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Full-Text Articles in Law
Abortion Politics And The Rise Of Movement Jurists, Robert L. Tsai, Mary Ziegler
Abortion Politics And The Rise Of Movement Jurists, Robert L. Tsai, Mary Ziegler
Faculty Scholarship
This Article employs the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization and litigation in its wake as the jumping off point to reconsider the connections between judges, the Constitution, and social movements. That movements influence constitutional law, and that judicial pronouncements in turn are reshaped by politics, is well-established. But, while these accounts of legal change depend upon judges to embrace movement ideas, less has been written about the conditions under which judicial entrenchment can be expected to take place. There may, in fact, be different types of judicial dispositions towards external political phenomena.
In this Article, …
Constitutional Exaptation, Political Dysfunction, And The Recess Appointments Clause, Jay D. Wexler
Constitutional Exaptation, Political Dysfunction, And The Recess Appointments Clause, Jay D. Wexler
Faculty Scholarship
The so-called Recess Appointments Clause of the Constitution provides that: “The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.”1 As of only a few years ago, I considered this clause so minor and quirky that I included it in a book about ten of the Constitution’s “oddest” clauses, right alongside such clearly weird provisions as the Title of Nobility Clause and the Third Amendment.2 Though I recognized that the Recess Appointments Clause was probably the least odd …
The Rise And Rise Of The Administrative State, Gary S. Lawson
The Rise And Rise Of The Administrative State, Gary S. Lawson
Faculty Scholarship
The post-New Deal administrative state is unconstitutional, and its validation by the legal system amounts to nothing less than a bloodless constitutional revolution. The original New Dealers were aware, at least to some degree, that their vision of the national government's proper role and structure could not be squared with the written Constitution: The Administrative Process, James Landis's classic exposition of the New Deal model of administration, fairly drips with contempt for the idea of a limited national government subject to a formal, tripartite separation of powers. Faced with a choice between the administrative state and the Constitution, the architects …
Supreme Court's Tilt To The Property Right: Procedural Due Process Protections Of Liberty And Property Interests, Jack M. Beermann, Barbara A. Melamed, Hugh F. Hall
Supreme Court's Tilt To The Property Right: Procedural Due Process Protections Of Liberty And Property Interests, Jack M. Beermann, Barbara A. Melamed, Hugh F. Hall
Faculty Scholarship
The Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution provide important protections against government oppression. They provide that government may not deprive any person of "life, liberty or property" without due process of law. In recent decisions, the Supreme Court has appeared willing to strengthen its protection of traditional property interests yet weaken its protection of liberty interests.
It has long been accepted, albeit with controversy, that due process has both procedural and substantive elements. This essay concerns the procedural elements. Procedural due process analysis asks two questions: first, whether there exists a liberty …
Choosing Judges The Democratic Way, Larry Yackle
Choosing Judges The Democratic Way, Larry Yackle
Faculty Scholarship
A generation ago, the pressing question in constitutional law was the countermajoritarian difficulty.' Americans insisted their government was a democratic republic and took that to mean rule by a majority of elected representatives in various offices and bodies, federal and local. Yet courts whose members had not won election presumed to override the actions of executive and legislative officers who had. The conventional answer to this apparent paradox was the Constitution, which arguably owed its existence to the people directly. Judicial review was justified, accordingly, when court decisions were rooted firmly in the particular text, structure, or historical backdrop of …