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The Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Divide, Christopher W. Schmidt
The Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Divide, Christopher W. Schmidt
Christopher W. Schmidt
Contemporary legal discourse differentiates “civil rights” from “civil liberties.” The former are generally understood as protections against discriminatory treatment, the latter as freedom from oppressive government authority. This Essay explains how this differentiation arose and considers its consequences.
Although there is a certain inherent logic to the civil rights-civil liberties divide, it in fact is the product of the unique circumstances of a particular moment in history. In the early years of the Cold War, liberal anticommunists sought to distinguish their incipient interest in the cause of racial equality from their belief that national security required limitations on the speech …
Why Broccoli? Limiting Principles And Popular Constitutionalism In The Health Care Case, Christopher W. Schmidt, Mark D. Rosen
Why Broccoli? Limiting Principles And Popular Constitutionalism In The Health Care Case, Christopher W. Schmidt, Mark D. Rosen
Christopher W. Schmidt
Crucial to the Court’s disposition in the constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was a hypothetical mandate to purchase broccoli, which Congress never had considered and nobody thought would ever be enacted. For the five Justices who concluded the ACA exceeded Congress’s commerce power, a fatal flaw in the government’s case was its inability to offer an adequate explanation for why upholding that mandate would not entail also upholding a federal requirement that all citizens purchase broccoli. The minority insisted the broccoli mandate was distinguishable.
This Article argues that the fact that all the Justices insisted on providing …