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Same-Sex Marriage, Indian Tribes, And The Constitution, Matthew L.M. Fletcher Dec 2006

Same-Sex Marriage, Indian Tribes, And The Constitution, Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

A same-sex marriage amendment, depending on the text, might serve to incorporate Indian tribes into the federal union as the third sovereign. The Constitution has not been amended to incorporate Indian tribes into the federal union, rendering their place in Our Federalism uncertain and unpredictable. A same-sex marriage amendment that applies to limit or expand tribal authority to recognize or authorize same-sex marriage could constitute an implicit recognition of Indian tribes as the third sovereign in the American system of federalism. Even an amendment that excludes mention of Indian tribes may have something to say about Indian tribes as the …


El Problema De Las Fuentes Del Derecho: Una Perspectiva Desde La Argumentación Jurídica, Jorge Gonzalez-Jacome Dec 2006

El Problema De Las Fuentes Del Derecho: Una Perspectiva Desde La Argumentación Jurídica, Jorge Gonzalez-Jacome

Jorge Gonzalez-Jacome

This article argues that there is a very vast complexity in the theory of sources of law. According to the traditional doctrine the sources are ordered in a coherent and precise manner and the interpreter has only to apply a clear hierarchy. However, looking at the way some judges in Colombia have applied their sources, it seems that the traditional way of looking to this problem is not an accurate description of what is happening in practice. Therefore, an alternative way of understanding the practice of our judges is proposed, in order to build a description that shows us in …


Constitutional Thematics And The Peculiar Federal Marriage Amendment, Scott Dodson Dec 2006

Constitutional Thematics And The Peculiar Federal Marriage Amendment, Scott Dodson

Scott Dodson

In these remarks, I argue that the Federal Marriage Amendment would disrupt constitutional themes to the detriment of constitutional interpretation and social constitutionalism.


Can't Touch This! Private Property, Takings, And The Merit Goods Argument, Goutam U. Jois Nov 2006

Can't Touch This! Private Property, Takings, And The Merit Goods Argument, Goutam U. Jois

Goutam U Jois

Over the past several decades, economic theory has gained increasing influence in legal thinking, political theory, and public policy. This article argues that the popular characterization of economics as “value-neutral” obscures the fact that there are fundamental value judgments in any framework influenced by economics. Acknowledging this fact will shift the terms of the debate: instead of a “neutral” policy and one that “imposes values,” we see that both policies in fact entail value imposition to some extent. The public discourse is thus rendered more intellectually honest. The article progresses in three parts. First, I describe the concept of “merit …


Single Subject Rules And The Legislative Process, Michael D. Gilbert Oct 2006

Single Subject Rules And The Legislative Process, Michael D. Gilbert

Michael D. Gilbert

Despite generating thousands of cases on important public issues, the single subject rule remains a source of uncertainty and inconsistency. The root of the problem lies in the inability to define the term "subject" using legal doctrine. This paper reexamines the single subject rule through the lens of public choice theory and finds that its purposes are wrongheaded. Logrolling is not necessarily harmful, and improving political transparency requires legislative compromises to be packaged together rather than spread across multiple acts. Riding is not a form of logrolling but an analytically distinct and more threatening practice. This analysis yields a precise, …


A Return To Objectivity In Admiralty Tort Jurisdiction?, Graydon S. Staring Jul 2006

A Return To Objectivity In Admiralty Tort Jurisdiction?, Graydon S. Staring

Graydon S. Staring

This paper discusses an important opinion, Tagliere v. Harrah’s Illinois Corp. giving effect to words long ignored in the Admiralty Extension Act in the setting of materials adapted from some of a longer article in preparation, tentatively entitled “The Admiralty Jurisdiction Whole: Delusions of “Purpose”.


Marital Status As Property: Toward A New Jurisprudence For Gay Rights, Goutam U. Jois Jun 2006

Marital Status As Property: Toward A New Jurisprudence For Gay Rights, Goutam U. Jois

Goutam U Jois

The issue of same-sex marriage has received much attention over the past few years, with significant focus on the role of the judiciary. For example, the first legal gay marriages in the country took place after a court decision in Massachusetts, and no state has sanctioned same-sex marriage through the legislative process. Proponents of same-sex marriages generally justify their creation on civil rights grounds, relying in particular on equal protection and due process arguments. However, the preservation of same-sex marriage can be defended on other grounds as well. I examine one such alternative theory, that of property rights. In this …


