"The Unitary Executive" Is There a Constitutional Lawyer in the House?

This doctrine has come up today in Alito's hearings, he seems to subscribe to it, and I would like to be part of a discussion about it with a lawyer who knows his way around the Constitution. Google it. It seems like dogsqueeze to me from start to finish.

Be back.

seems to be making these things up.

Unitary Executive? Sheesh.

Unitary Executive theory, in its strict definition, states that the American Constitution created a unitary executive branch which is led by the President of the United States, and therefore no part of the branch can sue another part because "the executive cannot sue himself"; moreover, if the judicial branch were to adjudicate disputes between executive agencies, it would violate the doctrine of separation of powers.

U.S. courts have not ruled on the theory, but the Justice Department has adopted it and used it to decide that the Environmental Protection Agency may not bring a legal suit against the U.S. military, since there would be only one party in the suit: the president. As a result of this, the EPA must rely upon negotiated agreements with other federal agencies, and thus has less power to enforce regulations on them than it does over private enterprises.

View of the George W. Bush Administration

In November 2000, U.S. appeals court judge Samuel Alito gave a speech before the Federalist Society laying out this view: "The Constitution makes the president the head of the executive branch, but it does more than that.... The president has not just some executive powers, but the executive power—the whole thing." (The Wall Street Journal, 5 January 2006, p. 1.)

======

The Wiki article has a link to a pdf of a book chapter: "Chapter Two—The Unitary Executive" Christopher S. Kelley, Miami University

Alito was asked about this during today's confirmation hearings ... he tried to differentiate between the President's authority over the entire "executive branch", i.e. unitary authority, versus the "scope" of his authority which is one of checks and balances among the three branches of government ...

Unitary Executive Theory

During the Alito hearing the term "Unitary Executive" was mentioned and it prompted me to research the term. The Bush administration contends this theory (and it is a theory) is what gives the President absolute power and the ability to disregard laws enacted by Congress and to operate without any judical oversight. I urge everyone to visit this link and absorb the underlying doctrine of the Bush administration.

http://www.users.muohio.edu

Samuel Alito in a 2001 appearance before the conservative Federalist Society, he said he continued to believe in the idea of the "unitary executive." That concept holds that the Constitution gives the president all federal executive power, and means Congress likely could not grant agency heads powers outside the president's reach.

welcome to DU, HeatherDawn!!

thanks for the info ... fyi, i got an error message trying to access the link you provided ... here was the error:

Can't locate it. Just get the U of Miami homepage and no clear info about this.

Alito said he agreed with the concept of control (that the head of the executive branch can control the executive branch) but that the scope had to be decided (that is, who falls under his control).

So, he didn't really say Bush could have powers over all executive agencies (I believe the original question had more to do with the "independent" agencies); Alito said he believed in the control portion but what had to be decided was the scope (and he didn't think everything was automatically in scope).

Sorry about the link being a dead end...Here's the link again, hopefully the right one

http://www.users.muohio.edu/kelleycs/paper.pdf

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

It doesn't take a constitutional lawyer to get to that conclusion. "Unitary executive" are just weasel words for "The President is not only above the law, but the law itself."

Just get someone to write a memo saying that they think the president has the right to do whatever he wants - torture, invade, turn the entire federal bureaucracy into a focus group. Spy. Put protesters into pens. Arrest people secretly and deny them legal representation... They are definitely talking about a principle that doesn't require a constitutional lawyer. This president can do whatever he wants because 911 changed everything. The rest is window dressing.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x97122

:hi: :patriot: