Talk:Unitary executive theory

Tags

• There's a real debate to be had about the unitary executive theory, but it's not to be found in the pages of the Huffington Post and Counterpunch. Cite to the law review articles and legitimate scholarship, and get rid of the cites to ranting blog posts.
• Even if you're going to rely heavily on the pop literature, there are several cites to The Nation and The New Yorker and magazines even further to the left; none to any conservative journals discussing the topic, or even to, say Richard Epstein in the WSJ.
• 35 footnotes citing to 60 or so sources, and exactly one of these sources, cited twice, puts forward the strongly unitary executive theory. The article reflects this wild imbalance.
• Meanwhile, the fringe "Carl Schmitt" synthesis put forward by an idiosyncratic editor that theorizes that conservatives are secretly emulating Nazi Germany (a set of edits that arguably violates BLP in a number of articles, such as John Yoo) gets ten.
• I mean, really, Dana Milbank, who writes snarky op-eds in the Washington Post, gets more play in this article than Christopher Yoo, a law professor who's written widely on the topic.
• "conservative legal thought" and "members of the Federalist Society" is redundant. There aren't any 21st century conservative legal scholars who aren't members of the Federalist Society. And anyone who's seen Richard Epstein on the topic knows that Federalist Society members don't hold a unitary view of the unitary executive theory.

Some cites if you want to balance the article:

• Calabresi and Yoo's book
• "The Presidency and Congress: Constitutionally Separated and Shared Powers," 68 Wash. U. L.Q. 485 (1990), is a symposium with several points of view.
• Lee S. Liberman, "Morrison v. Olson: A Formalistic Perspective on Why the Court Was Wrong," 38 Am. U. L. Rev. 313 (1989).
• Steven G. Calabresi & Saikrishna B. Prakash, "The President's Power to Execute the Law," 104 Yale L.J. 541 (1994).
• Steven G. Calabresi, "Some Normative Arguments for a Unitary Executive," 48 Ark. L. Rev. 23 (1995).

But the article is an incoherent mess and arguably needs to be stubbed and started over. The first paragraph and bibliography are okay, but very little else is. THF (talk) 03:42, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Excellent comment. Thanks THF, and please watchlist this article so you can chime in as we try to fix it up. Thanks!Ferrylodge (talk) 04:53, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

My concerns have not been addressed, but someone removed the tags with the notation "See talk." Not kosher. And, yes, articles can have both references and original research. THF (talk) 14:44, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

This form of debating while ignoring the numerous refs from legal and mainstream clearly is very not helpful and makes me struggle to adhere to WP:AGF. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 14:51, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

The fact that the article sources some of its statements does not mean that it's not riddled with OR elsewhere. Your edit-warring to remove the tag in the face of at least three editors who believe the tag belongs violates WP:NPOVD and WP:EW. And your only talk-page comment in response to my detailed critique is a personal attack. And you have trouble assuming good faith? THF (talk) 14:56, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Quoth THF: "There aren't any 21st century conservative legal scholars who aren't members of the Federalist Society." I'm not an expert on the subject, but this seems like a wild overgeneralization. If it were in the article itself, I'd be slapping a "Citation Needed" tag onto it so fast the tag would likely ablate from air friction. Can you back up this sweeping statement?

Thanks,

206.55.188.83 (talk) 02:25, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Scrubbing the Lyndon LaRouche material

I've deleted the whole nonsense about Carl Schmitt, which was a synthesized mash of blogposts, Counterpunch rants, and unpublished original research. I'd be very curious if that Wayne State thesis on which that whole section was based was written by a Wikipedia editor, so that there would be a WP:COI violation in addition to the WP:WEIGHT violation. It seems to have found its way into several Wikipedia articles. THF (talk) 15:25, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Scott Horton anybody? Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 15:31, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Harpers isn't WP:RS for constitutional law controversies. And there's still the WP:WEIGHT issue: this is a fringe theory that doesn't belong in the article. THF (talk) 15:35, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Clearly we need outside input if everybody objects to the use of legal experts. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 15:39, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Again, the issue is WP:WEIGHT. There is an established published literature in the subject, but there is no evidence of it in this article; instead, there are COATRACK cites to screeds in Harpers and Counterpunch and someone's unpublished thesis. I have no objection to citing the leading legal experts in the area. It's only if you want to POV-push a fringe LaRouchian theory that you need to cite to Scott Horton's blog post on the Harper's web site. THF (talk) 16:01, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Sifting through the references

I've cut a bunch of references out of the footnotes, either because they were dead links, or blog material, and (most of all) because material did not mention the Unitary Executive Thoery and thus falls into the category of WP:SYNTH. However, I'd like to keep as much of the remaining footnote material as possible, so we can accurately characterize it and use it in an appropriate part of this article. That will be a lot of work, but it's doable. Of course, we can get other reputable suorces as well, but I don't think it would do any harm to make some further use of the ones that we have now.

The sections on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries don't even say anything about the unitary executive, so I'm inclined to just delete all of the chronological sections without deleting the cited sources. Then we can simply describe what the cited sources say about the UET.Ferrylodge (talk) 05:29, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm slowly getting this done. More left to do.Ferrylodge (talk) 17:36, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

It's not easy being a janitor. THF (talk) 17:45, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Almost done, but still some sweeping and mopping left.Ferrylodge (talk) 04:31, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Use of lists in citations

What is the thinking behind using lists in the citations? Take this reference for example

^ a b c d e f g h i Suggested interpretation of War Powers in the Bush administration

