qCourt ruling against commitments send a credible signal of alliance limitation
Dunne 20 [Charles Dunne is a Non-resident Fellow at Arab Center Washington DC. “There’s No Consensus on US Middle East Policy; Time
to Apply the War Powers Act,” 1-23, http://arabcenterdc.org/policy_analyses/theres-no-consensus-on-us-middle-east-policy-time-to-apply-thewar-powers-act/, y2k]
The continual partisan churn over the applicability of the War Powers Act to particular disputes in the Middle East tends to
deflect attention from the central issue: how much power should the executive be granted to wage war, with the
personal discretion of the White House incumbent, and what the proper constitutional role of Congress is in circumscribing that
power. The latest crisis with Iran is helping to bring that very issue to the fore and some new signs of bipartisan consensus have emerged
lately. Congress must first resolve its own internal disagreements on presidential war powers or devise new legislation that would offer binding
clarity. In the meantime, though, it would
routinely applying the
be important for policy-makers to consider more seriously the advantages of
War Powers Act to US engagements in the Middle East. Submitting US military engagements in the Middle
East to votes under the War Powers Act would require a degree of bipartisan congressional consensus that would, in turn, help command
broader support from the American public on the purpose, size, composition, and duration of US military commitments in the Middle East. It
would also put American allies—particularly those in the Gulf Cooperation Council—on notice that US involvement in their
defense (and in their internecine conflicts) comes with limitations prescribed by a broad consensus of the US
political system. Failing an agreement between Congress, the White House, and the courts on the routine
applicability of the Act, a legal restructuring of the AUMF would serve a similar purpose. As some 2020 presidential
candidates have argued, replacing the current authorization with time-limited, renewable joint resolutions—perhaps tailored to specific
situations and requiring regular congressional review—would help ensure that both Congress and the White House remain in sync on how, and
indeed whether, to pursue military activities in the Middle East. This
would have a salutary effect on how the United States
conceives of and executes its overall approach to the region. Politics might once again stop at the water’s edge. And given that the
water, these days, is most often that of the Gulf, such a reorientation would make for a stronger, more unified, and more coherent American
approach to the region.
Legal restriction to introducing force is globally perceived by both allies and
adversaries
Waxman 14 [Matthew C. Waxman, Professor of Law, Columbia Law School; Adjunct Senior Fellow for Law and Foreign Policy, Council on
Foreign Relations, “The Power to Threaten War,” the yale law journal 123:1626 2014, https://www.yalelawjournal.org/article/the-power-tothreaten-war, y2k]
As a prescriptive matter, Part II also shows that examining threatened force and the credibility requirements for its effectiveness calls into
question—and may ultimately upend—many orthodoxies concerning the policy advantages and risks attendant to various allocations of legal
war powers, including proposed reforms.23 Although the President faces
no significant and direct legal limits on his power to
threaten force, the President’s flexibility to later use force indirectly affects decision-making about threatening it, with
major implications for securing peace or dragging the United States into conflicts. Moreover, allocations of legal
powers affect potential conflicts not only because they may constrain U.S. actions but also because they may send
signals and shape other states’ (including adversaries’) expectations of U.S. actions.24 That is, most analysis of war
powers is inward-looking, focused on audiences internal to the U.S. government and polity, but thinking about threatened force
prompts us to look outward, at how law affects external perceptions among adversaries and allies. Here, extant political
science and studies of American strategy offer few clear conclusions, but they point the way toward more sophisticated and realistic policy
assessment of legal doctrine and proposed reform.
Renegading on war powers undermine credibility of US involvement in alliances
Fisher 97 [Louis Fisher, Scholar in Residence at the Constitution Project, “Sidestepping Congress: Presidents Acting under the UN and
NATO,” 47 Case W. Res. L. Rev. 1237 (1997), https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2197&context=caselrev, y2k]
Acting on what he considered sufficient authority under Article I1 of the Constitution and under NATO, Clinton ordered
the deployment of 20,000 American ground troops to Bosnia without obtaining authority or support from Congress.
