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Articles 1 - 11 of 11
Full-Text Articles in Law
Federalism And Equal Citizenship: The Constitutional Case For D.C. Statehood, Jessica Bulman-Pozen, Olatunde C.A. Johnson
Federalism And Equal Citizenship: The Constitutional Case For D.C. Statehood, Jessica Bulman-Pozen, Olatunde C.A. Johnson
Faculty Scholarship
As the question of D.C. statehood commands national attention, the legal discourse remains stilted. The constitutional question we should be debating is not whether statehood is permitted but whether it is required.
Commentators have been focusing on the wrong constitutional provisions. The Founding document and the Twenty-Third Amendment do not resolve D.C.’s status. The Reconstruction Amendments — and the principle of federated, equal citizenship they articulate — do. The Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, as glossed by subsequent amendments, not only establishes birthright national citizenship and decouples it from race and caste but also makes state citizenship a constitutive component of …
A Theory Of Constitutional Norms, Ashraf Ahmed
A Theory Of Constitutional Norms, Ashraf Ahmed
Faculty Scholarship
The political convulsions of the past decade have fueled acute interest in constitutional norms or “conventions.” Despite intense scholarly attention, existing accounts are incomplete and do not answer at least one or more of three major questions: (1) What must all constitutional norms do? (2) What makes them conventional? (3) And why are they constitutional?
This Article advances an original theory of constitutional norms that answers these questions. First, it defines them and explains their general character: they are normative, contingent, and arbitrary practices that implement constitutional text and principle. Most scholars have foregone examining how norms are conventional or …
Discriminatory Taint, Kerrel Murray
Discriminatory Taint, Kerrel Murray
Faculty Scholarship
The truism that history matters can hide complexities. Consider the idea of problematic policy lineages. When may we call a policy the progeny of an earlier, discriminatory policy, especially if the policies diverge in design and designer? Does such a relationship condemn the later policy for all times and purposes, or can a later decisionmaker escape the past? It is an old problem, but its resolution hardly seems impending. Just recently, Supreme Court cases have confronted this fact pattern across subject matters as diverse as entry restrictions, nonunanimous juries, and redistricting, among others. Majority opinions seem unsure whether or why …
The Insular Cases Run Amok: Against Constitutional Exceptionalism In The Territories, Christina D. Ponsa-Kraus
The Insular Cases Run Amok: Against Constitutional Exceptionalism In The Territories, Christina D. Ponsa-Kraus
Faculty Scholarship
The Insular Cases have been enjoying an improbable — and unfortunate — renaissance. Decided at the height of what has been called the “imperialist” period in U.S. history, this series of Supreme Court decisions handed down in the early twentieth century infamously held that the former Spanish colonies annexed by the United States in 1898 — Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam — “belong[ed] to, but [were] not a part of, the United States.” What exactly this meant has been the subject of considerable debate even as those decisions have received unanimous condemnation. According to the standard account, the …
Countering The New Election Subversion: The Democracy Principle And The Role Of State Courts, Jessica Bulman-Pozen, Miriam Seifter
Countering The New Election Subversion: The Democracy Principle And The Role Of State Courts, Jessica Bulman-Pozen, Miriam Seifter
Faculty Scholarship
Among the threats to American democracy, the most serious may also be the most banal: future elections will be compromised by quiet changes to the law. State legislators across the country have introduced bills that give them power to reject the will of voters. They have established sham audits and investigations. And they have created new criminal offenses that undermine professional election administration. While power-shifting legislation, audits, and criminal penalties advertise their fealty to law, they threaten the franchise and electoral integrity, as well as nonpartisan, expert election administration. Because of its ostensibly legal, even legalistic, character, however, the new …
Courts, Constitutionalism, And State Capacity: A Preliminary Inquiry, Madhav Khosla, Mark Tushnet
Courts, Constitutionalism, And State Capacity: A Preliminary Inquiry, Madhav Khosla, Mark Tushnet
Faculty Scholarship
