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Full-Text Articles in Legal History
Fault Lines: An Empirical Legal Study Of California Secession, Bill Tomlinson, Andrew W. Torrance
Fault Lines: An Empirical Legal Study Of California Secession, Bill Tomlinson, Andrew W. Torrance
Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental & Innovation Law
Over the last decade, multiple initiatives have proposed that California should secede from the United States. This article examines the legal aspects of California secession and integrates that analysis with findings from an empirical study of public perceptions of such secession. There is no provision in the United States Constitution allowing states, or other political or geographical units, to secede unilaterally. The Civil War was fought to uphold this principle, and the United States Supreme Court confirmed it in its 1869 Texas v. White decision. Nevertheless, numerous instances of secession, both legal and extralegal, have occurred across human history, and …
'It Wasn't Supposed To Be Easy': What The Founders Originally Intended For The Senate's 'Advice And Consent' Role For Supreme Court Confirmation Processes, Michael W. Wilt
Channels: Where Disciplines Meet
The Founders exerted significant energy and passion in formulating the Appointments Clause, which greatly impacts the role of the Senate and the President in appointing Supreme Court Justices. The Founders, through their understanding of human nature, devised the power to be both a check by the U.S. Senate on the President's nomination, and a concurrent power through joint appointment authority. The Founders initially adopted the Senate election mode via state legislatures as a means of insulation from majoritarian passions of the people too. This paper seeks to understand the Founders envisioning for the Senate's 'Advice and Consent' role as it …
Legislative Committee Systems: A Design Perspective, Chase Stoddard
Legislative Committee Systems: A Design Perspective, Chase Stoddard
Indiana Journal of Constitutional Design
Committees are the defining characteristic of the modern legislature. While the centrality and study of party politics goes back further than committee politics, the focus on committee systems emerged over the course of the twentieth century, and legislatures could not function as we understand them without this mechanism. The United States Congressional committee system is the most studied system, yet virtually every country utilizes a committee system of some sort within its legislature. Despite their ubiquity in and centrality to the operations of legislatures, committees remain insufficiently studied, especially outside of the United States. The existing body of work tends …