Other forces in Croatia, Hungary, and surrounding countries would increase the U.S. troop commitment beyond 30,000. The debate over the
Bosnia commitment was peculiar. Regardless of whether a national interest ever existed, the mere fact that Clinton decided to intervene
created, by itself, a national interest. And that is not because he convinced Congress and the public that it was in America's interest to send
troops. Far from it. A national interest somehow emerged independent of the merit or substance of Clinton's policy or the likely value or injury
to the United States. The prevailing argument was that any effort
to renege on his decision, however misguided the policy,
would undermine the credibility of the United States, the presidency, and NATO. This is a remarkable theory. Whenever
Presidents act unilaterally to bind the nation-financially and militarily-subsequent challenges to their action are ill-advised and
unacceptable. Instead of debating national policy and building a consensus, we bow to a President's initiative. Through such means we
undermine representative democracy. No doubt the credibility of the presidency and NATO were at stake in Bosnia, but so is the
credibility of Congress, the Constitution, and our system of checks and balances. The relative success of the deployment in Bosnia does not
justify taking additional steps toward autocracy, or monarchy, in foreign affairs.1 87
Perm nullifies court rulings
Baker 94 Thomas E. Baker, Alvin R. Allison Professor, Texas Tech University School of Law, 1994, “FEATURE ARTICLE: THE ELEVENTH
CIRCUIT'S FIRST DECADE CONTRIBUTION TO THE LAW OF THE NATION, 1981-1991,” 19 Nova L. Rev. 323
The mootness doctrine focuses judicial attention on "the sequence of litigation events out of a
traditional and constitutional concern for the very existence of a 'case or controversy' itself." n74 If a
matter earlier in controversy is somehow resolved, the judgment of the federal court has nothing to
accomplish. The lack of a judicial task ends the Article III power. Justiciability must be actual and present,
not merely speculative or historical. Legislation can overtake the litigation and render it moot. For example, in
Lewis v. Continental Bank Corp., n75 the Supreme Court declared the case moot due to amendments to
a federal statute that were enacted while the case was pending. Thus, the Eleventh Circuit's judicial
handiwork, analyzing rather arcane issues of federal banking law, was rendered a nullity. n76
[*337]
Only interbranch disputes set precedent
Kenneth Klukowski 11. Research Fellow, Liberty University School of Law; Fellow and Senior Legal Analyst, American Civil Rights Union;
National-Bestselling Author. George Mason University School of Law, J.D. “Making Executive Privilege Work: A Multi-Factor Test in an Age of
Czars and Congressional Oversight.” 59 Clev. St. L. Rev. 31.
Most controversies between Congress and the White House over information are decided more by politics than by law, and so a settlement is
usually reached favoring the party with the public wind to its back. n348 Questions
of law should not be decided in that
fashion. Therefore, the reach and scope of executive privilege should be settled by the courts in such situations, so that the President's
power is not impaired whenever the political wind is in the President's face and at his opponents' backs, or the President is inappropriately
shielded when political tides flow in his favor. While the best outcome
in any interbranch dispute is the political branches reaching a
that
degrades one of the three branches of government. If one branch of government demands something to
which it is not constitutionally entitled and that the Constitution has fully vested in a coequal branch,
the vested branch should not be required to negotiate on the question. Negotiation usually involves compromise. This
negotiation would often result in one branch needing to cede to the other, encouraging additional unconstitutional demands in the
settlement, "such compromise may not always be available, or even desirable." n349 It is not desirable where it sets a precedent
future. Though this may perhaps be a quicker route to a resolution, it disrupts the constitutional balance in government. As the Supreme
Court has recently explained, "'convenience and efficiency are not the primary objectives--or the hallmarks--of democratic government.'"
President Reagan declared that "you aren't President; you are temporarily custodian of an institution, the Presidency. And you don't have any
right to do away with any of the prerogatives of that institution, and one of those is executive privilege. And this
is what was being
attacked by the Congress." n351 Thus, any White House has the obligation to fight to protect executive privilege,
and the courts should draw the line to preserve that constitutional prerogative. Likewise, there are times when it is the President
who is refusing to give Congress its due under the Constitution, where Congress must assert its prerogatives for future generations. Conversely,
where confidentiality is not warranted, courts must ensure public disclosure and accountability.
Perm forces the court to rule on a moot issue – this makes the decision meaningless
King 2 JD Fordham University, 2002, Matthew, “COMMENT: TOWARDS A PRACTICAL CONVERGENCE: THE DYNAMIC USES OF JUDICIAL
ADVICE IN UNITED STATES FEDERAL COURTS AND THE COURT OF JUSTICE OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES”, Spring, 63 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 703,
lexis
The Court conceded that it would hear cases "when actual litigation brings to the court the question of the constitutionality of such legislation," but it
will never simply test Congress's law-making savvy without an actual case or controversy. n39 Harking back to
Taney, the Court relied on the execution of a [*710] timely, meaningful judgment as a primary factor in determining whether the case was legitimate. n40 Over
time, the Court has molded the cases and controversies requirement of Article III into a doctrine of justiciability. The
central guideline and goal of
this doctrine is the ability of a court to provide a meaningful decision. While courts reserve the right to declare cases non-justiciable for
general reasons, time has honed this jurisprudence into three specific arenas: ripeness, mootness, and standing. 1. The Issue Must Be Ripe Ripeness means
the case and facts at hand must be fully and actually developed. n41 If not, no real case or controversy \
exists and the matter is to be dismissed. In his full summation of rules against advisory opinions, Justice Brandeis stated that the "Court
will not 'anticipate a question of constitutional law in advance of the necessity of deciding it.'" n42 The next year, Anniston Manufacturing Co. called into question
