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Should Ideology Matter In Selecting Federal Judges? Ground Rules For The Debate, Dawn E. Johnsen
Should Ideology Matter In Selecting Federal Judges? Ground Rules For The Debate, Dawn E. Johnsen
Articles by Maurer Faculty
A recurring constitutional controversy of great practical and political importance concerns the criteria Presidents and Senators should use in selecting federal judges. Particularly contentious is the relevance of what sometimes is described as a prospective judge's ideology, or alternatively, judicial philosophy and views on substantive questions of law. This essay seeks to promote principled and productive discussion by proposing five ground rules to govern debate by all participants regarding appropriate judicial selection criteria. Because the continued controversy does not simply reflect principled disagreement on the merits, progress may be encouraged by focusing on deficiencies in current public discourse, including discouraging …
Functional Departmentalism And Nonjudicial Interpretation: Who Determines Constitutional Meaning?, Dawn E. Johnsen
Functional Departmentalism And Nonjudicial Interpretation: Who Determines Constitutional Meaning?, Dawn E. Johnsen
Articles by Maurer Faculty
Published as part of a Duke Law School symposium on Conservative and Progressive Legal Orders, this article considers the appropriate role of the political branches - Congress and the President - in the development of constitutional meaning, including the extent of presidential and congressional authority to act on constitutional views at odds with judicial doctrine. The article discusses deficiencies in strong forms of both judicial supremacy (such as that behind the Rehnquist Court's recent limits on Congress's section 5 authority) and what is described in the academic literature as departmentalism (which emphasizes near-plenary authority for each branch to act on …