Modern constitutional theory deals almost exclusively with the mechanisms for controlling the exercise of public power. In particular, the focus of constitutional scholars lies in explaining and justifying how courts can effectively keep the exercise of public power within bounds. But there is little point in worrying about the excesses of government power when the government lacks the capacity to get things done in the first place. In this Article, we examine relations between the courts, constitutionalism, and state capacity other than through limiting state power. Through a series of case studies, we suggest how courts confront the problem of …
Era Project Olc Letter, Katherine M. Franke, David E. Pozen, Erwin Chemerinsky, Melissa Murray, Laurence H. Tribe, Martha Minow, Geoffrey C. Stone, Cary Franklin, Michael C. Dorf, Victoria Nourse
Era Project Olc Letter, Katherine M. Franke, David E. Pozen, Erwin Chemerinsky, Melissa Murray, Laurence H. Tribe, Martha Minow, Geoffrey C. Stone, Cary Franklin, Michael C. Dorf, Victoria Nourse
Faculty Scholarship
The Equal Rights Amendment Project at Columbia Law School (“ERA Project”) and the undersigned scholars submit this letter at the request of your office to provide legal analysis of the January 6, 2020 Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel Memorandum to the National Archives and Records Administration on the Equal Rights Amendment (“2020 OLC Memo”).
The Legal Origins Of Catholic Conscientious Objection, Jeremy K. Kessler
The Legal Origins Of Catholic Conscientious Objection, Jeremy K. Kessler
Faculty Scholarship
This Article traces the origins of Catholic conscientious objection as a theory and practice of American constitutionalism. It argues that Catholic conscientious objection emerged during the 1960s from a confluence of left-wing and right-wing Catholic efforts to participate in American democratic culture more fully. The refusal of the American government to allow legitimate Catholic conscientious objection to the Vietnam War became a cause célèbre for clerical and lay leaders and provided a blueprint for Catholic legal critiques of other forms of federal regulation in the late 1960s and early 1970s — most especially regulations concerning the provision of contraception and …
How Federalism Built The Fbi, Sustained Local Police, And Left Out The States, Daniel C. Richman, Sarah Seo
How Federalism Built The Fbi, Sustained Local Police, And Left Out The States, Daniel C. Richman, Sarah Seo
Faculty Scholarship
This Article examines the endurance of police localism amid the improbable growth of the FBI in the early twentieth century when the prospect of a centralized law enforcement agency was anathema to the ideals of American democracy. It argues that doctrinal accounts of federalism do not explain these paradoxical developments. By analyzing how the Bureau made itself indispensable to local police departments rather than encroaching on their turf, the Article elucidates an operational, or collaborative, federalism that not only enlarged the Bureau’s capacity and authority but also strengthened local autonomy at the expense of the states. Collaborative federalism is crucial …
Structural Biases In Structural Constitutional Law, Jonathan S. Gould, David E. Pozen
Structural Biases In Structural Constitutional Law, Jonathan S. Gould, David E. Pozen
Faculty Scholarship
Structural constitutional law regulates the workings of government and supplies the rules of the political game. Whether by design or by accident, these rules sometimes tilt the playing field for or against certain political factions – not just episodically, based on who holds power at a given moment, but systematically over time – in terms of electoral outcomes or policy objectives. In these instances, structural constitutional law is itself structurally biased.
This Article identifies and begins to develop the concept of such structural biases, with a focus on biases affecting the major political parties. Recent years have witnessed a revival …
Is A Science Of Comparative Constitutionalism Possible?, Madhav Khosla
Is A Science Of Comparative Constitutionalism Possible?, Madhav Khosla
Faculty Scholarship
Nearly a generation ago, Justice Scalia and Justice Breyer debated the legitimacy and value of using foreign law to interpret the American Constitution. At the time, the matter was controversial and invited the interest of both judges and scholars. Foreign law had, after all, been relied on in significant cases like Roper v. Simmons and Lawrence v. Texas. Many years on, there is still much to be debated — including the purpose and potential benefits of judicial engagement with foreign law — but “comparative constitutional law” has unquestionably emerged as a field of study in its own right. We …