Comments on: Five New OLC Opinions

By: Silverfish Control

Silverfish Control — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 19:55:04 +0000

This blog has so much Great information in it that i could spend all day reading it.

By: Mikee

Mikee — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:36:27 +0000

I certainly hope that laws no longer on the books are no longer used by the government, as in the very generous explanation of sentencing guidelines by this administration. Who, pray tell, in the Obama administration was still using a sentencing enhancement based upon a law that expired in 2004?

By: Assault Weapons Ban Truly Dead | Snowflakes in Hell

Assault Weapons Ban Truly Dead | Snowflakes in Hell — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:35:28 +0000

[...] The Obama Administration is taking the position that the now expired “assault weapons” ban can no longer be consi…. [...]

By: jackson

jackson — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 17:10:59 +0000

I served in a Department of Justice office that put most public documents on line within 24 hours, and all within 2 or 3 working days. The Department pays many people to perform this “administrative chore.”

By: babe

babe — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 23:50:50 +0000

“between one day (!) and eleven weeks” after signing is “roughly contemporaneous with their signing”?

i need to get a job with flexible deadlines like that…

“johnson! i want that report on my desk tomorrow… or within three months!!”

By: Tweets that mention The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » Five New OLC Opinions -- Topsy.com

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 19:11:23 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Sharon Lopez, Eugene Volokh. Eugene Volokh said: Five New OLC Opinions: On the day before Thanksgiving, the Office of Legal Counsel posted five new opinions on .. http://bit.ly/89A9Li [...]

By: Oren

Oren — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:33:13 +0000

ACORN deserves to be paid for work done before the funding cutoff, provided (no profiting from crime) that they broke no laws while doing it.

If they had a contract in which they relied, they deserve to finish them or be paid severance. It would be rather ironic if the government was not liable to the completion of contracts they have entered — excepting of course usual acts that break a contract such as failure to perform.

By: Eric Rasmusen

Eric Rasmusen — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 14:59:47 +0000

I think John Thacker is not saying it is unreasonable for the OLC always to support the President’s desires, but that it does so despite liberal pretence that the OLC is and ought to be an unbiased and semi-independent source of legal advice for him, rather than acting as part of his legal staff. (Take a look at the Clinton OLC opinion on whether a statute applies to executive branch employees as well as employees generally, if Congress didn’t expressly state that it does, for example.)

By: geokstr

geokstr — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 14:59:32 +0000

5.Guy says:
Didn’t the Framers expect each branch to advocate its own interest? I thought part of the idea was that the power grabs of the three branches would balance each other out.

One more SCOTUS appointment by this administration and the exact opposite may result – a non-stop reinforcement of power grabs, not from each other, but from the people they are supposed to represent.

By: Eric Rasmusen

Eric Rasmusen — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 14:55:45 +0000

Good post. The headlines mispresent the ACORN case, which seems to be about a technical issue (tho an important one). Am I right in thinking that if the government did breach the contract, ACORN could sue for breach? I suppose the question then would be whether the government can breach a contract if the contractor turns out to be commonly engaged in criminal activity or activity against public policy, even tho most of its operations are legal and it was otherwise fulfilling the contract.

More generally, if the government hires Apex Corp. to build a road and then discovers that Apex is owned 100% by the Mafia, even tho it builds good roads, and 1% of employee time is devoted to beating up competitors, can the government breach?

By: PersonFromPorlock

PersonFromPorlock — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 14:41:00 +0000

ACORN deserves to be paid for work done before the funding cutoff, provided (no profiting from crime) that they broke no laws while doing it. There seems to be a reasonable doubt about that.

By: Guy

Guy — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 13:08:17 +0000

John Thacker: So the Executive Branch decided that the President can remove someone at will, and decided that yet another Inspector General has no real power?New Administration, same old Executive Branch power grab.(And of course Administration-proposed law is always Constitutional.)One can generally safely assume that the OLC will argue whatever will increase the power of the Executive Branch and the President.

Didn't the Framers expect each branch to advocate its own interest? I thought part of the idea was that the power grabs of the three branches would balance each other out. All these determinations are, at least in theory, reviewable by the Courts. I'm not sure I really see this as cause for scorn. Then again, I agree that the Executive Branch is probably the one that has enjoyed the greatest increase in power relative to the other two branches.

By: Off Kilter

Off Kilter — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 12:37:08 +0000

To be fair, ST, JT’s comment was about the nature of the office (OLC), not about any abuse by the Obama administration. As such, you’d EXPECT all the precedents to support their action. The comment was about the tendency to aggregate power, not about a sudden administrative change. If JT has begun, “Following in the footsteps of every administration since Wilson…” it would not be responsive to comment “Well, they seem to be following precedent that can be traced as far back as the Wilson administration.”

By: Sebastian Tombs

Sebastian Tombs — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 08:15:29 +0000

John Thacker: So the Executive Branch decided that the President can remove someone at will, and decided that yet another Inspector General has no real power?New Administration, same old Executive Branch power grab.(And of course Administration-proposed law is always Constitutional.)One can generally safely assume that the OLC will argue whatever will increase the power of the Executive Branch and the President.

Really? Are you proposing we bring back the Tenure of Office Act? The arguments and citations in the opinion seem pretty plausible. Do you have any contrary precedents to cite?

By: John Thacker

John Thacker — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 06:09:04 +0000

So the Executive Branch decided that the President can remove someone at will, and decided that yet another Inspector General has no real power? New Administration, same old Executive Branch power grab. (And of course Administration-proposed law is always Constitutional.)

One can generally safely assume that the OLC will argue whatever will increase the power of the Executive Branch and the President.

By: rpt

rpt — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 06:00:50 +0000

Here we go on a thread the comments of which will no doubt focus on the threat to the Republic from payments to ACORN for contracts already performed.