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The New Constitution Of The United States: Do We Need One And How Would We Get One?, Jack M. Beermann

Faculty Scholarship

Government in the United States has some serious problems. At the federal level, is the problem of gridlock. The United States Congress seems unable or unwilling to do anything about anything (although it must have done something to run up more than $16 trillion in debts). Forget about addressing problems such as global warming, income inequality, failing schools, economic stimulus or you name it. How bad is it, really? Has the United States become ungovernable, and is the Constitution to blame? In my view, it’s a mixed bag. Some aspects of the United States government work very well, others are …

Muscogee Constitutional Jurisprudence: Vhakv Em Pvtakv (The Carpet Under The Law), Sarah Deer, Cecilia Knapp

Faculty Scholarship

In 1974, a group of Mvskoke citizens from Oklahoma sued the federal government in federal court. Hanging in the balance was the future of Mvskoke self-determination. The plaintiffs insisted that their 1867 Constitution remained in full effect, and that they still governed themselves pursuant to it. The United States argued that the constitution had been nullified by federal law passed in the early 1900s.

To find in favor of the plaintiffs, the court would have to rule that the United States had been ignoring the most basic civil rights of Mvskoke citizens and flouting the law for over seventy years. …

The Missing Due Process Argument, Jamal Greene

Faculty Scholarship

The argument that eventually persuaded five members of the Supreme Court to conclude that the individual mandate exceeded Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce is one most observers originally considered frivolous. In that respect, it is similar to another potential argument against the mandate — that forcing someone to pay for insurance violates the liberty interests guaranteed by the Constitution’s Due Process Clause. The Commerce Clause argument was the centerpiece of the challenge to the mandate; the due process argument was not meaningfully advanced at all. This chapter suggests reasons why.