Law Commons^™

What Can Democrats Learn From Trump’S 2020 Performance?, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

What Will A Post-Trump U.S. Supreme Court Look Like? It Might Not Be All That Bad For Liberals, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

The Electoral College Is Dangerously Vulnerable To Manipulation. It's Time To Fix It, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

U.S. War Crimes And Accountability With The International Criminal Court: A Critique, Johanna M. Leffler

Senior Honors Projects

JOHANNA LEFFLER (International Studies, French)

U.S. War Crimes and Accountability with the International Criminal Court: A Critique

Sponsor: Kristin Johnson (Political Science)

Throughout my undergraduate career I have studied a variety of subjects within international affairs. The fall of my 2019-2020 year while studying abroad at The Institute for Political Studies of Rennes, France, was where I studied a particularly thought-provoking subject, Mondialisation et Droit de l’Homme (Globalization and Human Rights). We studied the evolution of international law, the justice institutions which uphold it, and how modern globalization impacts human rights. The subject matter and discussion with my international classmates …

This Year’S Divided Electorate Is A Reminder Of Why We Need Workable, Governing Majorities, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

Unravelling The Us Presidential Election, Lori A. Ringhand

Scholarly Works

One of the most perplexing things about US elections is the extent to which we litigate what in much of the rest of the world are routine nuts and bolts questions about how elections work. I had first-hand experience with this during the 2000 presidential election when I was living in the UK. Why, I constantly was asked, is the US Supreme Court deciding your presidential election?

It’s a good question, and also a timely one given how the current presidential election is unfolding.

Alito, Conservative Justices Are Fighting Old Ghosts In Pa. Count All The Ballots, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

Local Elected Officials’ Receptivity To Refugee Resettlement In The United States, Robert Shaffer, Lauren E. Pinson, Jonathan A. Chu, Beth A. Simmons

All Faculty Scholarship

Local leaders possess significant and growing authority over refugee resettlement, yet we know little about their attitudes toward refugees. In this article, we use a conjoint experiment to evaluate how the attributes of hypothetical refugee groups influence local policymaker receptivity toward refugee resettlement. We sample from a novel, national panel of current local elected officials, who represent a broad range of urban and rural communities across the United States. We find that many local officials favor refugee resettlement regardless of refugee attributes. However, officials are most receptive to refugees whom they perceive as a strong economic and social fit within …

We Need Independent Judicial Review. We Don’T Need The Filibuster. Let's Get Rid Of It, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

What Constitution Says About Peaceful Transfer Of Power, John M. Greabe

Law Faculty Scholarship

[excerpt] I recently was asked whether the Constitution requires a peaceful transfer of power following an election. Sadly, the questions is not merely theoretical. President Trump has stated that, if he loses the upcoming election, it will be through fraud. And he has made it clear that he will be unrestrained in his response to any efforts to oust him from office through an election he pronounces fraudulent.

The question of whether the Constitution requires a peaceful transfer of power prompts consideration of how we should conceptualize our Constitution. Is the Constitution merely the document that was written in 1787, …

The One Religious Question That Amy Coney Barrett Shouldn’T Have To Answer, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

The Sources And Consequences Of Political Rhetoric: Issue Importance, Collegial Bargaining, And Disagreeable Rhetoric In Supreme Court Opinions, Michael A. Zilis, Justin Wedeking

Political Science Faculty Publications

How do political actors use rhetoric after an initial policy battle? We explore factors that lead Supreme Court justices to integrate disagreeable rhetoric into opinions. Although disagreeable language has negative consequences, we posit that justices pay this cost for issues with high personal significance. At the same time, we argue that integrating disagreeable rhetoric has a deleterious effect on the institution by reducing majority coalition size. Examining opinions from 1946 to 2011 using text-based measures of disagreeable rhetoric, we model the language of opinion writing as well as explore the consequences for coalition size. Our findings suggest serious implications for …

Mcconnell’S Lust To Control The Supreme Court Could Destroy It, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

Political Tribalism Is Trumping Accountability. That’S Bad For Democracy, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

Covid-19 And Us Tax Policy: What Needs To Change?, Reuven Avi-Yonah

Articles

The COVID-19 Pandemic already feels like a historical turning point akin to Word Wars I and II and the Great Depression. It may signal the end of the second period of globalization (1980-2020) and a change in the relative positions of the US and China. It could also lead in the US to significant changes in tax policy designed to bolster the social safety net which was revealed as very porous during the pandemic. In what follows I will first discuss some short-term effects of the pandemic and then some potential longer-term effects on US tax policy.

