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Articles 1 - 10 of 10
Full-Text Articles in Law
Obama's Conversion On Same-Sex Marriage, Robert L. Tsai
Obama's Conversion On Same-Sex Marriage, Robert L. Tsai
Robert L Tsai
Speech And Strife, Robert L. Tsai
Speech And Strife, Robert L. Tsai
Robert L Tsai
The essay strives for a better understanding of the myths, symbols, categories of power, and images deployed by the Supreme Court to signal how we ought to think about its authority. Taking examples from free speech jurisprudence, the essay proceeds in three steps. First, Tsai argues that the First Amendment constitutes a deep source of cultural authority for the Court. As a result, linguistic and doctrinal innovation in the free speech area have been at least as bold and imaginative as that in areas like the Commerce Clause. Second, in turning to cognitive theory, he distinguishes between formal legal argumentation …
The Ethics Of Melancholy Citizenship, Robert L. Tsai
The Ethics Of Melancholy Citizenship, Robert L. Tsai
Robert L Tsai
No abstract provided.
Constitutional Borrowing, Robert L. Tsai
Constitutional Borrowing, Robert L. Tsai
Robert L Tsai
Borrowing from one domain to promote ideas in another domain is a staple of constitutional decisionmaking. Precedents, arguments, concepts, tropes, and heuristics all can be carried across doctrinal boundaries for purposes of persuasion. Yet the practice itself remains underanalyzed. This Article seeks to bring greater theoretical attention to the matter. It defines what constitutional borrowing is and what it is not, presents a typology that describes its common forms, undertakes a principled defense of borrowing, and identifies some of the risks involved. The authors' examples draw particular attention to places where legal mechanisms and ideas migrate between fields of law …
Sovereignty As Discourse, Robert L. Tsai
Democracy's Handmaid, Robert L. Tsai
Democracy's Handmaid, Robert L. Tsai
Robert L Tsai
Democratic theory presupposes open channels of dialogue, but focuses almost exclusively on matters of institutional design writ large. The philosophy of language explicates linguistic infrastructure, but often avoids exploring the political significance of its findings. In this Article, Tsai draws from the two disciplines to reach new insights about the democracy enhancing qualities of popular constitutional language. Employing examples from the founding era, the struggle for black civil rights, the religious awakening of the last two decades, and the search for gay equality, he presents a model of constitutional dialogue that emphasizes common modalities and mobilized vernacular. According to this …
John Brown's Constitution, Robert L. Tsai
John Brown's Constitution, Robert L. Tsai
Robert L Tsai
It will surprise many Americans to learn that before John Brown and his men briefly captured Harper’s Ferry, they authored and ratified a Provisional Constitution. This deliberative act built upon the achievements of the group to establish a Free Kansas, during which time Brown penned an analogue to the Declaration of Independence. These acts of writing, coupled with Brown’s trial tactics after his arrest, cast doubts on claims that the man was a lunatic or on a suicide mission. Instead, they suggest that John Brown aimed to be a radical statesman, one who turned to extreme tactics but nevertheless remained …
Review Of Beau Breslin's "From Words To Worlds", Robert L. Tsai
Review Of Beau Breslin's "From Words To Worlds", Robert L. Tsai
Robert L Tsai
No abstract provided.
Conceptualizing Constitutional Litigation As Anti-Government Expression: A Speech-Centered Theory Of Court Access, Robert L. Tsai
Conceptualizing Constitutional Litigation As Anti-Government Expression: A Speech-Centered Theory Of Court Access, Robert L. Tsai
Robert L Tsai
This Article proposes a speech-based right of court access. First, it finds the traditional due process approach to be analytically incoherent and of limited practical value. Second, it contends that history, constitutional structure, and theory all support conceiving of the right of access as the modern analogue to the right to petition government for redress. Third, the Article explores the ways in which the civil rights plaintiff's lawsuit tracks the behavior of the traditional dissident. Fourth, by way of a case study, the essay argues that recent restrictions - notably, a congressional limitation on the amount of fees counsel for …
Langston Hughes: The Ethics Of Melancholy Citizenship, Robert L. Tsai
Langston Hughes: The Ethics Of Melancholy Citizenship, Robert L. Tsai
Robert L Tsai
As a body of work, the poetry of Langston Hughes presents a vision of how members of a political community ought to comport themselves, particularly when politics yield few tangible solutions to their problems. Confronted with human degradation and bitter disappointment, the best course of action may be to abide by the ethics of melancholy citizenship. A mournful disposition is associated with four democratic virtues: candor, pensiveness, fortitude, and self-abnegation. Together, these four characteristics lead us away from democratic heartbreak and toward political renewal. Hughes’s war-themed poems offer a richly layered example of melancholy ethics in action. They reveal how …