Digital Commons Network^™

Prophylactic Redistricting? Congress's Section 5 Power And The New Equal Protection Right To Vote, Michael T. Morley

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

The (Non-)Right To Sex, Mary Ziegler

Scholarly Publications

What is the relationship between the battle for marriage equality and the expansion of sexual liberty? Some see access to marriage as a quintessentially progressive project—the recognition of the equality and dignity of gay and lesbian couples. For others, promoting marriage or marital-like relationships reinforces bias against individuals making alternative intimate decisions. With powerful policy arguments on either side, there appears to be no clear way to advance the discussion.

By telling the lost story of efforts to expand sexual liberty in the 1960s and 1970s, this Article offers a new way into the debate. The marriage equality struggle figures …

Does The Public Care How The Supreme Court Reasons? Empirical Evidence From A National Experiment And Normative Concerns In The Case Of Same-Sex Marriage, Courtney Megan Cahill, Geoffrey Christopher Rapp

Scholarly Publications

Can the Supreme Court influence the public’s reception of decisions vindicating rights in high-salience contexts, like samesex marriage, by reasoning in one way over another? Will the people’s disagreement with those decisions—and, by extension, societal backlash against them—be dampened if the Court deploys universalizing liberty rationales rather than essentializing equality rationales? Finally, even if Supreme Court reasoning does resonate with the people as a descriptive matter, should the Court minimize anxiety-producing characteristics in decisions vindicating civil rights—such as homosexuality in the marriage-equality context—simply in order to assuage the people?

This Article combines constitutional theory and empirical legal analysis to ask …

Why Equal Protection Trumps Federalism In The Same-Sex Marriage Cases, Erin Ryan

Scholarly Publications

Federalism is once again at the forefront of the Supreme Court’s most contentious cases this Term. The cases attracting most attention are the two same-sex marriage cases that were argued in March. Facing intense public sentiment on both sides of the issue and the difficult questions they raise about the boundary between state and federal authority, some justices openly questioned whether to just defer to the political process. And while this is often a wise prudential approach in review of contested federalism-sensitive policymaking, it’s exactly the wrong course of action when the matter under review is an individual right. This …