Submit Your Questions for Richard Epstein and John Yoo
Troy Senik ·
Apr 2, 2011 at 10:16am
I'll be joining the Professors Epstein and Yoo for the Law Talk podcast once again in the middle of next week. We plan, of course, on revisiting their duel over executive power in wartime that recently dominated the virtual pages of Ricochet. But, as always, we're also on the lookout for the topics that you, the members, are interested in. We're nothing if not a customer-service oriented organization (we even wear nametags). So post your proposed interrogatories in the comments section and I'll happily take a few of them into the Ricochet University School of Law faculty lounge for this week's discussion.
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May '10
Re: Submit Your Questions for Richard Epstein and John Yoo
Here's my question.
May '10
Re: Submit Your Questions for Richard Epstein and John Yoo
If the Wisconsin Supreme Court might strike down Walker's roll-back of public sector unions on grounds that it was mishandled procedurally--not posting the law for 24 hrs or whatever--why not just pre-emptively conduct a do-over, this time humoring the Dems by following every courtesy?
Jul '10
Re: Submit Your Questions for Richard Epstein and John Yoo
In February, 2008, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, recommended in a speech at the Royal Courts of Justice, in the name of human rights, that Britain recognize Sharia law in Muslim dominated neighborhoods. How far advanced is this sort of thing really in Europe, and is the concern of some US states legislating against the adoption of Sharia codes justified? Is Sharia being snuck in via some international standards of justice principle?
Aug '10
Re: Submit Your Questions for Richard Epstein and John Yoo
According to my pocket copy of the Constitution, the Congress has the power to declare war. (But it's a dead tree document, I'm not sure what it says in the fancy Living version carried around by certain personages in black robes.)
Given our kinetic military whatever going on in Libya, and the very real possibility that we may get kinetic in Syria, Yemen, or various other hotbeds:
Does Congress have the Constitutional power to set up some kind of standing do-or-don't-declare war doctrine? Say, a list of criteria that pre-emptively limits situations in which the President is allowed to use military force, and exactly how much force? Or is the declaration of war a purely binary power, exercised at individual, concrete times?
May '10
Re: Submit Your Questions for Richard Epstein and John Yoo
I heard or read somewhere that Harry Truman had initiated the steps to declare war on North Korea in 1950, but was warned off by some Wise Man (Dean Acheson?) who explained to the President that the new era of nearly instantaneous intercontinental warfare required that he set a precedent for broad and unchallenged Presidential war powers. Is there any truth at all in this?
Edited on Apr 2, 2011 at 3:03pmMay '10
Re: Submit Your Questions for Richard Epstein and John Yoo
In terms of policy, would a plural executive in Washington operate more effectively than a unitary executive?
Jan '11
Re: Submit Your Questions for Richard Epstein and John Yoo
The Executive, with its Tsars, etc., is becoming incompatibly powerful. Is it in the power of the Executive to selectively enforce legislative mandates, as was and apparently remains the case under the Holder Justice Department? I’m thinking specifically of immigration law, and the recent decision to not prosecute what appeared to be a blatant violation of voting-rights laws by the New Black Panthers? What options are open to the legislative and judicial branches where there is strong evidence of dereliction of such duty?
Oct '10
Re: Submit Your Questions for Richard Epstein and John Yoo
I would be interested in your comments on one neglected aspect of the "birther" litigations which transcends the singular question of a presidential candidate's constitutional bona fides. The complaints have not been rejected on the merits, but on seemingly irresolvable issues of jurisdiction and venue, lack of standing, timing, or most significantly, lack of substantive harm which must be unique, not universal, and can only be established ex post facto.
Doesn't the lack of any venue for testing constitutionality before irreversible damage has occurred seem like a serious structural defect? Time and again, we see the devastating results -- from the Gulf oil moratorium to the Wisconsin circus. When Obamacare finally arrives at the Supreme Court, its bureaucratic cement will have long since set. Even if voided in whole or part, the cure will wreak incalculable havoc. Do you see any conceivable remedies which could be incorporated into our existing adversarial architecture?
