Constitutional Law

USDA targets California’s Proposition 12 as part of plan to fight bird flu outbreaks and lower egg prices, Dean Erwin Chemerinsky weighs in.

May a president fire anyone who works in the executive branch of government even when there is a statute limiting firing? Dean Erwin Chemerinsky weighs in.

“Throughout American history, presidents — Democrats and Republicans — adhered to court orders even when they disagreed with them,” said Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “If the president abandons this precedent and instead disobeys the courts, it would put the U.S. in completely uncharted territory. Then we really have a constitutional crisis unlike what we’ve seen before.” 

“Less than a month into Donald Trump’s second term, a case involving his extreme claims of presidential power has already made it to the Supreme Court,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “It raises a question of profound importance: Can the president fire anyone who works in the executive branch even when a law limits his power to do so?”

“It is common for authoritarians to look for scapegoats,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “Sadly, trans individuals have been that for Trump.”

Dean Erwin Chemerinsky joins Education Now as a guest to explore how to balance free expression and open dialogue in higher education.

Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and Ilya Shapiro, senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute join AirTalk to share their perspectives on a number of the Trump executive orders.

“We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis right now,” said Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “There have been so many unconstitutional and illegal actions in the first 18 days of the Trump presidency. We never have seen anything like this.”

Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and Professor John Yoo weigh in on whether or how much the Supreme Court might act to check Trump’s authority.

“There’s a vast ideological difference between those that [former Presidents] Obama or Biden put on the bench compared to who Trump put on the bench,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law and an expert on federal civil procedure. “No one should assume the 9th Circuit is a liberal court.”