MikeLigalig.com

The Politics of Executive Privilege

Louis Fisher, The Politics of Executive Privilege (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 2004), 272 pp.  Presidents and their advisers cite various legal principles when they withhold documents from Congress and refuse to allow executive officials to testify before congressional committees. Congress can marshal its own impressive list of legal citations to defend legislative access to information, even when Presidents assert executive privilege. These legal and constitutional principles, finely-honed as they might be, are often overridden by the politics of the moment and practical considerations. Efforts to discover enduring and enforceable norms in this area invariably fall short.

This book (individual chapters attached) explains the political settlements that decide most information disputes. Courts play a role, but it is a misconception to believe that handy cites from judicial opinions will win the day. Efforts to resolve interbranch disputes on purely legal grounds may have to give ground in the face of superior political muscle by a Congress determined to exercise the many coercive tools available to it. By the same token, a Congress that is internally divided or uncertain about its institutional powers, or unwilling to grind it out until the documents are delivered, will lose out in the quest for information. Moreover, both branches are at the mercy of political developments that can come around the corner without warning and tilt the advantage decisively to one side.

Source: The Politics of Executive Privilege

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=70324.0