I recently participated in two podcasts on my scholarship:
(1) Podcast: An Originalist Defense of the Major Questions Doctrine
C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State, George Mason University, “Gray Matters” podcast series, available here. Here is the podcast description:
Adam White and Jace Lington chat with Law Professor Michael D. Ramsey about how originalists can defend the major questions doctrine as a substantive canon of interpretation. He examines post-ratification court practice and other substantive canons designed by judges to minimize the harms of judicial error when interpreting ambiguous statutes. Ramsey recently presented a paper on this subject at a Gray Center research roundtable.
The paper that the podcast discusses is available here.
(2) Podcast: Delegating War Power
The Lawfare Podcast, available here. Here is the podcast description:
There is much debate among academics and policy experts over the power the Constitution affords to the president and Congress to initiate military conflicts. But as Michael Ramsey and Matthew Waxman, law professors at the University of San Diego and Columbia, respectively, point out in a recent law review article, this focus misses the mark. In fact, the most salient constitutional war powers question—in our current era dominated by authorizations for the use of military force—is not whether the president has the unilateral authority to start large-scale conflicts. Rather, it is the scope of Congress’s authority to delegate its war-initiation power to the president. This question is particularly timely as the Supreme Court appears growingly skeptical of significant delegations of congressional power to the executive branch.
Matt Gluck, Research Fellow at Lawfare, spoke with Waxman and Ramsey about their article. They discussed the authors' findings about the history of war power delegations from the Founding era to the present, what these findings might mean if Congress takes a more assertive role in the war powers context, and why these constitutional questions matter if courts are likely to be hesitant to rule on war powers delegation questions.
The paper the podcast discusses (co-authored with Matthew Waxman) is available here, and is published at 96 Southern California Law Review 741 (2023).
Thanks to the Lawfare Blog and to the Gray Center for arranging these discussions.
Posted at 6:11 AM