“Presidentialism and the Escalation of Executive Power"

The Annual Boston University Law Review Conference will take place this week on the topic “Presidentialism and the Escalation of Executive Power.”  It commences with a "pre-note" keynote at lunchtime on Wednesday, October 21: Cass Sunstein (Harvard Law), “History and Tribalism in Constitutional Law.”   Of the many panels, the following are of special interest to legal historians:

Thursday, October 22: 4:20-6:20pm Big-Picture on the Rise of Presidentialism
Ashraf Ahmed (Columbia), “Justifying the Presidency?”
Joshua Macey (Yale) and Brian Richardson (Cornell), “Separation-of-powers Formalisms”
Bijal Shah (Boston College), “The Deeper State”
Diego Zambrano (Stanford) & Mila Versteeg (Virginia),“Great Expectations: How to Restore the Rule of Law”
Guy-Uriel Charles (Harvard), commentator
Steve Koh (BU), chair

Saturday, Oct. 24: 11:20-12:40  Democracy and Rule of Law
Aziz Huq (Chicago) (paper w/ Tom Ginsburg), “Exhuming the Impetuous Vortex”
Robert Tsai (BU) “The Judge’s Dilemma in a Populist Age”
Matthew Segal & Nellie Conover-Crockett (ACLU),“Is the Westfall Act unconstitutional? Rethinking state sovereignty and converse-1983 statutes.”
Jim Fleming (BU), chair and commentator

1:00-2:20 pm 20th Century Rise of Presidentialism
Jane Manners (Fordham),“The Anti-Unitary Roots of Nondelegation: Schechter/Humphrey’s”
Rafi Stern (BU), “Was the APA a Grand Compromise?”
Andrea Scoseria Katz (Washington U.),”How to Build a President: Executive Branch Lawyering, Social Movements, and the Constitutional Construction of the Unitary Executive, from Nixon to Roberts.”
Andrew Kent (Fordham), “The Expansive Executive Power Clause”
Noah Rosenblum (NYU), commentator
Nicholas Parrillo (Yale), commentator

--Dan Ernst