One week after Congress held the first hearing in 41 years on the president’s authority to order the use of nuclear weapons, two of Columbia Law School’s leading scholars of war powers and the Constitution discussed what’s at stake before a large audience at the New-York Historical Society in Manhattan. During the Nov. 21 event, Philip Bobbitt, the Herbert Wechsler Professor of Federal Jurisprudence, and Matthew Waxman, the Liviu Librescu Professor of Law, discussed war powers and the presidency, including a proposal by Waxman that would constrain the president’s authority to order a nuclear first strike. The proposal, which Waxman has been developing with Richard Betts, a professor at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, aims to reform nuclear launch procedures. Under the proposal, the secretary of defense would need to affirm that a nuclear first-strike order is valid and the attorney general would need to certify that it is legal.