Robert Black

@hurricanexyz.bsky.social

15K followers 460 following 57K posts

Constitutional scholar, general law nerd, Izzet mage, bear lover, Mets fan.
Trans rights are constitutional rights!
Uphold Yang Wenli Thought
He/him
https://www.eveningconstitutional.net

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Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · Jun 3

I have an announcement!!

Introducing a new project at The Evening Constitutional: Constitutional Perspectives!

This is a series of explanatory essays aiming to be of use for readers with any level of prior knowledge of constitutional law

eveningconstitutional.net/introducing-...

Introducing: Constitutional Perspectives!

Announcing a new project here at The Evening Constitutional! As I wrote shortly after last November's election, one of my ambitions for this site is to create a library of materials explaining Americ...

eveningconstitutional.net

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 57m

When they're at odds? Well, yeah, the Constitution has some specific rules for who wins (mostly Congress)

But that's not meant to be the normal state of affairs

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 59m

This FYI is I think the basic structural impulse being Robert Jackson's account of presidential power!

Quite obviously, Congress and the president are meant to work TOGETHER to instantiate the will of the People

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 1h

to quote myself on this

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 1h

Literally every single one of your ancestors did it, buddy! Definition of a skill issue!!

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 1h

Also kind of explains why the four original cabinet departments feel a little different from everything subsequent. They're all about powers that personally belong to the president, he's entitled to exercise discretion and judgment and therefore to ensure his lieutenants are likeminded

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 1h

Also I was about to say that there's a kernel of sense in the idea that the Take Care Clause necessarily implies a power to supervise the whole government to ensure everyone else is faithfully executing the laws, too

But, come to think of it.... that runs no further than removing folks for cause??

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 1h

Again I feel like it's relevant that we're having these discussions in the shadow of a president that we all know could not possibly comprehend the notion of faithfully executing the will of another if his life depended on it

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 3h

it is actually kind of bananas how unitary executive theorists have taken a straightforward clause requiring the president to "faithfully execute the laws" and transformed it into a grant for the exercise of limitless unenumerated power.

Anthony Michael Kreis @anthonymkreis.bsky.social · 1d

The Take Care Clause was a byproduct of the lessons learned from the Glorious Revolution that the executive should not be able to dispense with the law promulgated by the legislature. It was not a constitutional provision to empower the executive branch— but to constrain it!

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 1h

Lmao

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 1h

Also seem to think women won't get a vote on... whether to abolish votes for women???

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 1h

J/k he knew

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 1h

Gee, someone should've told him that in 2010 huh???

Reposted by Robert Black

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 1h

to quote myself on this

$In truth, neither Congress nor the executive can claim to represent the undivided will of the American people. It is arguable whether such a thing even exists in the American system, as the public is not a single entity but an ever-shifting set of groups and interests. Congress represents the American people in their diverse and fractious unity, and the president represents a will of some of the people, briefly assembled for a fleeting purpose, to dissipate until it forms anew in the next election. It is simply a conceptual error to think of democratic legitimacy as a grant embedded in a single person. It’s better to see it as a relationship between our political institutions and the publics they serve, each responsive to the other as they work together to do the business of government.$

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 1h

Schmittian constitutionalism supplanting Madisonian

Reposted by Robert Black, James Goodwin, Brian Keegan

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 3h

Anthony Michael Kreis @anthonymkreis.bsky.social · 1d

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 11h

Lmao exactly

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 11h

There's a reason I keep saying that the People have abandoned their Constitution

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 11h

Yeah no it's

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 11h

A house divided against itself cannot stand..... therefore we're gonna stop being divided against ourselves, goddamn it

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 11h

(Uhhhhh, constitutionally in the non- legal sense of the word, haha)

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 11h

Gosh, I sure hope the president isn't somehow constitutionally incapable of swearing a meaningful oath!

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 11h

Gee I wonder how the Founders would have reacted to "the president imposed new levies by fiat, and then, he disbursed the money to some of his supporters, also by fiat!"

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 11h

This does seem to be basically the concept

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 11h

They thought the president couldn't veto on policy grounds!

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 11h

Oh yeah it's insane

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 11h

I think I would word like every element of that sentence slightly differently haha, but also yeah you're not wrong

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 11h

I actually don't think so! Memory of a goldfish and all

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 11h

I mean, sort of

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 11h

Kind of like how, in some border disputes, one side is a democracy and the other isn't, any time we're fighting about "can X be brought under Trump's control?" we're asking whether it can be made the plaything of a tyrant and a usurper, rather than a creature of public law

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 11h

Of course LEGALLY it's immaterial that the guy right now is a tyrant and a usurper. On the assumption he's the lawful president, well, he has the same powers any other president would have, no more, no less

And yet...

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 11h

I mean, legitimate medical exemptions exist, there's no reason to ignore those, but yes, outside that very narrow context it should just be a pure Leviathan issue

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 11h

There's a debate about to what degree presidential elections ought to be a means of controlling the direction of the administrative state

This isn't that, not anymore. The thing we're arguing over now is the Fuhrerprinzip

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