Our Anticompetitive Patriotism, Todd E. Pettys Apr 2006

Our Anticompetitive Patriotism, Todd E. Pettys

Todd E. Pettys

In this article, I contend that the nation’s seemingly exclusive claim to citizens’ patriotism significantly shields the federal government from the competitive forces that the Framers believed would restrain Congress’s and the President’s ability to govern in objectionable ways. I argue that, because America is a nation-state built upon certain core convictions about public life, there are strong connections in this country between the entity about which people feel patriotic and the sovereign that people would like to govern many—perhaps even most—of their important public affairs. I argue that American patriotism was constructed in a manner that led nineteenth- and …


Las Paradojas De La Democracia Deliberativa / The Paradoxes Of Deliberative Democracy, Andres Palacios Lleras Jan 2006

Las Paradojas De La Democracia Deliberativa / The Paradoxes Of Deliberative Democracy, Andres Palacios Lleras

Andrés Palacios Lleras

Este artículo argumenta por qué la teoría de la democracia deliberativa es problemática y paradójica, y por lo tanto inadecuada para desarrollar las instituciones democráticas contemporáneas, o para reemplazarlas por otras. Es una teoría problemática porque parte de una postura epistemológica difícilmente sostenible. Es paradójica porque a pesar de ser presentada como incluyente a nivel social, la idea de deliberación que presenta y considera como deseable, es demasiado exigente como para ser realizada por toda clase de personas; y es de hecho, elitista en este aspecto. Pero también porque señala que las instancias que están mejor diseñadas para tomar decisiones …


Choosing A Chief Justice: Presidential Prerogative Or A Job For The Court?, Todd E. Pettys Jan 2006

Choosing A Chief Justice: Presidential Prerogative Or A Job For The Court?, Todd E. Pettys

Todd E. Pettys

After identifying the original rationales for our longstanding tradition of permitting the President and Senate to decide which of the Court’s nine members will serve as Chief Justice, I argue that those rationales are anachronistic, that the tradition creates unnecessary conflicts of interest and separation-of-powers concerns, and that the Court’s members should be permitted to decide for themselves which of them will serve as Chief Justice.


Beyond Romer And Lawrence: The Right To Privacy Comes Out Of The Closet, Nancy C. Marcus Jan 2006

Beyond Romer And Lawrence: The Right To Privacy Comes Out Of The Closet, Nancy C. Marcus

Nancy C Marcus

This article examines significant developments in the Supreme Court's privacy rights jurisprudence through the Rehnquist era with a look ahead toward the future of privacy and liberty protections under a new Court. The article explores several problems faced by privacy rights proponents, ranging from opposition to unenumerated constitutional rights generally to more recent tradition-based challenges to privacy protections. Tracing the historic roots of privacy rights, the article reveals the original intent of the Constitution's drafters to establish an evolving constitution with inalienable unenumerated individual rights, including a right to privacy which encompasses an affirmative liberty interest in autonomy. The article …


The Freedom Of Intimate Association In The Twenty First Century, Nancy C. Marcus Jan 2006

The Freedom Of Intimate Association In The Twenty First Century, Nancy C. Marcus

Nancy C Marcus

This article contends that recent developments in the Supreme Court's jurisprudence have created a historic opportunity for the Court to revisit and clarify its freedom of intimate association doctrine. The article traces the history of the freedom of intimate association, explaining how the Supreme Court in Roberts v. United States Jaycees, the first decision explicitly articulating a right to intimate association, failed to describe the parameters and contours of that right with enough precision to sufficiently guide later decisions. The article describe the resulting split among the circuits in their efforts to implement Roberts' intimate association guidelines, with some circuits …


Towards Attenuation: A 'New' Due Process Limit On Pinkerton Conspiracy Liability, Mark L. Noferi Jan 2006

Towards Attenuation: A 'New' Due Process Limit On Pinkerton Conspiracy Liability, Mark L. Noferi

Mark L Noferi

Since 1946, Pinkerton v. United States has purportedly settled the rule that a conspirator can be held vicariously liable for the crimes of his co-conspirators. Over the last thirty years, however, courts have begun to articulate and enforce Due Process limits on vicarious conspiracy liability where defendants are "attenuated" from their co-conspirator's crimes. This article represents the first academic examination of constitutional Due Process limits on Pinkerton conspiracy liability, their theoretical underpinnings, and the implications as the federal government pursues terrorism and corporate conspiracy prosecutions.


