Sim Photos

Simulation Evaluation

Peer evaluation: On Tuesday, November 1 (the Tuesday after simulation) please bring in a short memo in which you identify three or four participants who did a particularly good job. Give a couple of sentences to each person you name, explaining why she or he stood out. Give special attention to those who did their work behind the scenes. Please take some care with these memos. In addition to using them for evaluating the assignment, I save them so that I may quote them in letters of recommendation. Evaluations are anonymous: please bring in hardcopy and do not put your own name on the sheet.

Writeup: In analyzing your role in the simulation, please cover these points:

• How well did your positions and goals match those of your real-life counterpart?
• What methods did you use? In the circumstance that you dealt with, would your counterpart have done the same?
• What obstacles did you face?
• What did you achieve?
• How did the simulation both resemble and differ from the real world?
• Overall, what did you learn?

You may include  relevant supporting materials, such as: memoranda, bill drafts, or strategy notes. (Better yet, just refer to material that is already online, and provide the URLs.) Please be selective here: do not include everything, just the key items.

• Essays should be double-spaced, and between 5 and 6 pages long. I will not read past the 6th page. (Supporting materials do not count against the page limit.) 
• Submit the writeups as Word documents, not pdfs.
• Cite outside sources with Turabian endnotes.
• Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you.
• Return essays to the class Sakai dropbox by 11:59 PM, Friday November 11. Your grade for the simulation will drop one gradepoint for one day's lateness, a full grade after that.  

Follow the Judiciary Dems on Twitter!

Patrick Leahy: https://twitter.com/FakePatLeahy

Chuck Schumer: https://twitter.com/chuckyschumer

Amy Klobuchar: https://twitter.com/phonyklobuchar

Armed Services Dems, comment below with your Twitter accounts.

Judiciary Reps on Twitter

Follow the Judiciary Republicans on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/SenatorChassley?lang=en

https://twitter.com/notSenLGraham?lang=en

https://twitter.com/majoritymitch?lang=en

https://twitter.com/CredTuzForTexas

Please comment below with your party/committee twitter accounts.

Appointments, Removals, Oversight

PAS and non-PAS

Confirmation hearings:

• Clarence Thomas
• Ambassadors

Process

• The nuclear option (Fisher, pp. 35-36):
• Senatorial courtesy (Fisher, pp. 33-34) and blue slips

• Current case on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

The Senate seldom votes down Cabinet nominations.


Removals:

• Federalist 77: IT HAS been mentioned as one of the advantages to be expected from the co-operation of the Senate, in the business of appointments, that it would contribute to the stability of the administration. The consent of that body would be necessary to displace as well as to appoint. 
• But he flip-flops as Pacificus: "With these exceptions the Executive Power of the Union is completely lodged in the President. This mode of construing the Constitution has indeed been recognized by Congress in formal acts, upon full consideration and debate. The power of removal from office is an important instance."
• Decision of 1789
• Myers v. US
• Humphrey's Executor v. US
• ONCE AGAIN: INDEPENDENT AGENCIES AND INDEPENDENT REGULATORY COMMISSIONS ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS.
• Saturday Night Massacre (Fisher, p. 81):
• Ruckelshaus on the massacre
• Bork on the massacre

Oversight

• GAO -- video
• CBO
• CRS
• Diminished institutional capacity

Legislation:  Executive Branch Organization and Laws on Reporting 

• Inspectors General
• Reporting requirements

An Update on CA 49th

Cook Political Report has moved Darrell Issa's district race to a "Toss-Up."

"As it turns out, it's possible to be the wealthiest member of Congress and still run a very poor campaign."

http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-sac-essential-politics-updates-rep-darrell-issa-reelection-bid-named-1476485337-htmlstory.html

Congress and the President II: After Congress Passes a Bill

Delegation language:  a very recent example

• Administrative Rules
• Executive orders
• Executive Actions (see below)
• US v. Texas
• The position of The Donald
• Signing statements

Vetoes

Pocket vetoes and "protective return pocket vetoes" (Davidson 297)

Newt Gingrich, Lessons Learned the Hard Way (1998):

We had not only failed to take into account the ability of the Senate to delay us and obstruct us, but we had much too cavalierly underrated the power of the President, even a President who had lost his legislative majority and was in a certain amount of trouble for other reasons. I am speaking of the power of the veto. Even if you pass something through both the House and the Senate, there is that presidential pen. How could we have forgotten that? For me especially it was inexcusable, because when I was Republican whip during the Bush Administration one of my duties had been precisely to help sustain presidential vetoes.

Item Veto