Matthew C. Stephenson
Can the President Appoint Principal Executive Officers Without a Senate Confirmation Vote?
122 Yale L.J. 940 (2013). It is generally assumed that the Constitution requires the Senate to vote to confirm the President’s nominees to principal federal offices. This Essay argues, to the contrary, that when the President nominates an individual to a principal executive branch position, the Senate’s failure to act on the nomination within a reasonable period of time can...
The Price of Public Action: Constitutional Doctrine and the Judicial Manipulation of Legislative Enactment Costs
118 Yale L.J. 2 (2008). This Article argues that courts can, and often should, implement constitutional guarantees by crafting doctrines that raise the costs to government decisionmakers of enacting constitutionally problematic policies. This indirect approach may implement a kind of implicit balancing of interests, in which the damage to constitutional values is weighed against the strength of the government’s interest...