An expert on Watergate says that today’s House Republicans have taken precisely the opposite position than the GOP took in 1974 on the president’s power to withhold documents from Congress.
The impeachment vote is the latest, and most extreme, example of a power struggle between the executive branch and Congress that has existed since George Washington was president.
The Trump administration has once again tried to change immigration law, this time enacting severe limits on the rights of asylum-seekers. An immigration law expert says only Congress can do that.
President Trump has invoked executive privilege to stymie congressional investigators. Another president, Richard Nixon, did the same thing. It helped Nixon hold onto power – but only for a while.
The constitutional conflict between Congress and President Trump over his emergency declaration has potential to undermine centuries of checks and balances between the two branches of government.
Will the public ever see a report from Robert Mueller’s investigation of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia? Maybe not. There are big legal hurdles to making it public.
After the recent government shutdown and breakdowns in functioning within all three branches, it looks like the separation of powers system is broken or unbalanced. It is – and it isn’t.
Under new WA legislation, the state’s attorney-general has the power to order serial killers and mass murders remain in jail, sometimes without judicial review.
A motion of no confidence - secret or open - in South Africa’s president will be destabilising. There’s value in ensuring that such a hefty decision is made openly and with courage of conviction.
Laws play their role in regulating our governments, but so does our own respect for political conventions. And the way these are upheld goes to the heart of our freedom as democratic people.