Law Commons^™

Dolan V. City Of Tigard: Constitutional Rights As Public Goods, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

When may the government require that citizens waive their constitutional rights in order to obtain benefits the government has no obligation to provide them? The answer, given by the so-called "doctrine" of unconstitutional conditions, is that sometimes the government may condition discretionary benefits on the waiver of rights, and sometimes it may not. The Supreme Court has never offered a satisfactory rationale for this doctrine, or why it "roams about constitutional law like Banquo's ghost, invoked in some cases, but not in others."

The unconstitutional conditions doctrine directs courts not to enforce certain contracts that waive constitutional rights. Perhaps it …