Molly Nixon

The $1.776 billion taken out of the general fund raises A LOT of legal questions. Listen to tomorrow's Advisory Opinions podcast for a full rundown but here's a thread to get us started...

@VecchTweets @baseballcrank If an optimistic tone was detected, it may have more to do with the good nature of the reader :) But at least we now have bipartisan expressions of concern that there IS a problem with the practice, if not each exercise of it.

@mollyretweets @baseballcrank I'm very put out by the optimistic tone of your last sentence! This cloud is lined with cloud.

It's fair to say the Anti-Weaponization Fund is worse than its precedents, for a few reasons, but putting it in context-as @baseballcrank does-helps clarify the scope of the problem. And that can lead to institutional solutions (Congress) beyond just putting a new guy at the top.

@rparloff Interestingly, I think this would violate the spirit (maybe not the letter) of the Stop Settlement Slush Funds Act of 2016. Several current members of the administration voted aye: congress.gov/bill/114th-con…

Trump apparently trying to get out from under any potential judicial supervision of his proposed $1.776 B slush fund settlement of Trump v IRS.

"[T]he appropriations process flips the usual burden of inertia against presidential unilateralism and forces Congress to take a politically harder vote and assume a bit more responsibility for the conflict. This is a dim, but only dim, version of the Founders’ design." open.substack.com/pub/executivef…

"[T]he War Powers Resolution may yet serve as a limited constraint on the executive branch’s use of military force, in manners that may complicate the Trump administration’s attempts to close out the war on terms of its own choosing," writes @S_R_Anders.

In 100 years, I think Americans will laugh at how much dirt women put on their faces each day. And how much money they spent on the dirt and the stuff they needed to wash off the dirt.

Thanks to @whignewtons and @AdvOpinions for flagging this exceptional (unfortunately) speech from SC Senator Massey: youtube.com/watch?v=YGJJx1…

It was a pleasure to be on the @AdLawCenter podcast, where we discussed my work on the President’s role in the lawmaking process. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gra…

A president can violate the Constitution in two ways: by taking powers he doesn’t have or by abusing powers he does. The second is harder to stop. Courts struggle to police it, so Congress and voters must step up, says Cato’s Molly Nixon. ow.ly/QBNP50YXNPp

I think a lot about how we're none too sure--250 years into this thing--what the Constitution vests in the president with the words "executive power." "How did Washington see it?" is probably a good place to start any answer. open.substack.com/pub/chkbal/p/a…

I read a lot about the founding and still learned a ton from this book excerpt from @TimothySandefur

Remember the concern over the "Independent State Legislature" theory from three years ago? That theory essentially held that state legislatures had the final say on the regulation of congressional elections, not subject to any limits set by the state constitution or state courts. The Supreme Court rejected that theory in Moore v. Harper. But SCOTUS left open a narrow window for potential federal-court review of state-court judgments on state law relating to congressional elections, in cases where state courts "transgress the ordinary bounds of judicial review such that they arrogate to themselves the power vested in state legislatures to regulate federal elections." At the time, this caveat in the Court's opinion was treated with skepticism by many opponents of the ISL theory, who worried that SCOTUS had left the door open a crack for state legislatures to evade state constitutions. So it is somewhat ironic now to see this exact passage being cited approvingly by the Virginia legislature in an attempt to ask SCOTUS to overrule a state supreme court's interpretation of a state constitution.

SPI is holding its second annual Separation of Powers Bootcamp this August at @CathULaw in DC. Graduating 3Ls and recent grads from all law schools are encouraged to apply by May 29th: spi.law.edu/bootcamp/

Everyone follow @mollyretweets: thehill.com/opinion/financ…

On the @CatoInstitute's Podcast episode "Congress Is AWOL in America’s Iran War," @CatoFP's @katherinet57 and Molly Nixon examine what the law actually says, how Trump’s strikes on Iran test its limits, and whether the looming 60-day deadline could force Congress to act. Listen to the full podcast here: cato.org/multimedia/cat…

My take on the War Powers Resolution debate. Trump's interpretation is the latest in a long line of opportunistic interpretations of the statute. Yet the WPR is not, yet, irrelevant. open.substack.com/pub/executivef…