Unitary Executive

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Essay
Introduction
Deborah Malamud
Kenyon College, B.A. 2017; The University of Chicago Law School, J.D. 2021.

She thanks the authors for their contributions to the series.

Speaking on Chevron deference at Duke University School of Law in 1989, Justice Antonin Scalia told the audience to “lean back, clutch the sides of your chairs, and steel yourselves for a pretty dull lecture.” Perhaps he would have withheld his cynicism if he could have seen the Supreme Court’s administrative-law rulings in the past year.

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Essay
Of Angels, Pins, and For-Cause Removal: A Requiem for the Passive Virtues
Jerry L. Mashaw
Jerry L. Mashaw is Sterling Professor Emeritus and Professorial Lecturer at the Yale Law School.

This Essay concerns a constitutional puzzle, the puzzle of for-cause removal. For a century the Supreme Court has been attempting to answer a simple question: when is it constitutional for Congress to provide that an agency head or lower official can be removed only for cause?

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Conservative Minimalism and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Jonathan H. Adler
Jonathan H. Adler is the Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and the Director of the Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law at Case Western Reserve University School of Law.

Chief Justice John Roberts mystified and frustrated court watchers with his opinions in the closing weeks of the Supreme Court’s October 2019 term.

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Essay
Kendall v. United States and the Inspector General Dilemma
Daniel Epstein
Daniel Epstein is the Vice President for Legal and Policy at Trust Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on startups facing regulatory barriers. He is also a PhD candidate in administrative law and empirical methods at George Washington University. Prior to Trust Ventures, Dan served as Senior Associate Counsel and Special Assistant to the President in the White House, from inauguration until March 2020. Dan is currently a pending nominee for the United States Court of Federal Claims.

In a span of less than two months, President Donald Trump removed or replaced multiple inspectors general (“IGs”)—statutorily authorized watchdogs within federal agencies.