Jed H. Shugerman

I didn't clerk for Thomas or Scalia, or for that matter, any SCOTUS Justice.
And frankly, the way things are going, I sincerely appreciate this essay. I know many people won't think of it as courageous, but I've seen enough in the law school world to know that it is.

Bombshell! - Caleb Nelson, one of the most respected originalist scholars in the country, comes out against the unitary executive interpretation of Article II democracyproject.org/posts/must-a...

The same people who insisted devout Catholic Joe Biden was leading a “war on Christianity” are now cheering Trump on as his armed goons assault clergymen.

“Deportations like Sergio’s — to fixtures of the community — are making people think, ‘This could be me next, or my favorite place next, or somebody who I talk to every day’"

I think too many originalists cherry-pick from the First Congress, ignore overwhelming contrary evidence, and assume the First Congress is reliable evidence of original meaning.
@kexelchabot and I are both primarily fact-checkers who cautiously see some value from this evidence.

The Fate of Ophelia

Here’s the song- just the intro echoed the Police. 2/
open.spotify.com/track/53iuhJ...

Wrapped Around Your Finger - Remastered 2003

Taylor Swift “Fate of Ophelia” intro seems to be a riff on The Police’s reggae riff “Wrapped Around Your Finger.”
Nice. I wonder if there is a Shakespeare layer yo that.
Sting as Hamlet?
open.spotify.com/track/400ZJA...

emergency clause is open-ended, interpreters should emphasize context and purposes to give intelligible meaning and scope to the clause; and second, the means must fit the emergency ends. Congress expects emergency powers to be invoked when immediate action from the President is necessary to effectively respond to a disaster or crisis reached by the statute; Congress never intended emergency power provisions to aggrandize the reach of presidential power past the intended reach of a statute. Thus, when an emergency power is invoked, it should typically be permissible only if it does not conflict with statutory purpose. When a President invokes a statute to support action that does not align with—or runs directly contrary to—statutory purpose, that is evidence of an abuse of power. The language, legislative history, and historical context of a statute may shed light on its purpose. This approach would serve as a solution to both problems: First, it solves a longstanding problem in the in

"When a President invokes a statute to support action that does not align with—or runs directly contrary to—statutory purpose, that is evidence of an abuse of power."

- @jedshug.bsky.social

(We shouldn't need this reminder, but in these times...)

journals.law.harvard...

The MedBed of Trump:
Everyone magically fits, whether you’re too short or too tall.

Stop by our showroom — an ICE agent named Procrustes will make sure of it.

Sorry, this is the correct link to the Trump v. Cook amicus brief the SCOTUS site:
www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25...

SCOTUS link to amicus brief (Trump v. Cook) here:
www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25...

I filed an amicus brief in Trump v. Cook (the emergency appeal over the firing of Fed Governor Lisa Cook) with @democracyforward.org, who did amazing work editing & filing on a tight lightning docket schedule.

Special thanks to @janemanners.bsky.social
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Great piece and not just because of the @jedshug.bsky.social reference!

Trump has done more to establish a unitary executive than all the judges or legal scholars in the world could ever do.

And Trump has done more to discredit and expose the unitary executive theory as lawless authoritarianism than any judge or legal scholar could ever do.

Offices can be both property and have sureties. It was not either/or.
The transition was so gradual, no one has identified when or even if offices are no longer protected as a form of property.

Marshall says Marbury is unremovable three times.
In 1803.
Why?
Because protected offices were still property, as I have explained in many places and publications, building on Manners and Menand,

scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scho...

scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scho...

I've been writing against this nonsense for almost a decade:
scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scho...

The entire unitary project is bunk.
Ahistorical myth.
Anti-rule-of-law absurdity.
But there's debunked bunk, and then there's bunker bunk.
The Roberts Court won't admit error about the bunker bunk they've already decided, but will 5 Justices approve this round of authoritarianism?
I don't know.

1. The long-game. It took decades for "Lochner" to discredit itself & become the label for ideological pro-corporate judges.

2. The short-game. There is a non-zero chance that these escalating abuses could make 2 or 3 Justices think twice. They already tried (weakly) to carve out a Fed exception.

There should be a 12-syllable German word for this basic phenomenon

Trumpf Kampf?

a cartoon of donald trump and mike pence playing golf on showtime ALT: a cartoon of donald trump and mike pence playing golf on showtime

Echoes of Humpty Dumpty...

Trumpty Dumpty built a great unitary wall.
Trumpty Dumpty had a great unitary fall.
And all the King's originalists and all the King's crony officers
Couldn't put the unitary executive back together again.

Trump has done more to establish a unitary executive than all the judges or legal scholars in the world could ever do.

And Trump has done more to discredit and expose the unitary executive theory as lawless authoritarianism than any judge or legal scholar could ever do.

THE THREE PERMISSIONS:PRESIDENTIAL REMOVAL AND THE STATUTORY LIMITS OF AGENCY INDEPENDENCE - Columbia Law Review Introduction Independent agencies are government bodies whose leaders do not serve at the pleasure of the President or other government officials. Although independent agencies are common creatures in...

7/ And here is the article by @janemanners.bsky.social & @levmenand.bsky.social that the district court and the DC Circuit majority rightly relied upon:
THE THREE PERMISSIONS:
PRESIDENTIAL REMOVAL AND THE STATUTORY LIMITS OF AGENCY INDEPENDENCE
www.columbialawreview.org/content/the-...

6/ More here:
"Presidential Removal: The Marbury Problem and the Madison Solutions," building on the outstanding research of @janemanners.bsky.social & @levmenand.bsky.social:

scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scho...

The DC Circuit rejected Trump's attempt to remove Lisa Cook from the Fed in a 2-1 vote.

A key question: Do officers with "for cause" protections have a property interest?

The majority says yes.
🧵 Here's originalist evidence supporting that conclusion. 1/
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Read the article. I addressed that point.

5/ We also see the tradition of property-in-office in the First Congress's debates - the same debates that the unitary executive theorists claim to rely on.
Those debates contradict the unitary theory of removal, and they also endorse the kinds of legal protections & process that Lisa Cook claims