Bob Bauer
- Professor of Practice and Distinguished Scholar in Residence
- Co-Director of the Legislative and Regulatory Process Clinic
- robert.bauer@nyu.edu
- Vanderbilt Hall 425 • 212.998.6112
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Assistant:
Henrieke Dekker henrieke.dekker@nyu.edu
212.998.6617
AREAS OF RESEARCH
Administrative Law, Constitutional Law and Theory, Election Law, Legal Ethics, National Security Law and Practice
Bob Bauer is Professor of Practice and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at NYU Law, and Co-Director of NYU’s Legislative and Regulatory Process Clinic. He served as White House Counsel to President Obama, and returned to private practice in June 2011. In 2013, the President named Bauer to be Co-Chair of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, which in January of 2014 submitted to the President its findings and recommendations in "The American Voting Experience: Report and Recommendations of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration."
Bauer was General Counsel to Obama for America, the President’s campaign organization, in 2008 and 2012. Bob has also served as co-counsel to the New Hampshire State Senate in the trial of Chief Justice David A. Brock (2000) and counsel to the Democratic Leader in the trial of President William Jefferson Clinton (1999).
He is the author on books on campaign finance law and articles on various topics for law reviews and periodicals. He is a contributing editor of Lawfare and writes legal commentary for Just Security, and has published opinion pieces in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic and other publications. In 2000, he received the "Burton Award for Legal Achievement" for his legal writing.
Courses
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Presidential Powers Seminar
This seminar will explore major contemporary and historical controversies concerning the powers and constraints on the powers of the President. Some of the general issues studied will include the scope of unilateral executive powers; broad delegations by Congress to the President; executive privilege; the scope of congressional oversight; impeachment; the separation of powers; and the scope of judicial review of presidential actions. Readings and discussion will center on the historical development of legal doctrine on these issues and the increase in the visibility and intensity of these issues over the last several administrations. Materials will include judicial decisions as well as case studies of current and recent issues. We will examine these issues both as legal matters and from the perspective of the real-world functioning of the White House and Congress. Some of the larger themes we will explore include the growth of presidential powers over time and how presidential power should be understood in an era of highly polarized political parties. Class participation is expected. There will be no exam, but a requirement of a 20-25 paper on an approved topic related to the issues covered in the seminar.
Publications
- "The Right to Do Politics and Not Just to Speak," Duke Journal of Constitutional Law and Public Policy (2013)
- "Not Just a Private Matter: The Purposes of Author, Article Disclosure in an Expanded Regulatory System," Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy (2007)
- Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association "Justice Breyer's Leviathan: The Significance of 'Workable' Government in His Political Jurisprudence"
- "Democracy as Problem Solving: Campaign Finance and Justice Breyer's Theory of 'Active Liberty,'" 60 University Miami Law Review 237 (2006)
- More Soft Money Hard Law: The Second Edition of the Guide to the New Campaign Finance Law (2004)
Education
- JD, University of Virginia School of Law, 1976
- BA, Harvard University, magna cum laude, 1973
Honors and Activities
- Board Member, National Advisory Board of Journal of Law and Politics, 2014
- "America's Leading Political Law Lawyers", Listed in Chambers USA, 2009
- Burton Award for Legal Achievement for Legal Writing., Library of Congress, 2000
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