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Full-Text Articles in Law
Rebel Without A Clause: The Irrelevance Of Article Vi To Constitutional Supremacy, Gary Lawson
Rebel Without A Clause: The Irrelevance Of Article Vi To Constitutional Supremacy, Gary Lawson
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
With Stare Decisis and Constitutional Text, Jonathan Mitchell has produced what I think is the most interesting and creative textual defense (or at least partial defense) to date of the use of horizontal precedent in federal constitutional cases. Mitchell's careful analysis of the Supremacy Clause is fascinating and instructive, and he does an impeccable job of drawing out the implications of his premise that the Supremacy Clause prescribes only a very limited choice-of-law rule-a rule that does not, by its own terms, specifically elevate the Constitution above federal statutes and treaties. His innovative and intriguing framework yields four distinct conclusions …
Commerce In The Commerce Clause: A Response To Jack Balkin, Robert G. Natelson
Commerce In The Commerce Clause: A Response To Jack Balkin, Robert G. Natelson
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
The Constitution's original meaning is its meaning to those ratifying the document during a discrete time period: from its adoption by the Constitutional Convention in late 1787 until Rhode Island's ratification on May 29, 1790. Reconstructing it requires historical skills, including a comprehensive approach to sources. Jack Balkin's article Commerce fails to consider the full range of evidence and thereby attributes to the Constitution's Commerce Clause a scope that virtually no one in the Founding Era believed it had.
Freedom And Equality On The Installment Plan, Michael Halley
Freedom And Equality On The Installment Plan, Michael Halley
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
A response to Nelson Tebbe & Robert L. Tsai, Constitutional Borrowing, 108 Mich. L. Rev. 462 (2010). Crediting the perception that the Constitution is a poorly cut puzzle whose variously configured pieces don't match, Nelson Tebbe and Robert Tsai propose that the stand-alone parts of freedom and equality can be merged and mutually enlarged through the act of borrowing. They are mistaken. While Thomas Jefferson wrote that ideas may be appropriated without being diminished and so "freely spread from one to another over the globe," the equality and freedom the Constitution addresses as actualities are constrained by a basic, familiar, …
Constitutional Interpretation And Judicial Review: A Case Of The Tail Wagging The Dog, Michael Halley
Constitutional Interpretation And Judicial Review: A Case Of The Tail Wagging The Dog, Michael Halley
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
A response to John F. Manning, Federalism and the Generality Problem in Constitutional Interpretation, 122 Harv. L. Rev. 2003 (2009). Professor John Manning's analysis of the Supreme Court's recent federalism decisions works as a platform to further the cause of textualism. His argument fails to persuade, however, because the textualism he says the Court should embrace in federalism cases is antithetical to the atextual nature of the Court's jurisdiction to adjudicate the constitutionality of legislation. Manning prefaces his work by telling readers that his analysis is not an end in itself. His aim, rather, is to "use the methodology" the …
The Justiciability Of Eligibility: May Courts Decide Who Can Be President?, Daniel P. Tokaji
The Justiciability Of Eligibility: May Courts Decide Who Can Be President?, Daniel P. Tokaji
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
The 2008 election cycle has been a busy one for legal disputes over the qualifications of presidential candidates, with federal cases having been filed to challenge both major candidates’ eligibility under the “natural born Citizen” clause. These cases unquestionably present vital questions of constitutional law, touching on matters of self-evident national importance. It is doubtful, however, that they are justiciable in lower federal courts. Standing requirements and the political question doctrine make it unlikely that a federal court will reach the merits in cases of the type filed to date.
Mccain’S Citizenship And Constitutional Method, Peter J. Spiro
Mccain’S Citizenship And Constitutional Method, Peter J. Spiro
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
Many things may obstruct John McCain’s path to the White House, but his citizenship status is not among them. The question of his eligibility, given the circumstances of his birth, has already been resolved. That outcome has been produced by actors outside the courts. . . . If non-judicial actors—including Congress, editorialists, leading members of the bar, and the People themselves—manage to generate a constitutional consensus, there isn’t much that the courts can do about it. In cases such as this one, at least, that seems to be an acceptable method of constitutional determination.
