Separation of Powers and Federalism

by Nicole Flatow

Passage of a balanced budget amendment would “threaten to tear irrevocably the fabric of our constitutional structure,” warns separation of powers expert Neil Kinkopf in a new ACS Issue Brief.

With the House of Representatives set to vote on a balanced budget amendment proposal this week, Kinkopf’s Issue Brief explains the dangers of inserting policy prescriptions into our founding document.

Kinkopf, a law professor at the Georgia State University, notes that only once in our history did the Constitution dictate an outcome, when the 18th Amendment was passed, but “[s]uch a failure was this deviation from the Constitution’s design that it stands as the only amendment ever to be repealed.”

“The founding generation faced divisive controversies that were every bit as momentous as the present-day budget crisis," Kinkopf writes. "Yet they consciously designed the Constitution not to resolve these issues, instead leaving them to be resolved through the constitutionally ordained process of legislation in compliance with constitutionally guaranteed individual rights.”

By Barry Eisler, an award-winning author of bestselling thrillers. Eisler spent three years in a covert position with the CIA's Directorate of Operations and has worked as a technology lawyer. Eisler also blogs on torture, civil liberties and the rule of law.

Writing The Detachment was a joy. How could it not be? I got to parachute my half-Japanese, half-American assassin John Rain into the corrupt universe I established in Fault Line and continued in Inside Out; partner him with characters from all my books; and pit him against a formidable and unfamiliar enemy plotting a coup in the United States. The result is some of the most intricate plotting, complex character behavior, and hard-core action I’ve ever done, all set against the biggest canvas I’ve ever painted: rolling terror attacks across America; presidential speeches and Oval Office brinksmanship; a game whose stakes will be measured not just in tens of thousands of lives at risk, but in the consequences to my characters’ psyches and souls.

As much as the story depends for its thrills on character, action, and plot, though, it depends also on realism. Realism of setting (as always, I traveled to every location that appears in the book, including Tokyo, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Vienna, and Washington, D.C.); realism of operator tools and tactics (everything I depict is in accordance with my CIA training and experience); and realism of action (I have a black belt in judo and consult with experts to make sure I’m nailing the nuances of the combat sequences). But the realism that interests me most in any thriller, especially my own, is that of the story’s circumstances.