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

The Senate has gone nuclear again. After Democrats voted to “filibuster” the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch, which would have required 60 senators to agree to bring the appointment to a vote, Republicans effectively changed the rules to allow a simple majority to confirm Supreme Court justices. From this partisan clash, democracy will emerge the winner.
Saikrishna Prakash The Wall Street Journal
Contrary to media reports Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s promise to invoke a filibuster signals the success, not the failure, of Judge Neil Gorsuch’s Supreme Court nomination.
Saikrishna Prakash Fox News
Article II of the Constitution lays out the powers of the president. Although he can’t unilaterally declare war, he can send troops into some kinds of military action. The president sets foreign policy but is specifically prohibited from signing treaties with foreign countries without approval from Congress. But presidents have often challenged the limitations of their power. And some executive orders have changed our history in dramatic ways, such as the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 or Harry Truman’s executive order abolishing racial discrimination in the military. 

In this episode of American Forum, we ask an eminent Constitutional scholar, Saikrishna Prakash of the UVA School of Law, a Miller Center senior fellow, about the limits of President Trump’s powers. Can he wipe out the Affordable Care Act, build a wall on the Mexican border, or deny entry to the U.S. for thousands of refugees all by himself? How do bold moves in the first weeks of the new Trump administration compare to the approaches of past presidents? 
No wise president would ever sign an order without input from others. A draft of a proposed executive order invariably comes from subordinates in the executive branch, hopefully people with specialized knowledge.
Saikrishna Prakash Washington Examiner
How should the president make his choice? It should have nothing to do with how a nominee fits in to Trump’s coterie of friends, family or admirers. A Supreme Court seat is not a bauble to hand out to chums or aides in the manner of a monarch granting titles to faithful servants.
Saikrishna Prakash Los Angeles Times
Now that Donald Trump has been sworn in as president, one vital question is whether he will fire the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Richard Cordray.
Saikrishna Prakash National Review