It seems to me that we confront similarly disconcerting issues in the paradigm shifting transition from punitive, ex post facto, law enforcement to the preemption of crime, putatively confined to potential acts of terrorism -- for now. Our ad hoc approach, alas, leaves that ball in play too.
Jul '10
Re: Submit Your Questions for Richard Epstein and John Yoo
Scott Reusser: If the Wisconsin Supreme Court might strike down Walker's roll-back of public sector unions on grounds that it was mishandled procedurally--not posting the law for 24 hrs or whatever--why not just pre-emptively conduct a do-over, this time humoring the Dems by following every courtesy? · Apr 2 at 12:28pm
Actually, once the precedent is set and the standard retroactively changed by legislative fiat, the Republicans should be set with a stack of odiferous "progressive" legislation that did not meet the standard.
Sep '10
Re: Submit Your Questions for Richard Epstein and John Yoo
Much has been made of the problem of asymmetric risk on wall st where bankers believed their excessive risk taking would be bailed out by government intervention. All disputes in our system eventually seem to end up in the courts and the legal profession appears to me to have evolved into one in which lawyers are able to, in effect, obtain much of the gains from business decisions that they can obtain favorable rulings on and yet not participate in the downside when those decisions do not go their way since they are paid an hourly rate anyway. I do not mean to equate this situation with the bailouts but I do wonder if it is yet another distortion in the market place that leads to mis allocation of capital. Can anything be done about this?
Mar '11
Re: Submit Your Questions for Richard Epstein and John Yoo
I’d like Professors Epstein and Yoo to discuss the original intent of the authors of the Establishment Clause. Did they intend to prohibit the federal government from establishing a national religion, or did they intend to prohibit the federal government from interfering with the established religions in the states? Or something else, entirely?
May '10
Re: Submit Your Questions for Richard Epstein and John Yoo
Ask Professor Epstein if the shame of his lackluster performance in the NCAA tournament pool was ameliorated at all by looking at those whom he beat soundly.
Dec '10
Re: Submit Your Questions for Richard Epstein and John Yoo
Question: What could be the legal ramifications of this gunrunner deal? When did it start? Who all signed off on it? How many guns which years? And what will the legal/international ramifications be?
Are people who cooperated and/or took advantage being hung out to dry by the govt (linked here):
http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/crime/public-officials-tied-to-cartel-murders?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Here are some links re our Dept of Justice/ATF sending guns into Mexico, seemingly resulting in a huge slaughter down there (3,000 deaths just in Juarez, adjacent to El Paso, just in 2010).
" Agent Dodson and other sources say the gun walking strategy was approved all the way up to the Justice Department. The idea was to see where the guns ended up, build a big case and take down a cartel. And it was all kept secret from Mexico."
Watch:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/03/eveningnews/main20039031.shtml
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20040877-10391695.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7358389n
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m32E14g3nN0
Jun '10
Re: Submit Your Questions for Richard Epstein and John Yoo
I'd be curious to know which three Supreme Court decisions Professors Epstein and Yoo think are the most egregious from a constitutional perspective; which decisions they think have the weakest constitutional foundations.
Dec '10
Re: Submit Your Questions for Richard Epstein and John Yoo
On Monday March 28th the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus filed a lawsuit against the state of Georgia seeking to dissolve the charters of newly created towns that are disporportunately white compared to the surrounding counties. http://www.ajc.com/news/lawsuit-seeks-dissolution-of-888729.html The GLBC argues that the result is to dilute minority votes in these areas, violating the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the 14th and 15th amendments. I know these types of suits have been brought successfully to challenge redistricting. Could the same type of challenge prevail to dissolve the formation of a municipality if white flight were deemed a discriminatory purpose?