The folks at Good Authority aren’t too good at posting contrary views in the Comments section. Guess they feel it would undermine their “authority”! Andrew Rudalevige’s essay at Good Authority has some serious flaws; that is if US v Trump is to be clearly understood by political scientists, so they can explain it to their classes. First, the very title is a blunder. He writes, “The Supreme Court’s immunity decision sidesteps history.” In fact, the Opinion follows, and draws “good authority” from, the 1803 case of Marbury v Madison. One of the things Chief Justice John Marshal wrote in Marbury is that there are two kinds of official government acts: discretionary and ministerial. He said the courts cannot question discretionary acts made by an official, because these are a matter of professional judgment. The Robert’s Opinion follows this principle of immunity, but re-states it in the more modern language of “official,” with a “core” and periphery, and “unofficial.” (More on this ...
Working to build a coherent alternative to the dominant positivistic paradigm in political science.