At Volokh Conspiracy, Ilya Somin: Obama’s constitutional legacy. From the introduction:
Obama deserves credit for helping to push the struggle for same-sex marriage to a successful conclusion, for appointing some highly capable judges (despite flaws in their judicial philosophy), and for causing the Supreme Court to establish some valuable precedents protecting federalism, property rights, and religious freedom (albeit, often unintentionally). On the other hand, we may well have occasion to rue his overly expansive approach to executive power, particularly when it comes to initiating wars without congressional authorization.
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Perhaps the most important constitutional legacy of the Obama administration is one that does not get nearly as much attention as it deserves: by starting two wars without the constitutionally required congressional authorization, Obama established dangerous precedents that can be used by Donald Trump and other potentially unscrupulous successors. In the case of both the 2011 war against Libya and the still-ongoing war against ISIS, Obama relied on flimsy legal pretexts to to initiate wars.
Although Professor Somin and I generally agree on war powers, I have a somewhat more optimistic view of President Obama's war powers legacy — see here: Constitutional War Initiation and the Obama Presidency.
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Posted at 6:53 AM