Law Commons^™

Lost In Translation: The Accidental Origins Of Bond V. United States, Kevin L. Cope

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

One of the unusual features of cases about the constitutionality of federal statutes is that they are nearly always foreseeable. Even before the bill’s introduction in Congress, lawmakers are often aware that they are inviting a federal lawsuit. Anticipating a legal challenge, legislators and their staffs attempt to predict the courts’ views of the statute and adapt the bill accordingly. Generally speaking, the bigger the bill’s potential constitutional impact, the more foreseeable the resulting case. By this logic, jurists should have seen the constitutional issues in Bond v. United States from a mile away. In reality, they were foreseen by …