the constitutionality of numerous vital provisions of the 1936 Revenue Act. n43 Only the cotton taxes and procedures for recovery of monies under the Agricultural
Adjustment Act pertained to Anniston, yet it challenged the Act generally. n44 In
dismissing the case the Court specifically declined
to rule on matters that had not yet created (and might never create) an aggrieved party. n45 The Court bolstered
Anniston with Electric Bond & Share Co. v. S.E.C. n46 There, the Court refused to assess the validity of the entire Public Utility Holding Company Act when only three
provisions applied to the companies bringing suit: n47 "defendants seek a judgment that each and every provision of the Act is unconstitutional. It presents a
variety of hypothetical controversies which may never become [*711] real." n48 The Court would not decide the issues until they had ripened into a concrete set of
facts and parties. n49 2. The Issue Must Not Be Moot Second
is mootness, which requires that the case or facts have not yet
run their course. n50 A moot case is essentially the opposite of an unripe case. n51 In United States v. Alaska Steamship
Co., n52 steamship companies contested the Interstate Commerce Commission's authority to require two different forms for bills of lading for domestic and export
transportation. n53 After the suit was filed, Congress passed an act amending federal power to regulate commerce and requiring a change in format for both types
of bills. n54 Under the new circumstances, the issue became moot. n55 The
Court described what a moot case is, and what it must
do with one: Where by an act of the parties, or a subsequent law, the existing controversy has come to
an end, the case becomes moot and should be treated accordingly. However convenient it might be to have decided the
question of the power of the Commission to require the carries to comply with an order prescribing bills of lading, this court "is not empowered to
decide moot questions or abstract propositions, or to declare, for the government of future cases,
principles or rules of law which cannot affect the result as to the thing in issue in the case before it. No
stipulation of parties or counsel, whether in the case before the court or in any other case, can enlarge the power, or affect the duty, of the court in this regard."
n56
Any congressional bill makes the law moot so the court can’t rule on it
Baum 1 Lawrence Baum, professor of political science at Ohio State University, 2001, The Supreme Court, p. 110.
The Court also imposes the same kinds of technical requirements for the hearing of cases that other courts apply. One specific requirement is that petitions for
hearing be filed within ninety days of the entry of judgment in the lower court, unless the time has been extended in advance. In 1996 the Court refused to accept
two certiorari petitions because they were one day late, apparenfly because the lawyers involved failed to take into account the extra day in February during a leap
year.59 More fundamental are the requirements of jurisdiction and standing. If the Court receives a case that clearly falls outside its jurisdiction, it cannot accept
that case for hearing. For instance, the Court could not hear a state case in which the petitioner raised no issues of federal law in state court. The
rule of
standing holds that a court may not hear a case unless the party bringing the case is properly before it.
The most important element of standing is the requirement that a party in a case have a real and direct legal stake in its outcome. This requirement
precludes hypothetical cases, cases brought on behalf of another person, “friendly suits” between parties that are not really adversaries, and cases that have
become “moot” (in effect, hypothetical) because the parties can no longer be affected by the outcome. In 2000 the Court dismissed a Florida
prisoner’s challenge to electrocution as a means of execution after the State enacted a new statute under which death sentences would be carried out by lethal injection unless the prisoner chose electrocution. And the Court must dismiss a case if the parties have reached a settlement, as it did in
2000 in two important cases involving the federal statute that prohibits discrimination against disabled people.
Perm crushes the judicial independence
Russon 3 Leonard, Former Justice – Utah Supreme Court, “The Constitutional Guarantee of an Independent Judiciary, 16 Utah Bar J. 22,
Lexis
An independent judiciary, free from control or pressure by the executive or legislature, is essential and fundamental to
our system of government inasmuch as the state, its agencies, and officers are frequently named parties in lawsuits in the courts. The state, its
agencies, or its officers named in their official capacities were parties to lawsuits in which the Utah Supreme Court rendered opinions in fifteen
cases in 2001 and fifteen cases in 2002. These cases involved the State Tax Commission, State Department of Health, University of Utah Medical
Center, Lieutenant Governor, Governor, Board of Oil and Gas, Department of Natural Resources, [*25] Department of Environmental Quality,
Department of Transportation, and Public Service Commission. These numbers do not include the numerous criminal cases in which the state is
generally a party. It is only through the courts that the people can seek redress for alleged wrongs caused by their government. The people
must be able to bring legal action against their government before a judge who is independent of that government. The message is clear. Our
State Constitution, which mandates that judges be selected solely upon the basis of fitness for office without regard to any partisan political
considerations, is consistent with the basic message of the founding fathers of this country and the words of Alexander Hamilton that "there is
no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers." To state again the words of the United States
Supreme Court: "A
judiciary free from control by the Executive and Legislature is essential if there is a right to
have claims decided by judges who are free from potential domination by the other branches of government." If we
are to maintain the autonomous, independent, and impartial judicial branch that is so essential to our system
of government, we, as members of the bar and bench, must be ready to diligently and consistently invoke these fundamental principles and
defend our judicial institutions and prerogatives. It would be a sad day, indeed, if a Utah judge, when asked the question "what happens when
the state, its agencies, or officers appear as a party in your courtroom?" had to reply, "Well, it makes it pretty tough."