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Podcast: New Books in Law
Episode: Casey B. K. Dominguez, "Commander in Chief: Partisanship, Nationalism, and the Reconstruction of Congressional War Powers" (UP of Kansas, 2024)
Description: The balance of power between the United States Congress and the president is particularly contested when it comes to war powers. The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war but Article II Section 2 declares that "[t]he President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States." Today, presidents broadly define their constitutional authority as commander in chief. But in the nineteenth century, Congress claimed and defended expansive war powers authority. How did Co...