The Supreme Court’s Contribution to the Confrontation Over Emergency Powers - Lawfare
Article Title: The Supreme Court’s Contribution to the Confrontation Over Emergency Powers
Source: Lawfare
Date of Publication: 19 February 2019
Author: Richard H. Pildes
How to Cite: Pildes, R. (2019). The Supreme Court’s Contribution Over Emergency Powers. Lawfare, https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/supreme-courts-contribution-confrontation-over-emergency-powers
Introduction: Three significant questions behind President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency to build a border wall during his first term have a single, surprising answer: Why did Congress in the National Emergencies Act (NEA) of 1976 delegate such broad and vague power to the president to declare national emergencies? Why wasn’t Congress more specific in defining the circumstances that constitute a national emergency? And why are the courts now going to have the final word in determining whether the president has properly invoked or abused the power the NEA gives him?
The answer to all these questions lies in a 1983 Supreme Court decision, INS v. Chadha. That decision, rightly or wrongly, decimated the policy scheme Congress had created for overseeing the president’s declaration of emergency powers—and nearly 200 other federal statutes in which Congress since the 1930s had created a similar scheme.
The full text of the article is available on Lawfare’s website, here.
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