Here’S Everything Libertarians Like Russ Diamond Get Wrong About Mask-Wearing, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

N.Y.’S James Is Right To Go After The Nra For Fraud And Malfeasance. Seeking To Dissolve It Is A Step Too Far., Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

In Harrisburg And D.C., The Gop Meddling With Our Courts Is A Threat To Democracy, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

If We’Re Serious About Protecting Religious Liberty, We Need Universal Healthcare, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

Are We Witnessing The Death Of Reason And Truth In American Public Life?, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

Racism Is White People’S Fault. It’S Our Responsibility To End It, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

Do We Intend To Keep Our Republic?, John M. Greabe

Law Faculty Scholarship

[Excerpt] Commentators recently have reminded us of a famous statement Benjamin Franklin allegedly made upon exiting Independence Hall on the final day of the 1787 Constitutional Convention. When asked whether the proposed Constitution would establish a monarchy or a republic, Franklin supposedly answered: "A republic, if you can keep it."

The anecdote, which both inspired the title of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch's recent book and was recounted by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi when she announced the impeachment inquiry into the conduct of the president, reminds us that our republican form of government is not to be taken …

Saving Judicial Independence From The Nihilism Of Court-Packing, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals.

Jurisprudence—Merely Judgment: A Fallibilist Account Of The Rule Of Law, Bruce K. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

How should judges decide the cases presented to them? In our system the answer is, “according to law,” as opposed to the judges’ preferred outcomes. But for at least a century, skeptics have cast doubt on whether adjudication under law is possible. Judge Richard Posner, now retired from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, has, for example, argued that the indeterminacy of legal argument and the influence of judges’ predispositions show that it is not. Judge Posner thus recommends that judges give up on the rule of law in contested cases and instead candidly base their decisions …

Federalism As Legal Pluralism, Erin Ryan

Scholarly Publications

This chapter uses the dynamic federalism model of constitutional dual sovereignty as an analytic window into the larger legal pluralism discourse that has emerged in recent decades. Legal pluralism explores the significance of the multiple sources of legal authority and identity with which individuals simultaneously engage. These overlapping sources of normative authority range from local, national, and international institutions of government to private sources of “quasi-legal” norms generated by tribal, religious, commercial, professional, or other associations. Scholarly advocates of legal pluralism challenge the tradition of legal monism—so entrenched that its presumptions often go unnoticed—which views legitimate legal authority as deriving …

Historical Foundations And Enduring Fundamentals Of American Religious Freedom, John Witte Jr.

Faculty Articles

For all of their failures and shortcomings, the eighteenth-century founders did indeed begin on the right “path” toward a free society, and today, Americans enjoy a good deal of religious, civil, and political freedom as a consequence. American principles of religious freedom have had a profound influence around the globe, and they now figure prominently in a number of national constitutions and international human rights instruments issued by political and religious bodies.

To be sure, as Adams predicted, there has always been a “glorious uncertainty of the law” of religious liberty and a noble diversity of understandings of its details. …

First Amendment (Un)Exceptionalism: A Comparative Taxonomy Of Campaign Finance Reform Proposals In The United States And United Kingdom, Lori A. Ringhand

Scholarly Works

There is an urgent conversation happening among the world’s democracies about how to respond to the combined threat of online electioneering and foreign interference in domestic elections. Despite the shadow such activities cast over the 2016 presidential election in the United States, the US has been largely absent from comparative discussions about how to tackle the problem. This is not just because of a recalcitrant president. The assumption that America’s “First Amendment Exceptionalism” – the idea that American freedom of expression law is simply too much of an outlier to warrant useful comparative consideration – is strong on both sides …

Are Data Privacy Laws Trade Barriers?, Margot Kaminski

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Reemergence Of Vaccine Nationalism, Ana Santos Rutschman

All Faculty Scholarship

This short essay explores the reemergence of vaccine nationalism during the COVID-19 pandemic. The essay traces the pre-COVID origins of vaccine nationalism and explains how it can have detrimental effects on equitable access to newly developed vaccines.

Presidential Use Of Force In East Asia: American Constitutional Law And The U.S.-Japan Alliance, Matthew C. Waxman

Faculty Scholarship

The U.S. Constitution’s allocation of military authority has adapted over time to major shifts in American power and grand strategy. This paper explains, with a focus on U.S. military actions in East Asia and possible scenarios of special joint concern to the United States and Japan, that the president in practice wields tremendous power and discretion in using military force. Although formal, legal checks on the president’s use of force rarely come into play, Congress nevertheless retains some political power to influence presidential decision-making. The president’s powers are also constrained by interagency processes within the executive branch, and alliance relations …