Dames & Moore v. Regan
3/24/202648 min
A 1981 case about how the president doesn’t really have to follow the text of the law if Congress already let them ignore it. Oh yeah, and Iran is involved.
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5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. This episode was produced by Andrew Parsons. Leon Neyfakh provides editorial support. Our website was designed by Peter Murphy. Our artwork is by Teddy Blanks at...
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First 90 secondsSpeaker 10:00
We'll hear arguments this morning in number 80-278, Dames and Moore against, uh, the Secretary of the Treasury.
Leon Neyfakh0:09
[gentle music] Hey, everyone. This is Leon from Prologue Projects. On this episode of Five to Four, Peter, Rhiannon, and Michael are talking about Dames and Moore v. Regan, a case from 1981 that offers a window into the long, tortured history of American foreign policy towards Iran. The case arose when President Jimmy Carter made a deal with Iran to free the American hostages who had been taken at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran back in 1979.
Jimmy Carter· Soundbite0:40
President Carter worked in the Oval Office throughout the night, and before dawn this morning, signed the executive orders that triggered the hostages' release.
Leon Neyfakh0:47
The terms of the agreement called for terminating by executive order all private lawsuits that had been filed against the Iranian government by American companies and moving the disputes into arbitration. One of those companies, Dames and Moore, sued the U.S. government, arguing that Carter's executive order, now being enforced by the Reagan administration, overstepped the bounds of executive power. The Supreme Court disagreed, even though the law did not allow the president to intervene on private legal proceedings. This is Five to Four, a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks.
Unknown speaker1:21
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