Is the President Constitutionally Obligated to Ignore the Supreme Court?

A lecture free and open to the public (no ticket required) by George Thomas, Associate Professor of Political Science, Claremont McKenna College

When President Obama criticized the Supreme Court’s opinion allowing corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in elections, many reacted as if it were unacceptable for a president to challenge publicly the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution. We tend to think that the Supreme Court is the essential guardian of the Constitution, and the Court itself has frequently insisted upon its supremacy in defending American constitutional ideas. Yet this understanding is at odds with constitutional design and constitutional history. The Congress and the president, no less than the Supreme Court, swear an oath to uphold the Constitution. Many of our most esteemed presidents—Jefferson, Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt, for example—have insisted upon their interpretation of the Constitution against the Supreme Court’s opinions.

Professor Thomas is the author of The Madisonian Constitution (John Hopkins University Press). His articles and essays on constitutionalism and constitutional law have appeared in Review of Politics, Constitutional Contemporary, Perspectives on Politics, and other journals.

Thursday, April 21, 2011
7:30 p.m.
Barrick Museum Auditorium, UNLV, 4505 South Maryland Parkway

Sponsored by the UNLV Great Works Academic Certificate program, Boyd School of Law, Departments of Political Science and History, and Phi Alpha Theta.
For more information contact Professor David Fott (895-4187; dfott@unlv.nevada.edu).