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57 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 401 (1988-1989)
From Compromise to Confrontation: Separation of Powers in the Reagan Era

handle is hein.journals/gwlr57 and id is 409 raw text is: From Compromise to Confrontation: Separation of Powers in the Reagan Era Geoffrey P. Miller* Most observers would probably agree that issues of government structure-separation of powers and checks and balances-have be- come increasingly important over the past twenty years, and that the Reagan era in particular has been marked by structural disputes. Every year the federal courts seem to decide more and more cases in which structural issues play a decisive role. Moreover, these cases often seem to involve direct conflict between the President and Con- gress. Matters between the political branches that might once have been resolved through compromise or conciliation increasingly seem to generate conflict and confrontation. If these impressions are accurate, they may portend a change of some significance to the future structure of the federal government. This Article considers whether there is a trend towards increased controversy over government structure, and offers some tentative hypotheses for why we might be seeing such a trend. I suggest that the phenomenon should be understood in terms of two broad de- velopments. First, over the past twenty years we have seen wide fluctuations in the respective powers of the presidency and Con- gress. The Nixon years were characterized by aggressive assertions of presidential power vis-a-vis Congress; the Ford and Carter years were marked by aggressive assertions of congressional authority vis- a-vis the President. In the Reagan years the picture was mixed, with * Associate Dean and Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School. A.B. 1973, Princeton University; J.D. 1978, Columbia University. I would like to thank Geoffrey R. Stone for valuable comments, Doug Holmberg, and Barry Sher for excellent research help, and the John M. Olin Foundation for financial support. January 1989 Vol. 57 No. 3 401

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