Experts

Saikrishna Prakash

Fast Facts

Areas Of Expertise

  • Foreign Affairs
  • Domestic Affairs
  • Law and Justice
  • Governance
  • Political Parties and Movements
  • Politics
  • The Presidency
  • Supreme Court

Saikrishna Prakash, faculty senior fellow, is the James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law and Albert Clark Tate, Jr., Professor of Law at the University of Virginia Law School. His scholarship focuses on separation of powers, particularly executive powers. He teaches constitutional law, foreign relations Law and presidential powers at the University of Virginia Law School.

Prakash majored in economics and political science at Stanford University. At Yale Law School, he served as senior editor of the Yale Law Journal and received the John M. Olin Fellowship in Law, Economics and Public Policy. After law school, he clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. After practicing in New York for two years, he served as a visiting professor at the University of Illinois College of Law and as an associate professor at Boston University School of Law. He then spent several years at the University of San Diego School of Law as the Herzog Research Professor of Law. Prakash has been a visiting professor at the Northwestern University School of Law and the University of Chicago Law School. He also has served as a James Madison Fellow at Princeton University and Visiting Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Among Prakash's articles are "50 States, 50 Attorneys General and 50 Approaches to the Duty to Defend," published in the Yale Law Journal; "The Imbecilic Executive," published in the Virginia Law Review; and "The Sweeping Domestic War Powers of Congress," published in the Michigan Law Review. He is the author of The Living Presidency: An Originalist Argument against Its Ever-Expanding Powers and Imperial from the Beginning: The Constitution of the Original Executive.

Saikrishna Prakash News Feed

Miller Center Senior Fellow Saikrishna Prakash is interviewed.
Saikrishna Prakash Las Vegas Review-Journal
President Trump and congressional Democrats remain at an impasse over a White House proposal to fund the construction of a southern border wall. The president has said that if Congress decides not to appropriate the funds, then he will “probably” declare a national emergency to circumvent Congress and build the wall. On this episode of We the People, we ask: what would happen if the president decided to declare a national emergency and divert military funds to build the wall? What statutes could he rely on? And would such an action be constitutional? Host Jeffrey Rosen and guests Mark Tushnet of Harvard Law and Sai Prakash of University of Virginia Law explore the constitutional clauses, cases, and laws at issue in this hotly contested debate, including the Take Care, Appropriations, and Takings Clauses of the Constitution, the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer case, and the National Emergencies Act of 1976 and related statutes.
Saikrishna Prakash National Constitution Center
The nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to take the place of Justice Anthony Kennedy was the subject of a forum at the Miller Center yesterday. Supreme Court expert Barbara Perry talked about the makeup of the new court with UVA law professors Saikrishna Prakash and Micah Schwartzman. WMRA’s Marguerite Gallorini reports.

Saikrishna Prakash WMRA
President Donald Trump’s war of words with his Attorney General Jeff Sessions bled into day one of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Saikrishna Prakash Las Vegas Review-Journal
"It's going to sound very much like the Clinton investigation all over again," noted Saikrishna Prakash of the University of Virginia's Miller Center.
Saikrishna Prakash Townhall
“Both sides got information from the Russians,” said Saikrishna Prakash of the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.
Saikrishna Prakash The Las Vegas Review-Journal