Syllabus: Law and the Presidency
Professor: Peter M. Shane

Requirements:
The Law and the Presidency Seminar will meet 12 times, twice in January and ten times weekly, starting on February 24.. In addition, seminar members will meet individually and by appointment with Professor Shane on three occasions -- once to review a paper topic, once to review the outline of the paper, and once to review the initial paper draft. An unexcused failure to attend any regularly scheduled seminar session will constitute withdrawal from the seminar.

The first two group meetings will provide seminar members sufficient background in separation of powers analysis to facilitate research. After meeting with Professor Shane to discuss his or research topic, each student will then be required to prepare a tentative outline and a research bibliography, which must reach Professor Shane no later than February 12. Professor Shane will meet with seminar members to discuss these materials on February 23 and 24. Students will then have until March 17 to complete a first draft of their papers.

The first drafts will be photocopied and shared with the entire group. The last four sessions of the seminar will be devoted to half-hour presentations of the papers - three or four per week. Each student will be assigned another student's paper to present -- with the student writer then available to add to or correct anything the presenter has said about his/her paper. Students will be expected to offer questions and comments on everyone else's papers.

The schedule for writing and research is as follows:

	January 20	Deadline for choosing topics. Each seminar member must meet with Professor Shane by appointment on January 19 or January 20 for topic approval.
	February 12	Deadline to submit tentative outline and bibliography. This material must reach Professor Shane no later than February 12, whether by fax, mail, or e-mail. Failure without previous excuse to miss this deadline will result in mandatory withdrawal from the seminar.
	February 23-24	Each seminar member must meet with Professor Shane by appointment to review the tentative outline and bibliography.
	March 17	First drafts of papers to be submitted to Professor Shane. Failure without previous excuse to miss this deadline will result in mandatory withdrawal from the seminar.
	April 1	Professor Shane will return first drafts to seminar members, and copies of the drafts will be distributed to all seminar members.
	April 7-28	Oral presentations of the seminar papers. Each author will meet with Professor Shane to discuss his or her draft the day prior to its presentation.
	May 7	Final drafts of papers to be submitted to Professor Shane. Failure without previous excuse to miss this deadline will result in automatic reduction of one full grade in the overall seminar grade for each day late.

Grading:
To receive credit for the seminar, a student (unless previously excused by Professor Shane for exceptional cause) must (a) attend every seminar session and (b) meet the prescribed deadlines for the outline and bibliography and for the first draft. Otherwise, if the final seminar paper is submitted by the prescribed deadline, the seminar grade shall be computed as follows:

10 per cent: Evaluation of outline and bibliography in seminar sessions (students will get all available credit as long as their comments do not reveal an utter failure to prepare the assigned readings for each session)
10 per cent: Presentation of colleague's seminar paper
25 per cent: Evaluation of first draft of paper
45 per cent: Evaluation of final draft of paper.

If the final seminar paper is submitted late, there shall be a one-grade reduction for every day the paper is late.


The required text is:
Peter M. Shane and Harold H. Bruff, Separation of Powers Law (1996).

Class	Topic	Key Cases	Readings
1	Background I: The President's capacity for independent initiative	Midwest Oil Youngstown Curtiss-Wright	51-81 586-601
2	Background II: The capacity of other branches to hold the Executive to account	Nixon v. Fitzgerald Harlow & Butterfield Mitchell v. Forsyth Jones v. Clinton Nixon v. GSA	264-285 337-344 Handout # 1
3	Hot Issue # 1: Appointments and Removals, or, How Did We Get an Independent Counsel?	IBuckley v. Valeo Humphrey's Executor Bowsher v. Synar Morrison v. Olson	379-390 419-438 441-464
4	Hot issue # 2: Executive privilege, or, when may the President withhold information from Court or Congress?	U.S. v. Nixon In re: Sealed Case In re: Lindsey	293-302 318-337 Handout # 2
5	Hot issue # 3: Impeachment, or, on what grounds may Congress remove a President?	Nixon v. US	219-242 Handout #3
6	Hot issue # 4: Interbranch relations, or, to what extent may Congress delegate policymaking power to the President or supervise any power it delegates?	Mistretta v. US INS v. Chadha Clinton v. New York	110-130 160-179 Handout #4
7	Hot issue # 5: Foreign Affairs, or, to what extent may Congress regulate the President's capacity to guide our external relations?	Dames & Moore v. Regan	633-636 644-660 711-724
8	Hot issue # 6, War powers, or to what extent may the President unilaterally commit US forces to military action abroad?	The Prize Cases Dellums v. Bush Ange v. Bush	760-771 796-801 817-839
9	Presentation of papers
10	Presentation of papers
11	Presentation of papers
12	Presentation of papers