There Is No Equitable Constitutional Cause Of Action To Challenge The Presidential Record Act Policy
The article discusses the legal challenges surrounding the Presidential Records Act and its implications for presidential power. A federal court has found the new policy likely unconstitutional, but the author argues that the plaintiffs lack a constitutional cause of action. The analysis draws comparisons to historical cases, emphasizing the need for clarity from the Supreme Court on this issue.
- ▪The American Historical Association filed a lawsuit claiming future injury from restricted access to presidential documents.
- ▪Federal district court Judge Bates has indicated that the new policy may be unconstitutional.
- ▪The author argues that the plaintiffs do not have an equitable constitutional cause of action.
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| Original publisher | Reason.com |
| Canonical URL | https://reason.com/volokh/2026/05/20/there-is-no-equitable-constitutional-cause-of-action-to-challenge-the-presidential-record-act-policy/ |
| Publication time | Thu, 21 May 2026 03:19:13 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-21T03:30:03.920Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-21T03:57:03.120Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
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| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
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| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
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| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
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| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
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Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
There Is No Equitable Constitutional Cause Of Action To Challenge The Presidential Record Act Policy The Supreme Court needs to bring clarity to this issue. Josh Blackman | 5.20.2026 11:19 PM Last month, I wrote about the Office of Legal Counsel's opinion finding that the Presidential Records Act was inconsistent with Trump v. Mazars. Somewhat remarkably, several writers have attacked the opinion, but minimize, or even ignore, Mazars. The American Historical Association filed suit, arguing that it is injured because at some point in the future, it will not be able to access certain presidential documents. Federal district court Judge Bates has found the new policy is likely unconstitutional. You know things are going south when the first sentence is a quote from 1984.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Reason.com.
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