Summary: Is President Obama failing in this basic obligation of the President? Allegations of lawlessness have been made about his decisions not to enforce the immigration law, to suspend some requirements of the Affordable Care Act, and to flout Congress’s requirement of thirty-day notice before freeing prisoners from Guantanamo. Are these fair charges or does the President enjoy inherent constitutional power or specific statutory authority to decline enforcement? What should be Congress’s reaction to non-enforcement? Does this pattern of non-enforcement imply anything more general about the President’s legal or political philosophy? -- The Federalist Society's Federalism & Separation of Powers Practice Group presented this panel on "The President's Duty to Take Care that the Law Be Faithfully Executed" on Thursday, November 13, during the 2014 National Lawyers Convention. -- Featuring: Dr. John S. Baker, Jr. Visiting Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center; Professor Emeritus of Law, Dale E. Bennett Professor of Law, Louisiana State University Law School; Hon. Ronald A. Cass, Dean Emeritus, Boston University School of Law and President, Cass & Associates, PC; Prof. Neal E. Devins, Goodrich Professor of Law, Cabell Research Professor, Professor of Government, Director, Institute of Bill of Rights Law; and Director, Election Law Program, The College of William & Mary; and Prof. Christopher H. Schroeder, Charles S. Murphy Professor of Law and Public Policy Studies; Co-Director of the Program in Public Law, Duke Law School. Moderator: Hon. Thomas B. Griffith, U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit. Introduction: Dr. John C. Eastman, Henry Salvatori Professor of Law and Community Service; Former Dean (2007 – 2010); and Director, Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, Dale E Fowler School of Law, Chapman University; and Chairman, Federalism & Separation of Powers Practice Group.
