The Imperial Presidency?

President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama entered office with radically different conceptions of executive power, particularly with regard to war powers and national security, and the coming year will see the election of a new president. The Bush Administration claimed sweeping unilateral executive power to act contrary to federal laws that regulated surveillance and banned torture, and issued hundreds of signing statements asserting the right to disregard statutory requirements. President Obama entered office rejecting this overreach and pledging to restore the rule of law. But in the face of congressional obstruction, President Obama also has been accused of abusing presidential power in the contexts of immigration, health care, climate change, and recess appointments. When the next president takes office in January 2017, what view of executive power will and should prevail, and what is at stake for the nation?

Speakers -

Charlie Savage (moderator), Washington Correspondent, The New York Times
Walter Dellinger, Partner, O’Melveny & Myers Martin Lederman, Associate Professor of Law,
Georgetown University Law Center
Saikrishna Prakash, James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law and Horace W. Goldsmith Research Professor, University of Virginia School of Law
Neomi Rao, Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Center for the Study of the Administrative State, George Mason University School of Law
Hina Shamsi, Director, ACLU National Security Project