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In American law, unitary executive theory is "an expansive interpretation of presidential power that aims to centralize greater control over the government in the White House."
The Unitary Executive Theory (UET) is a Constitutional law theory that states the President of the United States possesses sole authority over the Executive Branch. UET supporters believe the theory originated during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in the Virginia Plan .
I. A Bracingly Simple Idea. It is a bracingly simple idea. Article II, section 1 of the U.S. Constitution vests the executive power in “a president of the United States.” Those words do not seem ambiguous. Under the Constitution, the President, and no one else, has executive power.
Sep 17, 2019 · Unitary Executive Theory. Under the George W. Bush administration's interpretation of the unitary executive theory, the president has authority over members of the executive branch. He functions as a CEO or Commander-in-Chief, and his power is restricted only by the U.S. Constitution as interpreted by the judiciary.
Unitary executive theory is the concept that the president controls the entire executive branch of the American government. While the executive branch officials can advise presidents and criticize their decisions, they cannot overrule them.
Jun 19, 2023 · Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf comments on the so-called “unitary executive theory” and explains why it seems to form the basis for the extreme positions of conservative Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Jan 24, 2017 · In the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in the 1980s, “unitary” meant unitary, as in e pluribus unum. When Deputy Assistant Attorney General Samuel Alito and his colleagues in OLC used the phrase “unitary executive,” they used “unitary” to convey two kinds of oneness.
Cass R. Sunstein & Adrian Vermeule, The Unitary Executive: Past, Present, Future, 2020 Sup. Ct. Rev. 83 (2021). Abstract: Under the U.S. Constitution, is the executive branch unitary, and if so, in what sense?
A theory of the unitary executive brings together into an integrated, overarch- ing account ideas, cases, and practices that earlier were as a matter of legal “consciousness” understood to deal with discrete topics. Impor- tantly, the theory will be only partly integrated as it develops.
Britain at the time of the Framing, proponents of the “unitary executive” theory of the presidency have long contended that the powers to remove and direct all executive-branch officials are inherent components of the “executive Power” vested in the President by Article II of the Constitution.
