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Full-Text Articles in Law

Finding The Constitution: An Economic Analysis Of Tradition's Role In Constitutional Interpretation, Adam C. Pritchard, Todd J. Zywicki Jan 1999

Finding The Constitution: An Economic Analysis Of Tradition's Role In Constitutional Interpretation, Adam C. Pritchard, Todd J. Zywicki

Articles

In this Article, Professor Pritchard and Professor Zywicki examine the role of tradition in constitutional interpretation, a topic that has received significant attention in recent years. After outlining the current debate over the use of tradition, the authors discuss the efficiency purposes of constitutionalism--precommitment and the reduction of agency costs--and demonstrate how the use of tradition in constitutional interpretation can serve these purposes. Rejecting both Justice Scalia's majoritarian model, which focuses on legislative sources of tradition, and Justice Souter's common-law model, which focuses on Supreme Court precedent as a source of tradition, the authors propose an alternative model--the "finding model"-- …


Judicial Review Of Initiatives And Referendums In Which Majorities Vote On Minorities’ Citizenship, Sylvia R. Lazos Jan 1999

Judicial Review Of Initiatives And Referendums In Which Majorities Vote On Minorities’ Citizenship, Sylvia R. Lazos

Scholarly Works

In this Article, Professor Lazos examines initiatives and referendums in which a majority is in a position to vote on the content of a minority's democratic civic standing. Case law fails to set forth a single test for judicial review; consequently, doctrinal and theoretical coherence in this area is nonexistent. Professor Lazos proposes a test that takes into account social dynamics and focuses on the impact of these measures. First, she examines outcomes over the last three decades of approximately eighty such initiatives and referendums, from the anti-integration movement of the sixties to today's ideological and cultural versions, such as …