This chapter explores how the Declaration of Independence was drafted and ratified. Congress created and assigned the task of drafting a declaration of independence to a committee of lawyers. When the draft went to the Congress, lawyers like Edward Rutledge had their chance to weigh in. The draft document and the final version was a legal document designed to place rebellion on a legal foundation. Jefferson later recalled that his draft of the Declaration of Independence merely recombined ideas that had long been discussed, and terminology long adopted, by Congress. The Declaration assumed independence, otherwise it would have had no foundation. Following this logic, as the members did, surely Jefferson among them, the Declaration was simply stating the reasons – a justification like the Declaratory Act of 1766, by which Parliament explained its authority over the colonies – for an event already transpired. The ringing elaboration of the rights of mankind, various borrowings from John Locke, echoes of natural law, and the language of prior resolves and declarations were not really pertinent to a declaration for the independence of a continent, but make sense in the more limited framework of Virginia constitutional change.

This chapter situates the Declaration of Independence in relation to another founding document of the United States, the federal Constitution. It assesses the Declaration’s role in debates over the Constitution, first during the latter’s framing in 1787, then in the struggle for ratification, and then later as political actors sought to interpret each document in light of the other. From the outset, debate over the Constitution highlighted the Declaration’s multivalence as well as its rhetorical power. Both defenders and opponents of the Constitution have sought to show how their cause best aligned with the ideals and aspirations expressed in the Declaration. Anti-federalists and their successors constructed a powerful narrative which juxtaposed the Declaration’s call to liberty with the Constitution’s blueprint for authority. Yet there was from the beginning an equally strong tradition that saw the Constitution as a consummation of the Declaration’s promise. Either way, this chapter argues, the Declaration continues to help shape the meaning of the Constitution – and to have its own meaning remolded in turn.

So far, this book has focused on the power of the President to act. However, the President and the Executive Branch make up just one of the three branches of the federal government, Congress and the federal courts composing the other two. In this chapter we will focus on the relationship between the power of Congress to make laws and the President’s power to sign into law a bill Congress has passed, the power to veto a law, and the power to issue statements of interpretation on a bill the President signs into law.

Transplant teams often reject organs offered to their patients for a variety of reasons, including the assessment that the qualities of the organs are too low. Rejections add to cold ischemic time, which makes low-quality organs even less desirable and thus increases the risk of nonuse. Recent changes by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in the way it assesses organ procurement organizations (OPOs) and the more credible threat these changes pose to their local monopolies have incentivized the recovery of more low-quality organs. A change in the organizational report card for transplant centers has incentivized lower-volume transplant centers to reject more low-quality organs despite risk adjustment. The OPTN has developed several policies, such as offer filters, that attempt to reduce the number of organ offers transplant centers receive that they are unlikely to accept. The increasing rates of organ nonuse and the recognition that continuous distribution (CD) could help address it or make it worse led to the Expeditious Task Force and the postponement of the finalization of CD proposals for kidneys and pancreases.

Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution empowers the President to “grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” The seemingly simple language of this clause in the Constitution obscures a number of complicated questions about the scope and nature of this presidential power. For example – may Congress play a role in a president’s decision on pardons? Can the President grant a pardon for both state and federal crimes? Is the President required to fully pardon someone, or may he place conditions on the pardon? And, can a president pardon himself?

It’s one thing to say a sitting president can be civilly sued for personal capacity conduct, as the Court held in Clinton v. Jones. It’s quite another to say that a sitting president can be indicted for a crime. Or are they so different? The courts have never addressed this question. The Department of Justice (DOJ) in three Office of Legal Counsel memos (1974, 2000, and 2019) answered in the negative. Other lawyers and legal scholars disagree.

In addition to the more debated presidential powers discussed in the previous chapters of this book, the President can also exercise several less controversial powers. Among these powers are the power to seek the opinions of executive officers, the power to appoint ambassadors, federal judges, and other officers of the United States, and the right to provide Congress information on the state of the union.

When considering presidential power, presidential “ethics” concerns also are relevant. Here we address two aspects of this problem – financial and political conflicts of interest of the President.

Corruption is an ancient problem. Edmund Burke, as a member of the English Parliament, denounced the corrupt influence on government by corporations, particularly the East India Company. After the 1773 Tea Act granted that company a monopoly on sale of tea in America, colonists dumped their tea into the Boston harbor, an event that became known as the Boston Tea Party. Americans in the past and now are deeply concerned with being governed by money.