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Court Expansion And The Restoration Of Democracy: The Case For Constitutional Hardball, Aaron Belkin
Court Expansion And The Restoration Of Democracy: The Case For Constitutional Hardball, Aaron Belkin
Pepperdine Law Review
Neither electoral politics, norms preservation, nor modest good government reform can restore the political system because they cannot mitigate the primary threat to the American democracy, Republican radicalism. Those who believe otherwise fail to appreciate how and why radicalism will continue to impede democratic restoration regardless of what happens at the ballot box, misdiagnose the underlying factors that produce and sustain GOP radicalism, and under-estimate the degree of democratic deterioration that has already taken place. Republicans do not need to prevail in every election to forestall the restoration of democracy or to prevent Democrats from governing. The only viable path …
A Call For America's Law Professors To Oppose Court-Packing, Bruce Ledewitz
A Call For America's Law Professors To Oppose Court-Packing, Bruce Ledewitz
Pepperdine Law Review
A Court-packing proposal is imminent. Mainstream Democratic Party Presidential Candidates are already supporting it. The number of Justices on the Supreme Court has been set at nine since 1869, but this is merely a statutory requirement. As soon as Democrats regain control of the Presidency and the Congress, Court-packing will be on the agenda, either expressly or under the guise of Court-reform. Now is the time for the American legal academy to join together to oppose this threat. Court-packing would threaten democracy, destroy the rule of law and undermine judicial independence. It is a pointless and unnecessary reaction born of …
Is The Establishment Clause Asymmetrical?, Sam Foer
Is The Establishment Clause Asymmetrical?, Sam Foer
Senior Honors Projects
Through numerous Establishment Clause cases, the Supreme Court has concluded that when public educators promote or denigrate religious views in the K-12 classroom, they violate the First Amendment. The Court has found that the protection of ‘freedom of conscience’ is embedded in the purpose of the Establishment Clause, which applies most strictly to the public school setting. This is because the sphere of conscience is most vulnerable to invasion in developing minds, and children are in a captive environment at school - they cannot escape from State instruction. Thus, states, school systems, and teachers who impose their religious beliefs onto …
The Supreme Court And The 117th Congress, Andrew K. Jennings, Athul K. Acharya
The Supreme Court And The 117th Congress, Andrew K. Jennings, Athul K. Acharya
Faculty Articles
If the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s successor is confirmed before the 2020 presidential election or in the post-election lame-duck period, and if Democrats come to have unified control of government on January 20, 2021, how can they respond legislatively to the Court’s new 6-3 conservative ideological balance? This Essay frames a hypothetical 117th Congress’s options, discusses its four simplest legislative responses—expand the Court, limit its certiorari discretion, restrict its jurisdiction, or reroute its jurisdiction—and offers model statutory language for enacting those responses.
Equality Is A Brokered Idea, Robert Tsai
Equality Is A Brokered Idea, Robert Tsai
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
This essay examines the Supreme Court's stunning decision in the census case, Department of Commerce v. New York. I characterize Chief Justice John Roberts' decision to side with the liberals as an example of pursuing the ends of equality by other means – this time, through the rule of reason. Although the appeal was limited in scope, the stakes for political and racial equality were sky high. In blocking the administration from adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, 5 members of the Court found the justification the administration gave to be a pretext. In this instance, that lie …
Equality Is A Brokered Idea, Robert L. Tsai
Equality Is A Brokered Idea, Robert L. Tsai
Faculty Scholarship
This essay examines the Supreme Court's stunning decision in the census case, Department of Commerce v. New York. I characterize Chief Justice John Roberts' decision to side with the liberals as an example of pursuing the ends of equality by other means – this time, through the rule of reason. Although the appeal was limited in scope, the stakes for political and racial equality were sky high. In blocking the administration from adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, 5 members of the Court found the justification the administration gave to be a pretext. In this instance, that lie …
The Supreme Court’S Two Constitutions: A First Look At The “Reverse Polarity” Cases, Arthur D. Hellman
The Supreme Court’S Two Constitutions: A First Look At The “Reverse Polarity” Cases, Arthur D. Hellman
Articles
In the traditional approach to ideological classification, “liberal” judicial decisions are those that support civil liberties claims; “conservative” decisions are those that reject them. That view – particularly associated with the Warren Court era – is reflected in numerous academic writings and even an article by a prominent liberal judge. Today, however, there is mounting evidence that the traditional assumptions about the liberal-conservative divide are incorrect or at best incomplete. In at least some areas of constitutional law, the traditional characterizations have been reversed. Across a wide variety of constitutional issues, support for claims under the Bill of Rights or …