Originalism And The Natural Born Citizen Clause, Lawrence B. Solum
Originalism And The Natural Born Citizen Clause, Lawrence B. Solum
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
The enigmatic phrase “natural born citizen” poses a series of problems for contemporary originalism. New Originalists, like Justice Scalia, focus on the original public meaning of the constitutional text. The notion of a “natural born citizen” was likely a term of art derived from the idea of a “natural born subject” in English law—a category that most likely did not extend to persons, like Senator McCain, who were born outside sovereign territory. But the Constitution speaks of “citizens” and not “subjects,” introducing uncertainties and ambiguities that might (or might not) make McCain eligible for the presidency.
Reforming The Electorial College One State At A Time, Thomas W. Hiltachk
Reforming The Electorial College One State At A Time, Thomas W. Hiltachk
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
The genius of our United States Constitution is the delicate balance our Founding Fathers struck between empowering a national government and preserving the inherent sovereignty of individual states. Any proposed governmental reform that would interfere with that balance should be looked upon skeptically. Recent proposals to do away with the Electoral College in favor of a national popular vote for President deserve such careful examination. But that does not mean that reform is out of reach. We have only to look to the Constitution itself to find that the answer lies in the self-interest of each state. I am an …
Awarding Presidential Electors By Congressional District: Wrong For California, Wrong For The Nation, Sam Hirsch
Awarding Presidential Electors By Congressional District: Wrong For California, Wrong For The Nation, Sam Hirsch
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
The unfairness of the proposed California Presidential Election Reform Act is obvious: in a close election, the Act virtually assures that California’s fifty-five electoral votes, which would be expected to go entirely to the Democratic presidential candidate under the traditional statewide-winner-takeall system, will instead be split, with more than a third of them going to the Republican candidate. Implementing this “reform” in the nation’s largest Democratic state, but not in any of the large Republican states (like Texas), is roughly the equivalent of handing over to the Republicans the state of Illinois. What is less obvious is that the Act …
Ideological Endowment: The Staying Power Of The Electoral College And The Weaknesses Of The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, Daniel P. Rathbun
Ideological Endowment: The Staying Power Of The Electoral College And The Weaknesses Of The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, Daniel P. Rathbun
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
The National Popular Vote (“NPV”) movement is designed to eliminate the federalist impact of the Electoral College without amending the Constitution. By fashioning an interstate compact to grant participating states’ electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, NPV proponents suppose they can induce states to forfeit their electoral “weights” and replace the current, federalist election process with a fully majoritarian one. But by leaving the Electoral College in place, the NPV movement is setting itself up for a double pushback: first, in the form of immediate legal resistance, and second, through states’ long-term involvement in a meaningfully …
Democratic Principle And Electoral College Reform, Ethan J. Leib, Eli J. Mark
Democratic Principle And Electoral College Reform, Ethan J. Leib, Eli J. Mark
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
The Electoral College is a relic from another time and is in tension with the modern constitutional command of “one person, one vote.” But the Electoral College is, nevertheless, ensconced in our Constitution—and, as a result, we would need to amend the document to alter or abolish it from our political fabric. Still, some states are toying with state-based Electoral College reforms. Thus, irrespective of whether voters in those states favor the abolition of the Electoral College through a federal constitutional amendment, they must critically examine the democratic merits of these statebased reform options. Categorically rejecting all state-based reform is …
Why Senator John Mccain Cannot Be President: Eleven Months And A Hundred Yards Short Of Citizenship, Gabriel Chin
Why Senator John Mccain Cannot Be President: Eleven Months And A Hundred Yards Short Of Citizenship, Gabriel Chin
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
Article II, section 1 of the Constitution provides that “No Person except a natural born Citizen . . . shall be eligible to the Office of President . . . .” A person must be a citizen at birth to be a natural born citizen. Senator McCain was born in the Canal Zone in 1936. Although he is now a U.S. citizen, the law in effect in 1936 did not grant him citizenship at birth. Because he was not born a citizen, he is not eligible to the office of president.