Trump’s assault on the constitutionally intended distribution of government powers. https://t.co/wKhrbw8Ovp
Interesting commentary from @BrookingsInst by @petermshane@BobLitan on Legal and economic aspects of the Supreme Court’s upcoming tariff decisions.
They make an argument that the "Supreme Court is likely to hold that the tariffs are lawful and the economic consequences, regardless of the judicial outcome".
The most interesting aspects, which is noteworthy and should be highlighted, are:
1. Even if the Court upholds the lower courts’ rulings against the president, he likely has the requisite authority under other trade laws essentially to reimpose the IEEPA tariffs going forward, albeit with some procedural speedbumps. The only immediate, major consequence if the president loses these cases is that his administration will have to rebate roughly $130 billion in tariff duties by the end of the year. The amount could be higher if the Court issues its decision thereafter.
2. The immediate economic impact of the Trump tariffs, under whatever authority they are issued, is also modest in the short run, mainly because there has been little retaliation, relative to the extensive retaliation in response to the Smoot-Hawley tariffs during the Depression.
3. The one exception to watch, however, is whether and to what extent China sharply reduces exports of rare earth minerals down the road, once the recently negotiated truce on that issue between the U.S. and China expires. That could have a noticeable impact not only on the U.S. economy generally but also on our defence industries and thus national security.
Conclusion:
The economic effects of the Supreme Court’s decision about the reach of the IEEPA may prove marginal at most, depending on how far the administration goes in imposing tariffs pursuant to other statutory authorities. It will be the legal precedent and the Court’s rationale that will matter most to the overall trajectory of presidential power. The scope of authority the Court reads into the IEEPA, the degree of deference the Court does or does not give to presidential fact-finding, and anything the Court might say about the future of the nondelegation doctrine will all be of keen interest.
https://t.co/Cyfyocgea5
Brookings has posted a paper by @BobLitan and me on tomorrow's tariff cases. We think challengers have the better case, long-term economic implications are limited, but that these will be important developments in shaping the trajectory of executive power. https://t.co/Qb5NzvMj8F
Enjoyed talking to Michael Popok on a new Legal AF episode about the Supreme Court’s inaction on ICE racial profiling and the state of separation of powers law in the Roberts Court. https://t.co/Aha13rbKsT (I don’t title the episodes!)
Planning weekend podcast listening? The latest @monthly podcast features my talk with fellow law prof Garrett Epps on Justice Kavanaugh's recent opinion justifying the lifting of a stay against ICE raids in LA based on racial profiling. https://t.co/YPknmIopJZ
The Roberts Court rejects race-based decision making in affirmative action plans. In ICE raids, not so much. My take in @monthly on SCOTUS’s latest stay of a lower court injunction: https://t.co/NkSFK0I8Rp
Hegseth: After winning a war for Independence in 1789, George Washington established the war department. This country won every major war after that. To include World War I and World War II. Total victory. !50 years after that, we changed the name. We haven’t won a major war since.