Inherent powers (United States)

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In United States law, inherent powers are the powers that a state officer or entity purports to hold under a general vesting of authority, even though they are neither enumerated nor implied.

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President of the United States

The theory of inherent powers of the President derives from the loosely worded statements in the Constitution that "the executive Power shall be vested in a President" and the president should "take care that the laws be faithfully executed" (defined in practice, rather than by constitutional or statutory law). Under this theory, first articulated in 1793 by Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, [1] the authority of the president extends to all decisions and acts of the United States as a sovereign state that are not exclusively vested elsewhere.

The limits of such inherent powers were articulated in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer . This case was a Supreme Court decision limiting the power of the president to seize private property in the absence of either specifically enumerated authority under Article Two of the United States Constitution or statutory authority conferred on him by Congress. However, Justice Black's majority decision was qualified by separate concurring opinions of five other members of the Court; this made it difficult to determine the details and limits of the president's power to seize private property in emergencies. Justice Jackson's concurring opinion stated that the president may not arrogate legislative power under the cover of executive power, but is obligated to seek enabling legislation, and to refrain from doing what Congress has chosen not to enable.

Judiciary

Courts in the United States are recognized to have inherent powers to ensure the proper disposition of cases before them. At the federal level these include the powers to punish contempt, to investigate and redress suspected frauds on the court, to bar a disruptive person from the courtroom, to transfer a case to a more appropriate venue ( forum non conveniens ), and to dismiss a case when the plaintiff or prosecutor fails to pursue it. [2]

In re Debs was a Supreme Court decision involving Eugene V. Debs and labor unions. Debs (president of the American Railway Union) was involved in the Pullman Strike earlier in 1894, and challenged the federal injunction ordering the strikers back to work. The injunction had been issued because of the hindrance to transportation of mail. However, Debs refused to end the strike, was cited for contempt of court, and appealed. The main question being debated was whether a federal court had a right to issue the injunction, which dealt with both interstate and intrastate commerce and shipping on rail cars. The court ruled that the government had a right to regulate interstate commerce and ensure the operations of the Post Office, along with a responsibility to "ensure the general welfare of the public."

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A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495 (1935), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that invalidated regulations of the poultry industry according to the nondelegation doctrine and as an invalid use of Congress' power under the Commerce Clause. This was a unanimous decision that rendered parts of the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA), a main component of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, unconstitutional. The case from which the ruling stemmed was nicknamed the "Sick Chicken Case".

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Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952), also commonly referred to as the Steel Seizure Case or the Youngstown Steel case, was a landmark United States Supreme Court decision that limited the power of the President of the United States to seize private property. The case served as a check on the most far-reaching claims of executive power at the time and signaled the Court's increased willingness to intervene in political questions.

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United States v. Alfonso D. Lopez, Jr., 514 U.S. 549 (1995), was a landmark case of the United States Supreme Court that struck down the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 (GFSZA) due to its being outside of Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce. It was the first case since 1937 in which the Court held that Congress had exceeded its power under the Commerce Clause.

National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. 519 (2012), is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court upheld Congress's power to enact most provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), commonly called Obamacare, and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (HCERA), including a requirement for most Americans to pay a penalty for forgoing health insurance by 2014. The Acts represented a major set of changes to the American health care system that had been the subject of highly contentious debate, largely divided on political party lines.

References

  1. Hamilton, Alexander (1793). Pacificus No. 1.
  2. Chambers v. Nasco,50U.S., 32(1991).