Nothing New Under the Sun: The Development of Habeas Corpus and Executive Power in the Bush Administration

Abstract

<jats:p>This article details the origins of the Bush administration’s policies with respect to executive power and access to the writ of habeas corpus. I argue that the administration’s policies devised to prosecute the “War on Terror” were simply extensions of already developing patterns of conservative legal and constitutional theory. This account suggests that as an “Orthodox Innovator” president, it is likely that President Bush’s particular developments and additions to this larger regime stance went too far to continue to remain legitimate, but not in the way that the literature suggests. As a result of the Bush presidency, then, dissent is more likely to come from the judiciary and not the party faithful.</jats:p>