Experts

Saikrishna Prakash

Faculty Senior Fellow

Saikrishna Prakash

Faculty Senior Fellow

Fast Facts

Areas Of Expertise

  • Foreign Affairs
  • Domestic Affairs
  • Law and Justice
  • Governance
  • Political Parties and Movements
  • Politics
  • The Presidency
  • Supreme Court

Saikrishna Prakash, faculty senior fellow, is the James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law and Albert Clark Tate, Jr., Professor of Law at the University of Virginia Law School. His scholarship focuses on separation of powers, particularly executive powers. He teaches constitutional law, foreign relations Law and presidential powers at the University of Virginia Law School.

Prakash majored in economics and political science at Stanford University. At Yale Law School, he served as senior editor of the Yale Law Journal and received the John M. Olin Fellowship in Law, Economics and Public Policy. After law school, he clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. After practicing in New York for two years, he served as a visiting professor at the University of Illinois College of Law and as an associate professor at Boston University School of Law. He then spent several years at the University of San Diego School of Law as the Herzog Research Professor of Law. Prakash has been a visiting professor at the Northwestern University School of Law and the University of Chicago Law School. He also has served as a James Madison Fellow at Princeton University and Visiting Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Among Prakash's articles are "50 States, 50 Attorneys General and 50 Approaches to the Duty to Defend," published in the Yale Law Journal; "The Imbecilic Executive," published in the Virginia Law Review; and "The Sweeping Domestic War Powers of Congress," published in the Michigan Law Review. He is the author of The Living Presidency: An Originalist Argument against Its Ever-Expanding Powers and Imperial from the Beginning: The Constitution of the Original Executive.

Saikrishna Prakash News Feed

“The claim is that the Constitution forbids insurrectionists from serving in federal and state office and that former President Trump is an insurrectionist, and therefore he can’t be on the ballot,” Saikrishna Prakash with UVA Miller Center said.
Saikrishna Prakash 29 News
“I don't really know what they're going to do,” says Saikrishna Prakash, professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, a senior fellow at the Miller Center and a former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas. “I think it's a tricky position because any way they rule they will be deeply criticized.”
Saikrishna Prakash U.S. News & World Report
“It would resemble a banana republic if people came into office and started going after their opponents willy-nilly,” said Saikrishna Prakash, a constitutional law professor at the University of Virginia who studies executive power.
Saikrishna Prakash Washington Post
Leading up to the Miller Center’s 50th anniversary in 2025, this conference shares new ideas and best practices to support a more responsible and effective presidency.
Miller Center Presents
Three ways Congress could limit how and when presidents use emergency powers, writes Saikrishna Prakash.
Saikrishna Prakash
The threat of a debt default is again in the air, with the possible dreadful effect of ruining the credit of the U.S. To stave off that default and embarrassment, President Biden is toying with the idea of asserting that the debt ceiling violates the 14th Amendment. Neither the Constitution nor the law nor common sense is on his side.
Saikrishna Prakash The Wall Street Journal