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Full-Text Articles in Law
Keynote Speech: A Letter From The Original Cause Lawyer, F. Michael Higginbotham
Keynote Speech: A Letter From The Original Cause Lawyer, F. Michael Higginbotham
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This symposium speech is a short piece which talks about why there is a need for law students to become cause lawyers, the symposium being: cause lawyers and cause lawyering in the sixty years after Brown v. Board of Education. The writer creates an allegorical scene where he's snowed in in his home during a snowstorm, lightning strikes his computer, and the computer comes to life in the form a message being typed, and "channeled" to him by Thurgood Marshall. The former Justice of the Supreme Court proceeds to state the many reasons why there is still a need for …
Federalism And Phantom Economic Rights In Nfib V. Sibelius, Matthew Lindsay
Federalism And Phantom Economic Rights In Nfib V. Sibelius, Matthew Lindsay
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Few predicted that the constitutional fate of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would turn on Congress’ power to lay and collect taxes. Yet in NFIB v. Sebelius, the Supreme Court upheld the centerpiece of the Act — the minimum coverage provision (MCP), commonly known as the “individual mandate” — as a tax. The unexpected basis of the Court’s holding has deflected attention from what may prove to be the decision’s more constitutionally consequential feature: that a majority of the Court agreed that Congress lacked authority under the Commerce Clause to penalize people who decline to purchase health insurance. …
A Court For The One Percent: How The Supreme Court Contributes To Economic Inequality, Michele E. Gilman
A Court For The One Percent: How The Supreme Court Contributes To Economic Inequality, Michele E. Gilman
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This Article explores the United States Supreme Court’s role in furthering economic inequality. The Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011 not only highlighted growing income and wealth inequality in the United States, but also pointed the blame at governmental policies that favor business interests and the wealthy due to their outsized influence on politicians. Numerous economists and political scientists agree with this thesis. However, in focusing ire on the political branches and big business, these critiques have largely overlooked the role of the judiciary in fostering economic inequality. The Court’s doctrine touches each of the major causes of economic inequality, …
Financing Elections And 'Appearance Of Corruption': Citizen Attitudes And Behavior In 2012, Molly J. Walker Wilson
Financing Elections And 'Appearance Of Corruption': Citizen Attitudes And Behavior In 2012, Molly J. Walker Wilson
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As political spending reaches new highs in the 2012 election cycle, and as the controversy surrounding wealthy donors and interest groups grows, polls demonstrate a surge of cynicism among Americans who profess a belief that the American political system is corrupt. The Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United made possible the most recent expansion of political spending. In this case, the question was whether allowing corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts of money on political advertising would result in corruption or the appearance of corruption. The majority on the Court determined that it would not. Many observers have …
Weather Permitting: Incrementalism, Animus, And The Art Of Forecasting Marriage Equality After U.S. V. Windsor, Jeremiah A. Ho
Weather Permitting: Incrementalism, Animus, And The Art Of Forecasting Marriage Equality After U.S. V. Windsor, Jeremiah A. Ho
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Within LGBT rights, the law is abandoning essentialist approaches toward sexual orientation by incrementally de-regulating restrictions on identity expression of sexual minorities. Simultaneously, same-sex marriages are become increasingly recognized on both state and federal levels. This Article examines the Supreme Court’s recent decision, U.S. v. Windsor, as the latest example of these parallel journeys. By overturning DOMA, Windsor normatively revises the previous incrementalist theory for forecasting marriage equality’s progress studied by William Eskridge, Kees Waaldijk, and Yuval Merin. Windsor also represents a moment where the law is abandoning antigay essentialism by using animus-focused jurisprudence for lifting the discrimination against the …