Конституционное Право Иорданского Королевства, Leonid G. Berlyavskiy Jan 2006

Конституционное Право Иорданского Королевства, Leonid G. Berlyavskiy

Leonid G. Berlyavskiy

Jordan shows a rare example of stability in the Middle East, abilities to establish the peace connexion with the next states, to find political compromises in the country. Not last role have played in it the person and political experience of king Hussein ben-Talala, having rather considerable authority both on the Arabian world, and on the next Israel


Relative Access To Corrective Speech: A New Test For Requiring Actual Malice, Aaron K. Perzanowski Jan 2006

Relative Access To Corrective Speech: A New Test For Requiring Actual Malice, Aaron K. Perzanowski

Aaron K. Perzanowski

This Article reexamines the First Amendment protections provided by the public figure doctrine. It suggests that the doctrine is rooted in a set of out-dated assumptions regarding the media landscape and, as a result, has failed to adapt in a manner that accounts for our changing communications environment. The public figure doctrine, which imposes the more rigorous actual malice standard of fault on defamation plaintiffs who enjoy greater access to mass media, was constructed in an era defined by one-to-many communications media. Newspapers, broadcasters, and traditional publishers exhausted the Court's understanding of the means of communicating with mass audiences. As …


Reviving A Natural Right: The Freedom Of Autonomy, Michael Anthony Lawrence Jan 2006

Reviving A Natural Right: The Freedom Of Autonomy, Michael Anthony Lawrence

Michael Anthony Lawrence

This article explores the historical foundations of the individual rights of equality and free choice on matters of natural private concern (collectively, “freedom of autonomy”) in America, looks at several present-day applications, and concludes that meaningful steps must be taken – by encouraging greater awareness among lawmakers and courts of original meanings of the constitutional terms “liberty,” “property,” “privileges,” and “immunities,” and perhaps even through constitutional amendment – to revive this most basic right from an overbearing government.


The Catholic Second Amendment, David B. Kopel Jan 2006

The Catholic Second Amendment, David B. Kopel

David B Kopel

At the beginning of the second millennium, there was no separation of church and state, and kings ruled the church. Tyrannicide was considered sinful. By the end of the thirteenth century, however, everything had changed. The Little Renaissance that began in the eleventh century led to a revolution in political and moral philosophy, so that using force to overthrow a tyrannical government became a positive moral duty. The intellectual revolution was an essential step in the evolution of Western political philosophy that eventually led to the American Revolution.


The Gold Standard Of Gun Control - Book Review Of Joyce Malcolm, Guns And Violence: The English Experience, David B. Kopel, Joanne D. Eisen, Paul Gallant Jan 2006

The Gold Standard Of Gun Control - Book Review Of Joyce Malcolm, Guns And Violence: The English Experience, David B. Kopel, Joanne D. Eisen, Paul Gallant

David B Kopel

Guns and Violence tells a remarkable story of a society's self-destruction, of how a government in a few decades managed to reverse six hundred years of social progress in violence reduction. The book is also a testament to the amazing self-confidence of British governments; Labour and Conservative alike have proceeded with an extreme anti-self-defense agenda, although the agenda has never had much supporting evidence beyond the government's own platitudes.


Free Advertising: The Case For Public Relations As Commercial Speech, Tamara R. Piety Jan 2006

Free Advertising: The Case For Public Relations As Commercial Speech, Tamara R. Piety

Tamara R. Piety

The commercial speech doctrine has suffered from definitional ambiguity. Some commentators have argued that the doctrine's application should be limited to speech that is clearly advertising and should not be extended to cover speech by a corporation on matters of public concern. This is of particular concern with respect to public relations communications about labor or environmental practices (to name just two examples) which industry advocates argue should be treated like fully protected speech. In this article I argue that because all for-profit corporate speech is in furtherance of its commercial purpose, public relations speech should be presumptively covered by …


Sign Here, Please: The First Amendment Implications Of Requiring Loyalty Oaths For Admission To Political Events, John D. Castiglione Jan 2006

Sign Here, Please: The First Amendment Implications Of Requiring Loyalty Oaths For Admission To Political Events, John D. Castiglione

John D. Castiglione

The 2003-2004 presidential election cycle was the first to be significantly affected by a number of new forms of campaigning. Internet fundraising, blog journalism, and 527 organizations all burst onto the scene. Yet it was the most traditional method, the campaign rally, that gave rise to one of the most controversial events of the election season - requiring loyalty oaths for admission. This Note focuses on the constitutionality of requiring a loyalty oath for admission to an ostensibly privately-organized campaign event attended by a high-ranking public official like the President or Vice-President of the United States, or other major party …