Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2016
Abstract
Scholars, lawyers, and, indeed, the public at large increasingly worry about what purposive presidential inaction in enforcing statutory programs means for the rule of law and how such discretionary inaction can fit within a constitutional structure that compels Presidents to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." Yet those who have recognized the problem have been hesitant to assign a role for the court in policing the constitutional limits they articulate, mostly because of the strain on judicial capacity that any formulation of Take Care Clause review would cause. In this Article, I argue that courts still can and do constrain presidential nonenforcement discretion, and that they are far better situated to do so when they operate under the rubric of conventional administrative law. Often caricatured as categorically deferential to questions of enforcement discretion, the law of agency inaction is in fact nimble enough to constrain the most egregious instances of executive overreach in nonenforcement, and unique doctrinal features, such as the doctrine of finality, give courts a safety valve to control strains on judicial capacity.
Keywords
Administrative law, constitutional law, executive power, agency enforcement discretion, federal courts, Heckler v. Chaney, Presidency, separation of powers
Publication Title
University of Pennsylvania Law Review
Repository Citation
Walters, Daniel E., "The Judicial Role in Constraining Presidential Nonenforcement Discretion: The Virtues of an APA Approach" (2016). All Faculty Scholarship. 1699.
https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/faculty_scholarship/1699
Included in
Administrative Law Commons, American Politics Commons, Constitutional Law Commons, Courts Commons, Law and Politics Commons, President/Executive Department Commons, Public Administration Commons, Public Law and Legal Theory Commons, Public Policy Commons
Publication Citation
164 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1911 (2016).