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Full-Text Articles in Law
The New Maternity, Courtney Megan Cahill
The New Maternity, Courtney Megan Cahill
Scholarly Publications
Constitutional law has long assumed that mothers andfathers are fundamentally different. Maternity, that law posits, is certain, obvious, and monolithic - consolidated in an easily identifiable person who is at once a biological, social, and legal parent. Paternity, in contrast, is construed as uncertain, nonobvious, relative, and often unclear. Over time, constitutional law has grown more insistent about the obviousness of motherhood. It also has cemented its idea of maternity into a fundamental principle of sex equality law that applies in settings - like transgender rights - that have nothing to do with certain mothers and uncertain fathers.
Constitutional law's …
Prophylactic Redistricting? Congress's Section 5 Power And The New Equal Protection Right To Vote, Michael T. Morley
Prophylactic Redistricting? Congress's Section 5 Power And The New Equal Protection Right To Vote, Michael T. Morley
Scholarly Publications
No abstract provided.
The Disparate Impact Canon, Michael T. Morley
The Disparate Impact Canon, Michael T. Morley
Scholarly Publications
No abstract provided.
The New Elections Clause, Michael T. Morley
The New Elections Clause, Michael T. Morley
Scholarly Publications
No abstract provided.
Contingent Constitutionality, Legislative Facts, And Campaign Finance Law, Michael T. Morley
Contingent Constitutionality, Legislative Facts, And Campaign Finance Law, Michael T. Morley
Scholarly Publications
Many of the Supreme Court's important holdings concerning campaign finance law are not pure matters of constitutional interpretation. Rather, they are "contingent" constitution- al determinations: the Court's conclusions rest in substantial part on legislative facts about the world that the Court finds, intuits, or assumes to be true. While earlier commentators have recognized the need to improve legislative factfinding by the Supreme Court, other aspects of its treatment of legislative facts-particularly in the realm of campaign finance- require reform as well. Stare decisis purportedly insulates the Court's purely legal holdings and interpretations from future challenge. Factually contingent constitutional rulings should, …
Reverse Nullification And Executive Discretion, Michael T. Morley
Reverse Nullification And Executive Discretion, Michael T. Morley
Scholarly Publications
The President has broad discretion to refrain from enforcing many civil and criminal laws, either in general or under certain circumstances. The Supreme Court has not only affirmed the constitutionality of such under-enforcement, but extolled its virtues. Most recently, in Arizona v. United States, it deployed the judicially created doctrines of obstacle and field preemption to invalidate state restrictions on illegal immigrants that mirrored federal law, in large part to ensure that states do not undermine the effects of the President’s decision to refrain from fully enforcing federal immigration provisions.
Such a broad application of obstacle and field preemption is …
The Intratextual Independent "Legislature" And The Elections Clause, Michael T. Morley
The Intratextual Independent "Legislature" And The Elections Clause, Michael T. Morley
Scholarly Publications
Many states have delegated substantial authority to regulate federal elections to entities other than their institutional legislatures, such as independent redistricting commissions empowered to determine the boundaries of congressional districts. Article I’s Elections Clause and Article II’s Presidential Electors Clause, however, confer authority to regulate federal elections specifically upon State “legislatures,” rather than granting it to States as a whole. An intratextual analysis of the Constitution reveals that the term “legislature” is best understood as referring solely to the entity within each state comprised of representatives that has the general authority to pass laws. Thus, state constitutional provisions or laws …
Public Law At The Cathedral: Enjoining The Government, Michael T. Morley
Public Law At The Cathedral: Enjoining The Government, Michael T. Morley
Scholarly Publications
Conventional wisdom provides that injunctive relief in public law cases is generally unnecessary, because a declaratory judgment and the threat of damages are enough to induce the government to comply with a court’s ruling (except, perhaps, in the institutional reform context). Consistent with this prevailing understanding, most scholars to apply Calabresi and Melamed’s Cathedral framework to public law have concluded that nearly all constitutional rights are protected by property rules, regardless of whether a rightholder actually is protected by an injunction, or instead merely has a substantial likelihood of obtaining one if she goes to court.
This Article challenges this …
Rethinking The Right To Vote Under State Constitutions, Michael T. Morley
Rethinking The Right To Vote Under State Constitutions, Michael T. Morley
Scholarly Publications
No abstract provided.
The Great American Gun Violence Lottery, Erin Ryan
The Great American Gun Violence Lottery, Erin Ryan
Scholarly Publications
Reflecting on the one-year anniversary of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, this very short essay compares the experience of gun violence in America to the dystopian game of chance in Shirley Jackson’s classic American short story, "The Lottery." With references to the role of Constitutional law, media consumption, and cultural change, it urges an available, common-sense middle ground on gun policy. The essay was first published by the American Constitution Society (Dec. 17, 2013) and later appeared in the Huffington Post (Dec. 20, 2013).
Federalism At The 'Cathedral': Property Rules, Liability Rules, And Inalienability Rules In Tenth Amendment Infrastructure, Erin Ryan
Scholarly Publications
As the climate crisis, war in the Middle East, and the price of oil focus American determination to move beyond fossil fuels, nuclear power has resurfaced as a possible alternative. But heady plans for energy reform may be stalled by an unlikely policy deadlock stemming from a structural technicality in an aging Supreme Court decision: New York v. United States, which set forth the Tenth Amendment anti-commandeering rule in 1992. The same dry technicality has also threatened the effective management of storm water pollution, contributed to the failed response to Hurricane Katrina, and poses ongoing regulatory obstacles in such critical …
The Law Of Nations And The Offenses Clause Of The Constitution: A Defense Of Federalism, Michael T. Morley
The Law Of Nations And The Offenses Clause Of The Constitution: A Defense Of Federalism, Michael T. Morley
Scholarly Publications
No abstract provided.