Abstract
Introduction Most everybody today concedes some degree of executive branch autonomy in the interpretation of federal law. The examples most frequently given of areas of executive interpretive autonomy involve situations where the President interprets the law incident to the exercise of those constitutional powers that are thought to be exclusively presidential (and thus unreviewable by the courts), such as the pardon and the veto. 1 The President may grant a pardon (it is generally conceded) on legal grounds rejected by the courts. For example, he may issue a pardon based on his opinion that a conviction was unconstitutional, notwithstanding the judiciary's contrary conclusion as to the constitutional propriety of the conviction. Presumably, the President could base his pardon on a disagreement as to statutory interpretation as well; that is, he may believe a criminal conviction to be founded on an improper reading of some statute. It is also widely recognized that the President may veto a bill for any reason or no reason at all, including constitutional reasons previously rejected by the Supreme Court. To generalize: the executive branch is conceded the power to interpret the law autonomously - that is, independently of the constitutional views of Congress or the courts - in any area where its action cannot become the subject of an authentic "case or controversy" and in any area where the courts have yet to speak on the question. At the same time, most everybody today concedes a degree of executive branch subordinacy in the interpretation ...