The Justice Department's release of on Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion regarding President Obama's recess appointments power is a welcome display of public accountability. However one analyzes the bottom line, the opinion is a model of the genre. It is thorough in its analysis, candid about points...

For all the brouhaha surrounding President Obama's recess appointments this week of three new members for the National Labor Relations Board and of Richard Cordray to serve as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, what is most surprising - and most welcome from a constitutional perspective - is the...

I cannot say that my earlier suggestions for a pro-democracy constitutional amendment have ignited a firestorm of grassroots activity. They have, however, elicited enough email responses to prompt my attempt at a yet better-drafter version.

Members of Congress have already proposed a constitutional amendment to deal,...

The Occupy Wall Street movement has brought a level of energy and inspiration to participatory Left politics unseen since the 2008 Obama campaign and with, perhaps, yet more enduring potential.

Among admirers who are unfazed by the pathetic attempts at trivialization voiced by Republican politicians and their media propagandists, the...

In January, 2010, I proposed on this site a constitutional amendment that would enable our legislative bodies to rein in corporate influence over federal and state elections. If the American people are to retake their democracy, however, that authority must be combined with a federally protected right to...

When I started blogging occasionally for Huffington Post, I resolved to confine my use of this platform to issues on which my professional background in constitutional and administrative law would give me (and any readers I might have) the advantage of some actual expertise.

On this particular occasion, however, with...

Thanks to the debt ceiling deal no one liked, official Washington seems poised now to wait for a cumbersome congressional process to drag the country again through an extended spectacle of pathetic political gamesmanship. Critical points on the time line between now and January 1 include the end of the...

Our recent debt ceiling imbroglio revealed how little leverage presidents have to induce responsible behavior in a pathological Congress. Regarding the current FAA stalemate, however, the president has unambiguous authority to take one important step: he can cut short Congress's vacation. Article II, section 3 authorizes...

My Fellow Americans:

Today, for the first time in American history, the Congress of the United States has effectively prohibited the government from paying its bills. In the last 50 years, the debt ceiling has been raised 74 times, ten of those times since 2001. Those...

An obvious question, should Congress not manage to fend off default within the next two weeks, is: What does the president do then? If the president cannot pay off America's creditors and keep all government programs running, what legal authority does he have to deal with the crisis?

A little...

Given the long senatorial career of Vice President Joe Biden, it is not surprising that the President should assign him liaison duties with Congress on budget negotiations. What is puzzling is that the Administration has not appeared to take advantage of Biden with regard to two subjects about which he...

According to the United States Election Project at George Mason University, 132,645,504 Americans turned out to vote in the 2008 election, representing 61.6 per cent of the eligible voting population. Voters casting presidential ballots handed Barack Obama a 53 to 45 per cent win over John...

Today marks the formal debut of Information Stories, a series of twelve three-to-five-minute video narratives (plus an introduction and conclusion) that respond to two questions: What's at stake when local news and information flow doesn't serve all members of a community equally well? How can people respond?

Some...

A distinguished fellow law professor, Adam Winkler, has recently argued that the Obama Administration's decision not to defend the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is an abdication of the responsibilities of the presidential office:

For decades, presidents, Democrats and Republicans...

Now that the people of Egypt have successfully ended the Mubarak regime, I'm wondering if they are available for freelance work.

For example, I am thinking of a nation whose capital is home to over 600,000 people, none of whom are represented by a voting member of their national legislature....

It's wonderful that Members of the House of Representatives are preparing to hear a reading of the Constitution of the United States. I would enthusiastically echo the hopes of Dahlia Lithwick and Garrett Epps that close attention to such a performance might prompt at least some...

Charles Murray has had such a long career dressing up right-wing polemic as social science that his latest volley, a pander to Tea Party populism, should come as no surprise. In a Washington Post essay, he argues: "What sets the tea party apart from other observers...

Last Friday, Politico published a sober analysis of the congressional race in my home district -- Ohio's 15th. According to the reporter, our one-term Democratic incumbent, Mary Jo Kilroy, is struggling to hold on against a Republican challenger she narrowly beat in 2008.

The...

The Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy released its report, Informed Communities, a year ago with an exhortation for both "dialogue" and "action." Both are happening, and the Commission's report has helped. There are at least two reasons why.

The first is that...

I once read that the smartest smear tactic in politics is to accuse someone else of your worst fault. Hence, among the canards thrown at liberals, one I have especially hated is how the left is so elitist and condescending towards people who disagree with them.

In an especially pristine...