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University of Michigan Law School

United States Supreme Court

Law and Politics

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Constitutional Expectations, Richard A. Primus Jan 2010

Constitutional Expectations, Richard A. Primus

Articles

The inauguration of Barack Obama was marred by one of the smallest constitutional crises in American history. As we all remember, the President did not quite recite his oath as it appears in the Constitution. The error bothered enough people that the White House redid the ceremony a day later, taking care to get the constitutional text exactly right. Or that, at least, is what everyone thinks happened. What actually happened is more interesting. The second time through, the President again departed from the Constitution's text. But the second time, nobody minded. Or even noticed. In that unremarked feature of …


From Laredo To Fort Worth: Race, Politics And The Texas Redistricting Case, Ellen D. Katz Jan 2006

From Laredo To Fort Worth: Race, Politics And The Texas Redistricting Case, Ellen D. Katz

Articles

LULAC v. Perry held that Texas violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act when it displaced nearly 100,000 Latino residents from a congressional district in Laredo to protect the Republican incumbent they refused to support. At the same time, the Justices let stand the dismantling of a so-called “coalition” district in Fort Worth where African-American voters comprising a minority of the district’s population allegedly enjoyed effective control in deciding the district’s representative. Only Justice Kennedy supported the outcome in both Laredo and Fort Worth. His opinion marks the first time that he, or indeed a majority of the Justices, …


Trying To Make Peace With Bush V. Gore (Symposium: Bush V. Gore Issue 2001), Richard D. Friedman Jan 2001

Trying To Make Peace With Bush V. Gore (Symposium: Bush V. Gore Issue 2001), Richard D. Friedman

Articles

The Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore, shutting down the recounts of Florida's vote in the 2000 presidential election and effectively awarding the election to George W. Bush, has struck many observers, including myself, as outrageous.' Decisions of the Supreme Court should be more than mere reflections of ideological or partisan preference thinly camouflaged behind legalistic language. It would therefore be pleasant to be able to believe that they are more than that. Accordingly, Judge Richard Posner's analysis,2 in which he defends the result reached by the Court-though not the path by which it got there-is particularly welcome. Though …


Taking Decisions Seriously, Richard D. Friedman Jan 1999

Taking Decisions Seriously, Richard D. Friedman

Reviews

The New Deal era is one of the great turning points of American constitutional history. The receptivity of the Supreme Court to regulation by state and federal governments increased dra- matically during that period. The constitutionalism that prevailed before Charles Evans Hughes became Chief Justice in 1930 was similar in most respects to that of the beginning of the twen- tieth century. The constitutionalism that prevailed by the time Hughes’ successor Harlan Fiske Stone died in 1946 is far more related to that of the end of the century. How this transformation occurred is a crucial and enduring issue in …


Review Of The Selling Of Supreme Court Nominees, By J. A. Maltese, Richard D. Friedman Jan 1997

Review Of The Selling Of Supreme Court Nominees, By J. A. Maltese, Richard D. Friedman

Reviews

John Anthony Maltese has written a genial book on a subject of enormous importance and enduring interest-presidential selection and senatorial consideration of Supreme Court nominees. Readers new to this field will find The Selling of Supreme Court Nominees a helpful introduction to it. Those more familiar with it will not find much that is surprising.


Chief Justice Hughes' Letter On Court-Packing, Richard D. Friedman Jan 1997

Chief Justice Hughes' Letter On Court-Packing, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

After one of the great landslides in American presidential history, Franklin D. Roosevelt took the oath of office for the second time on January 20, 1937. As he had four years before, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, like Roosevelt a former governor of New York, administered the oath. Torrents of rain drenched the inauguration, and Hughes’ damp whiskers waved in the biting wind. When the skullcapped Chief Justice reached the promise to defend the Constitution, he “spoke slowly and with special emphasis.” The President responded in kind, though he felt like saying, as he later told his aide Sam Rosenman: …


Pragmatism And Parity In Appointments, Yxta Maya Murray Jan 1996

Pragmatism And Parity In Appointments, Yxta Maya Murray

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This review uses Carter's two foci as a springboard for analyzing the Article II, Section II appointment process. First, Carter's discussion of indecency in modern appointments may be a valuable theoretical insight into the process instead of a mere sociological observation. "Indecency" in appointments, or what is known as "borking" in Carter parlance, may also be a symptom of race and gender bias in the administration of the Article II, Section II power. To ameliorate the effects of this bias, I suggest the incorporation of pragmatism (a thread of philosophical and legal thought) and parity concepts into the existing appointments …


The Supreme Court In Politics., Terrance Sandalow Jan 1990

The Supreme Court In Politics., Terrance Sandalow

Reviews

Despite all that has been written about the bitter struggle initiated by President Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork to a seat on the Supreme Court, its most remarkable feature, that it was waged over a judicial appointment, has drawn relatively little comment. Two hundred years after the Philadelphia Convention, Hamilton's "least dangerous" branch - least dangerous because it would have "no influence over either the sword or the purse, no direction either of the strength or the wealth of the society, and can take no active resolution whatever"'-had come to occupy so important a place in the nation's political life …


Judge Picking, Abner J. Mikva Apr 1986

Judge Picking, Abner J. Mikva

Michigan Law Review

A Review of God Save This Honorable Court: How the Choice of Supreme Court Justices Shapes Our History by Laurence H. Tribe


Toward Increased Judicial Activism: The Political Role Of The Supreme Court, Michigan Law Review Feb 1984

Toward Increased Judicial Activism: The Political Role Of The Supreme Court, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Toward Increased Judicial Activism: The Political Role of the Supreme Court by Arthur Selwyn Miller


Mr. Justice Powell And The Emerging Nixon Majority, A.E. Dick Howard Jan 1972

Mr. Justice Powell And The Emerging Nixon Majority, A.E. Dick Howard

Michigan Law Review

In recent years, we have come to expect the debate over Supreme Court nominations to reflect ideological passions in the Government and the country at large; the Fortas, Haynsworth, and Carswell cases remain fresh in memory. In the hearings on the nominations of Lewis F. Powell, Jr., and William H. Rehnquist to the Court, Senate Democratic liberals made clear their intention to probe not only the nominees' integrity and legal qualifications, but also their judicial philosophies. It was ironic, therefore, to watch as liberal members of the Judiciary Committee, through their questions and comments at the confirmation hearings, made Powell, …


Review Of Concerning Dissent And Civil Disobedience, By A. Fortas, Terrance Sandalow Jan 1969

Review Of Concerning Dissent And Civil Disobedience, By A. Fortas, Terrance Sandalow

Reviews

Noah Chomsky has written of Justice Fortas' essay that it "is not serious enough for extended discussion." It would be a mistake to dismiss the essay so lightly. The prestige of Justice Fortas' office almost inevitably will gain for the essay an audience it would not otherwise have had, among whom will be those who will confuse the office with the argument. For some this confusion will insulate the argument from criticism. For others it will tarnish the office.