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

Modern American presidents wield a vast array of constitutional powers, making their office one of the most powerful on earth.
On Presidents Day, taking stock of the evolution of the office itself. What has the presidency become? Where is it headed? What does it say about us?
Saikrishna Prakash WBUR On Point
In January, when a new Democratic majority takes over in Virginia, the Commonwealth likely will become the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.
Saikrishna Prakash Los Angeles Times
The National Constitution Center’s initiative, ‘A Madisonian Constitution for All,’ is launching an essay series where leading scholars explore what James Madison, the “father of the Constitution”, might think about the presidency, Congress, courts, and the media today. This week, two of the authors celebrate the launch of the series by diving into all things presidential – how the office was conceived of at the Founding, evolved throughout history, was impacted by the rise of political parties and partisanship, and increasingly expanded its power. They also give their takes on the current impeachment investigation. Scholars Sai Prakash and Sean Wilentz, authors of the ‘Madisonian Constitution for All’ essays on the presidency, join host Jeffrey Rosen. This podcast is presented as part of the National Constitution Center’s A Madisonian Constitution for All initiative and made possible through the generous support of the John Templeton Foundation.
Saikrishna Prakash National Constitution Center
But the courts may never make a determination one way or the other, especially if they decide the amendment doesn’t extend legal protections beyond those provided under current interpretations of the 14th Amendment, argues Saikrishna Prakash, a law professor at the University of Virginia who has studied and written about the issue.
Saikrishna Prakash Virginia Mercury
In contrast, impeachment only requires a simple majority in the House before a two-thirds majority in the Senate to remove. “However difficult it is to impeach someone, this is even more difficult,” says Saikrishna Prakash, professor of law and Miller Center fellow at the University of Virginia.
Saikrishna Prakash The Christian Science Monitor