Inferior Officers

Claiming that originalism supports a unitary executive theory of presidential power and that such a theory justifies the President’s use of executive orders to combat climate change.

Proposing that Founding Era documents and debates point to the executive power as primarily giving the President the power to execute federal laws and to control governmental officers who execute federal law.

Examining the text of the Constitution, the theory of separation of powers, and the debates of the First Congress and concluding that the President may not dictate to agency heads substantive decisions entrusted to them by law.

Documenting the development of the unitary executive over the course of the first fifty years of the United States’ constitutional history.

Arguing that the historical record reveals that the Framers did not intend for the President to be a unitary executive.

Making a textual and historical case for the unitary executive theory.

Arguing that it is “plain myth” that the Framers intended to create a strongly unitary executive.

Providing a textualist and structuralist response to Michael Froomkin’s criticism of the author’s earlier article, The Structural Constitution, which suggested that the Executive Department is unitary and hierarchical.

Critiquing other scholars’ theories of executive power as overly formalistic.

Critiquing other scholars’ theories of executive power and offering an alternate structural theory about Congress’s ability to restrain the executive branch.

Arguing that the modern unitary executive theory does not comport with originalism.

Examining the text of Articles II and III and suggesting that 1) the Framers intended Congress to have limited congressional power to restructure the executive department and 2) theories of limited congressional jurisdiction-stripping power compel a unitary executive.

Arguing that originalism provides little support for the contention that congressional authorization of independent administrators is unconstitutional.