Constitutional Law I Outline

Constitutional Law Chapman Fall 2016
Introduction
Before the Constitution
The Constitution
Interpreting the Constitution
Alien and Sedition Acts
Separation of Powers
SEPARATION OF POWERS
(The written-ness of the constitution means that it tacitly reserves things from departments that it does not grant to those departments, e.g. it reserves legislative power from the President by not granting it –C)
ARTICLE I LEGISLATIVE POWER
The Distinction Between Legislative and Executive Power
The dividing line between legislative and executive power is not very clear, but very generally . . .
Legislative power is the power to make laws pursuant to the Constitution – the constitution spells out the legislative power in explicit terms in Article I, § 8
Executive power is the power to enforce laws enacted by Congress – the constitution only explicitly states a few executive powers (e.g., power to make treaties) and leaves the rest to be implied from the term “executive power”
Youngstown Sheet and Tube v. Sawyer
F: President Truman ordered the Secretary of Commerce to seize all and nationalize all U.S. steel mills in order to avert a strike by the mill-workers’ unions that would have crippled the industry in the middle of the Korean War. The steel companies sought an injunction to prevent the seizure.
H: The constitution gives the president the power to enforce laws that congress has made; it does not give the president the power to make laws
Executive power is limited to those powers conferred upon the President by . . . (i) by an act of Congress or (ii) the Constitution
The Truman administration usurped legislative power by seizing the steel mills in a manner inconsistent with the seizure statute.
Congressional action dictates the scope of executive power to act in certain areas:
Congress authorizes the President to act = the president has authority to act
President acts in the absence of any congressional grant or denial = congress and the president may have concurrent authority to act; it is a gray area
President acts in contradiction to the express or implied will of congress = raises a strong presumption that the president is acting outside the scope of his executive power and usurping the role of congress (Youngstown falls in this category b/c congress had expressly declined to include a seizure provision in the statute)
The Constitution does not grant the President the power to seize domestic steel mills in a situation like this (could be different if there was domestic insurrection)
The Take Care Clause did not authorize the seizure because the President was not executing any laws of the land; he was acting in contradiction of the statute
The Commander-in-Chief Clause did not authorize the seizure because the seizure of domestic still mills was too attenuated from the “theater of war”
 
Legislative Power
The Non-Delegation Principle
Fundamentals of the Non-Delegation Doctrine
No exclusively legislative powers (i.e., things only congress can do) may be delegated to other branches of government or private actors
The law works best when the making of law and the execution of law are divided –C
The non-delegation doctrine sounds in the Necessary and Proper Clause
The Post Roads Debate
I: A bill was proposed which would have given the president the power to determine where post roads would run. Is that an unconstitutional delegation of the legislative power “to establish post offices and post roads” to the president?
 
Mistretta v. United States (1989) – FOLLOWED REASONING IN MORRISON
RULE:
The Court (Blackmun) rejected both antidelegation and general separation-of-powers attacks on an unusually composed commission created to set federal guidelines for criminal sentences.
The commission would be independent; 7 voting members appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate; at least 3 federal judges; members were removable by President for good cause; Commission would establish mandatory ranges of permissible sentences for different offenses that federal judges would have to apply in sentencing
Congress here laid down an intelligible principle in which to follow and their delegation of authority to the President is constitutional.
Laid down principle again that the Framers did not intend for three branches to be entirely separate.
Justifies using Justice Jackson’s theory in Youngstown.
 
Bicameralism and Presentment
Article I, § 7: Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate (bicameralism), shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President of the U.S. (presentment)
The Framers put these procedural safeguards in place to circumscribe the power of the legislature, which was considered the most “dangerous” branch in terms of acquiring power
Exclusively legislative acts require bicameralism and presentment (strangely, we a different test to determine what constitutes an exclusively legislative act for the purposes of Art. I, § 7 than we use to determine what constitutes an exclusively legislative act for the purposes of the non-delegation doctrine –C)
The Legislative Veto
The weakening of the non-delegation doctrine and the growth of administrative agencies spawned the creation of the “legislativ