
Civitas Conversations: John Yoo Discusses Andrew Jackson's Gunslinger Presidency
A conversation with John Yoo on the meaning of Andrew Jackson's presidency.
Civitas Outlook editor-in-chief Richard M. Reinsch II interviews John Yoo about his recent Outlook article on Andrew Jackson, which examines how Jackson fundamentally changed the presidency into the powerful institution we know today.
Yoo argues that, in contrast with George Washington's model of public virtue, Jackson proved that presidents don't necessarily need personal virtue to be effective. Jackson made the presidency the direct representative of the people, claiming independent authority to interpret the Constitution and veto laws on policy grounds, and in doing so helped to create the modern presidency.
John Yoo is a Senior Research Fellow at the Civitas Institute, Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, and a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Trump Refights the “War” That Congress and the Burger Court “Waged” Against President Nixon’s Tapes
Tensions between the legislative and executive departments persist regardless of which political party is in power.

The Many Myths of Birthright Citizenship
The history is far more convoluted than the standard accounts provide.

Supreme Court Justly Skeptical of Trump Administration’s Anti-Birthright Citizenship Executive Order
President Trump appears due for another disappointment.
Civitas Outlook

Locke, Meet Claude
The concern is not regulation per se. It is a regulation that outruns its justification by arriving before the evidence, foreclosing the technology before its benefits are understood, and insulating the powerful from competition that would otherwise discipline them. That is the pattern worth resisting.
Get the Civitas Outlook daily digest, plus new research and events.






.png)