April 1, 2025
Yale and Harvard law professors declare Article II crisis
Executive orders contradict congressional legislation as constitutional experts warn of crisis
📜Constitutional Law🏛️Government📚Historical Precedent
Constitutional scholars declared a separation of powers crisis on April 1, 2025, as Trump issued executive orders directly contradicting congressional legislation and Supreme Court precedents.
Harvard Law's Laurence Tribe and conservative Federalist Society members joined 150+ constitutional experts warning that executive overreach threatens the constitutional system itself.
On April 1, 2025, over 150 constitutional scholars declared a separation of powers crisis after President Trump issued executive orders that directly contradicted existing congressional legislation and Supreme Court precedents (Constitutional scholar crisis declaration).
In his first 30 days in office, President Trump signed more than 70 executive orders—including a record 26 on January 20, 2025—according to UC Law San Francisco constitutional experts (UC Law SF executive order tracking).
The administration froze trillions of dollars in congressionally appropriated grants and funds, challenging Congress’s constitutional power of the purse (AP constitutional crisis analysis).
President Trump fired independent inspectors general en masse, undermining the system of executive‐branch oversight designed by Congress (UC Law SF constitutional expert panel).
By March 2025, over 130 lawsuits had been filed nationwide challenging these executive actions, and federal judges had issued about 36 injunctions against the administration’s orders (UC Law expert legal analysis; Washington Post judicial analysis).
UC Law SF Professor Rory Little described the situation as “a crisis, a challenge to the rule of the law in the United States,” emphasizing the severity of the breakdown in checks and balances (UC Law SF constitutional panel).
📜Constitutional Law🏛️Government📚Historical Precedent
People, bills, and sources
President Donald J. Trump
issued executive orders contradicting congressional statutes and Supreme Court rulings, froze appropriations and fired inspectors general in early 2025.
Laurence Tribe (Harvard Law School)
joined over 150 constitutional experts in warning that this executive overreach threatens the constitutional system itself (Constitutional scholar crisis declaration).
What You Can Do
1
Compare executive orders with statutes: visit FederalRegister.gov and filter by date range January 20–February 19, 2025; download and review the 26 orders from January 20 and the subsequent 44+ orders to identify specific conflicts with titles and sections of congressional legislation.
2
Track ongoing litigation: use the PACER service at https://www.pacer.gov/ to search for cases filed since January 2025 containing “Trump executive order” and “separation of powers”; note there are over 130 such filings and review dockets for injunction motions.
3
Examine expert analysis: read the UC Law SF report at https://www.uclawsf.edu/2025/02/28/experts-examine-legal-limits-of-trumps-sweeping-executive-orders/ for detailed discussion of legal arguments, the freezing of appropriations and inspector general firings, and to follow up on Professor Rory Little’s assessment of the rule‐of‐law crisis.