Mar
26
Who Lays Down the Law? Congress, the President, or Someone Else?
5:00 PM -6:30 PM
Littlefield Home
Who Lays Down the Law? Congress, the President, or Someone Else?
Dr. James Stoner will discuss the role of executive orders (EOs) in enacting federal policy. The Constitution says that the legislative powers granted to the federal government are vested in Congress, but in recent years, presidents have taken to issuing EOs to implement their policy agenda when Congress would not act as they wish or as quickly as they wish. Is this a legitimate possibility under the Constitution, and if so, in what circumstances? When is it better policy to resort to an EO, and when is it better to push for legislation? How do the courts respond to executive orders as compared to statutes? All things considered, do the American people, through their representatives, lay down the law?
About James Stoner
James Stoner is the Hermann Moyse, Jr. Professor and Director of the Eric Voegelin Institute in the Department of Political Science at Louisiana State University. With research interests in political theory, English common law, and American Constitutionalism, Dr. Stoner is the author of Common Law and Liberal Theory: Coke, Hobbes, and the Origins of American Constitutionalism (1994) and Common-Law Liberty: Rethinking American Constitutionalism (2003). He has also co-edited a number of books on political theory and education, including Free Speech and Intellectual Diversity in Higher Education (2023) and The Political Thought of the Civil War (2018) with Alan Levine and Thomas W. Merrill.
