Document Type

Working Paper

Publication Date

12-6-2018

SSRN Discipline

Legal Scholarship Network; Litigation, Procedure & Dispute Resolution eJournals; Law & Society eJournals; Law & Society: Public Law eJournals; Legal Anthropology eJournals; Administrative Law eJournals; LSN Subject Matter eJournals; AARN Subject Matter eJournals; Constitutional Law, Jurisprudence & Legal Philosophy eJournals; Political Science Network; Anthropology & Archaeology Research Network

Abstract

The federal judiciary has been quite busy lately In the past two years lower federal courts have blocked the Trump administration from enforcing presidential directives on a string of topics "” the travel ban funding for sanctuary cities transgender individuals in the military and the rescission of DACA How long some commentators wonder will the executive branch continue to accept these defeats This brief essay which is part of a symposium on judicial independence makes a few observations First there is today a strong bipartisan norm that federal executive officials must comply with federal court orders But that norm is of relatively recent vintage it dates only from the midtwentieth century That fact alone underscores the fragility of this aspect of judicial independence Second notwithstanding that fragility the essay argues that there are good reasons to expect continued compliance by the federal executive branch at least for the foreseeable future

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