POLSCI 318 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Federalist No. 78, Legislative Veto, Presentment Clause
4 May 2018
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Congress and the President
10.21.16 Lecture Notes – The Presidential Veto
Forms of law
x US – mix of statutory, regulatory, and common law
x Constitutional law is at the very top
x Statutory law – we talked about the process of creating it
o Any acts of Congress that accord with the Presentment Clause
x Statutory Law – promulgated by Congress
x Regulatory Law – executive agencies that have the power given to them by Congress
o “tatutor la authorizes ageies to issue regulatios ith authorizig legislatio
o Any regulatory laws passed by agencies must be pointed back to the authorizing legislation to
be valid
x Common Law – based on precedent set by court systems, different from statutory law in that they are
not written down in any organized form
o Amalgamation of all past court decision history
x One of the reasons why US is primarily statutory law – Founders believed that statutes gave more fair
notice to citizens about what rules they have to follow – will be informed of the legality of individual
actions
o Statutory law provides actual law that gives agencies the authority to implement rules and
provides text that is interpreted by courts
o Only thing superior to statutory law is when Courts are acting in accordance with the
Constitution – when courts are called upon to determine the constitutionality of a specific law
x With regulatory law and supreme court decisions, they are never actually changing the law
o Regulations add additional provisions to an existing statutory law – does not change
o Supreme Court decisions can be opinions that form the backbone of common law – cannot
alter the text of statutory law (or the controlling law of the United States)
▪ Controlling law refers to good law
▪ Muted power of the Supreme Court
▪ Not only cannot change the text of law, but also entirely reliant on the executive and
Congress to fund and implement its opinion (funds are appropriated by Congress)
• Federalist 78
o Result of the arrangement of the Court – Cogress itself a hoose to igore the ourt’s
holding and exercise its statutory authority
▪ Even if something is considered unconstitutional, Congress can continue to fund it
▪ Supreme Court can tell directly tell executive agencies to stop implementing a
unconstitutional law
VETOS
x The original purpose of vetoes – history goes back to a compromise between the Federalists and the
Anti-Federalists
x Federalists wanted an absolute veto without the possibility of Congressional override
x Anti-Federalists did not want the executive to have any power to veto
x The compromise – the president would have a qualified veto in that it could be overridden by 2/3 vote
by both chambers in Congress
x Primary aim of the vetoes in the Federalist – protect executive authority from the encroachments of
legislative authority – protet Presidet’s ailit to ipleet law
o Original justification, but posits more justifications
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