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University of Michigan Law School

Constitution

Legal Writing and Research

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Full-Text Articles in Law

Eighty Years Of Federalism Forbearance: Rationing, Resignation, And The Rule Of Law, Gil Seinfeld Jan 2020

Eighty Years Of Federalism Forbearance: Rationing, Resignation, And The Rule Of Law, Gil Seinfeld

Reviews

Andrew Coan’s book, Rationing the Constitution, offers a novel account of the forces that drive Supreme Court decisions across a wide array of highly controversial, vitally important areas of law. The project is ambitious. It endeavors to improve our understanding of forces that constrain the form and, ultimately, the substance of our constitutional law along each of its major axes: federalism, the separation of powers, and individual rights. I think it succeeds. The book’s central claim—that familiar (but underexplored) institutional constraints and background norms sharply limit the range of choices available to the Court when it is called upon to …


The Most Revealing Word In The United States Report, Richard Primus Jan 2019

The Most Revealing Word In The United States Report, Richard Primus

Articles

The most prominent issue in NFIB v. Sebelius was whether Congress’s regulatory power under the Commerce Clause stops at a point marked by a distinction between “activity” and “inactivity.” According to the law’s challengers, prior decisions about the scope of the commerce power already reflected the importance of the distinction between action and inaction. In all of the previous cases in which exercises of the commerce power had been sustained, the challengers argued, that power had been used to regulate activity. Never had Congress tried to regulate mere inactivity. In NFIB, four Justices rejected that contention, writing that such …


Pomobabble: Postmodern Newspeak And Constitutional "Meaning" For The Uninitiated, Dennis W. Arrow Dec 1997

Pomobabble: Postmodern Newspeak And Constitutional "Meaning" For The Uninitiated, Dennis W. Arrow

Michigan Law Review

A parody of postmodern writing.


The Constitution As Literature, James Boyd White Jan 1992

The Constitution As Literature, James Boyd White

Book Chapters

Although presumably no one would say that the Constitution offers its readers an experience that cannot be distinguished from reading a poem or a novel, there is nonetheless a sense in which it is a kind of highly imaginative literature in its own right (indeed its nature as law requires that this be so), the reading of which may be informed by our experience of other literary forms. But to say this may be controversial, and the first step toward understanding how such a claim can be made may be to ask what it is we think characterizes imaginative literature …


The Formulaic Constitution, Robert F. Nagel Nov 1985

The Formulaic Constitution, Robert F. Nagel

Michigan Law Review

This essay explores the ways in which the formulaic style is different from other, older forms of constitutional doctrine. It argues that the modern style affects the content that the Court finds in the Constitution and that it illuminates the current interpretive functions of the judiciary. Perhaps most importantly, the formulaic style establishes an identifiable relationship between the Court and the public and thus constrains how the Court's version of the Constitution bears upon the larger political culture.


Schwartz: The Supreme Court: Constitutional Revolution In Retrospect, Paul G. Kauper Feb 1958

Schwartz: The Supreme Court: Constitutional Revolution In Retrospect, Paul G. Kauper

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Supreme Court: Constitutional Revolution in Retrospect. By Bernard Schwartz.


Jackson: The Supreme Court In The American System Of Government, Howard M. Downs S.Ed. Jan 1956

Jackson: The Supreme Court In The American System Of Government, Howard M. Downs S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Supreme Court in the American System of Government. By Robert H. Jackson


Crosskey And The Constitution: A Reply To Goebel, Sylvester Petro Dec 1954

Crosskey And The Constitution: A Reply To Goebel, Sylvester Petro

Michigan Law Review

The immediate purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the inadequacies of the most embittered of the reviews of Crosskey's book which I have read, "Ex Parte Clio,'' written by Professor Goebel (hereinafter sometimes referred to as "the reviewer"). Demonstrating these things will involve repeated reference to the thesis and the methodology of the book, and comparison of the book with the contentions advanced by the reviewer. The reading will probably be as tedious as the writing has been, but that cannot be helped, for the longer aim of this paper cannot be achieved in any other manner. That aim …