Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Series

Columbia Law School

Columbia Law Review

2012

Constitutional Law

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

Thirteenth Amendment Optimism, Jamal Greene Jan 2012

Thirteenth Amendment Optimism, Jamal Greene

Faculty Scholarship

Thirteenth Amendment optimism is the view that the Thirteenth Amendment may be used to reach doctrinal outcomes neither specifically intended by the Amendment's drafters nor obvious to contemporary audiences. In prominent legal scholarship, Thirteenth Amendment optimism has supported constitutional rights to abortion and health care and constitutional powers to prohibit hate speech and domestic violence, among other things. This Essay examines the practical utility of Thirteenth Amendment optimism in the face of dim prospects for adaption by courts. The Essay argues that Thirteenth Amendment optimism is most valuable, both historically and today, as a means of motivating the political process …


On Avoiding Avoidance, Agenda Control, And Related Matters, Henry Paul Monaghan Jan 2012

On Avoiding Avoidance, Agenda Control, And Related Matters, Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

Legal scholars have long posited that, heuristically at least, two basic adjudicatory models – the dispute resolution model and the law declaration model – compete for the Court's affection along a wide spectrum of issues. The former focuses upon judicial resolution of actual disputes between litigants. Historically, that model has been underpinned by a premise, reflected in a wide range of doctrines, that significant barriers rightly exist to judicial review of the constitutionality of governmental conduct. By contrast, the law declaration model focuses on the Court itself not the litigants. Emphasizing the judicial authority to say what the law is, …