* The Unitary Executive: Is The Doctrine Behind the Bush Presidency Consistent with a Democratic State? By JENNIFER VAN BERGEN, Findlaw, January 09, 2006 * The President Does Not Know Best By Elizabeth de la Vega, Tomdispatch.com. Posted January 19, 2006 * How Much Authority Does the President Possess When He Is Acting as "Commander In Chief"? Evaluating President Bush's Claims Against a Key Supreme Court Executive Power Precedent By EDWARD LAZARUS, FindLaw, January 5, 2006 * George Bush's rough justice - The career of the latest supreme court nominee has been marked by his hatred of liberalism by Sidney Blumenthal, The Guardian, January 12, 2006 * Vice President Cheney and The Fight Over "Inherent" Presidential Powers: His Attempt to Swing the Pendulum Back Began Long Before 9/11By John W. Dean, FindLaw,February 10, 2006 * Konzentration der Macht - Sollten die Republikaner die Wahlen am 4. November gewinnen, gefährden sie mit ihren Kandidaten für den Obersten Gerichtshof letztlich die amerikanische Verfassung by Garry Wills, Süddeutschen Zeitung, October, 29, 2008.

Here we have 6 different citations cobbled together, including one in German and at least one editorial, that is sited 9 times in the article. This use of citation lists smacks of wp:syn, especially the use of editorials. Bonewah (talk) 19:33, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I would agree. Also, every similarly formatted citation list we've double-checked in this article was inappropriate WP:SYN, so, as an intelligent Bayesian, it would not suprise me one bit if this one turned out the same. And, as I've previously discussed, there's little reason to resort to op-eds to source this article when there is a wealth of substantive law review articles that have not even been cited. THF (talk) 19:50, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

So i took the time to read the Elizabeth de la Vega article and have come to the following conclusions: 1) This is an editorial. 2) Tomdispatch.com is not a reliable source for legal opinion. 3) The article does not seem to confirm any of the claims for which it is used as a citation. I am therefor, going to remove this citation from the list of citations. Bonewah (talk) 21:28, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Why was the bethlehem steel co vs truman and rulings against Lincoln during the civil war omitted?

Both cases ruled against the President and claims of absolute authority? Both were during wartime and invalidated the unitary executive claim, because if during war when the president is also the CiC and it aided the war efforts it was still found to be unconstitutional overstepping by the executive. If its not valid in those instances where it may have been necessary to have the executive have the power to help the country by using a "unitary executive" power it was stil found uncostitutional, then it is still unconstitutional any other time.

Remember the modern proponent of and advocate for the unitary executive theory was/is the infamous legal "scholar" John Yoo (who wrote and worked on the torture memos during Bush 2) who based his claim for the validity of the unitary by citing cases where the claim was rejected by the courts. Yoo claimed the "unitary executive" is a Constitutionally granted power. Yoo then cited court rulings against the unitary executive theory to support his claim that the theory is valid and the president could do anything including torture people. Look it up.

Shitty 1st year law school students wouldn't get away with that argument if they tried to pull that shit on one of their Professors.

All this wiki should be is:

The unitary executive theory is unconstitutional and has been ruled unconstitutional by numerous courts including the US supreme court. While many claim otherwise, the courts have not revised this ruling. Unitary executive theory is unconstitutional. Period. StillCrazy1 (talk) 17:20, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Need for some practical points on presidential limits

In practice the President does not have direct control over many agencies and activities even in the executive branch:

• agencies whose heads have fixed terms, notably those whose heads were confirmed under the president's predecessor
• military decisions in the field
• the civil service, protected by a distinct set of rules -- indeed, rather few federal government employees have an obligation to follow a President's instructions directly
• the Federal Reserve, SEC FCC, post office, and other agencies with a board or a private-public partnership

The article appears to distinguish the president's power in a theoretical way only from those of the other branches ; if that's the relevant distinction here let's at least clarify explicitly the scope of the discussion excludes those limits on presidential action listed just above. -- econterms (talk) 00:11, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

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Dana Nelson

An IP editor removed some content here that contained the following: "According to Dana Nelson, a professor of American studies at Vanderbilt University, "the theory of the unitary executive, first proposed under President Reagan, has been expanded since then by every president."[12]" and some text associated with it. I think this is a good edit for at least 3 reasons. 1) Dana Nelson does not appear to be an expert in this field. Her wikipedia bio lists her as an english professor, not any sort of scholar of executive power. 2) the attached citation here is plainly an editorial, not any kind of peer reviewed journal or fact checked news source and 3) we go on in the article itself to refute her claim, saying "n fact, the unitary executive was a matter of controversy long before the Reagan administration. For example, ..". Why are we including a claim by an non expert only to refute it in the next sentence. I am re-removing this passage. If there is disagreement, please explain it here. Thanks. Bonewah (talk) 18:36, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Notes on direct accountability of the members of the executive branch to We the People

Accountability of members of the government to We the People is a cornerstone of individual liberty in a free society with strong government. It should be evaluated as a reciprocal measure of a risk that the particularly organized government composed of particular individuals vested with particular powers is not directly accountable to We the People. Other metrics and considerations are of lesser deciding power while deliberating what permanent discretionary powers should particular segments of the government have.

There is this problem with the executive branch that, except for the Prez, no other member of it is elected by the voters. This strongly suggest that executive powers should be squarely vested with the Prez (who has been directly elected by the voters) and not with members of his administration (who were not elected). Such arrangement gives us the best chance that the Executive branch is de facto directly accountable to We the People and - therefore - has strong incentives to respect our individual rights and desires. On the other hand, permanently delegating substantial discretionary powers to unelected (and, perhaps, unremovable) bureaucrats will substantially diminish, if not eliminate, their accountability to We the People. Our individual liberties are not going to last long under such an arrangement as soon as the unaccountable bodies begin restricting our freedoms.

The above argument, in addition to other arguments presented in the main article, provides strong and logical rationale in support of the strong unitary executive theory.172.88.197.74 (talk) 08:04, 16 September 2020 (UTC)