Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Jurisprudence
Becoming A Doctrine, Allison Orr Larsen
Becoming A Doctrine, Allison Orr Larsen
Faculty Publications
On the last day of the 2021–22 Term, the Supreme Court handed down a decision on “the major questions doctrine” and granted certiorari to hear a case presenting “the independent state legislature doctrine”—neither of which had been called “doctrines” there before. This raises a fundamental and underexplored question: how does a doctrine become a doctrine? Law students know the difference between doctrinal classes and seminars, but how does an idea bantered about in a seminar (say, about agencies deciding major questions) become a “doctrine” complete with judicial tests, steps, and exceptions? Taking an analogy to medicine, when does …
Judicial Partisanship In A Partisan Era: A Reply To Professor Robertson, Dmitry Bam
Judicial Partisanship In A Partisan Era: A Reply To Professor Robertson, Dmitry Bam
Faculty Publications
Professor Cassandra Burke Robertson’s outstanding article, Judicial Impartiality in A Partisan Era, is timely given the increasing politicization of the judiciary. The political debate and controversy around the Judge Garland nomination and the Justice Kavanaugh confirmation to the United States Supreme Court, only served to reaffirm that the judiciary is not immune from the growing political polarization in America. And it is not just senate judicial confirmation battles that have become highly bitter and partisan. Scholars writing about the substantive work of the Court have argued that it is more akin to a political body than a judicial one, and …