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The Constitution, The Legislature, And Unfair Surprise: Toward A Reliance-Based Approach To The Contract Clause, Robert A. Graham
The Constitution, The Legislature, And Unfair Surprise: Toward A Reliance-Based Approach To The Contract Clause, Robert A. Graham
Michigan Law Review
This Note argues that the Court should return to a reliance-based approach to Contract Clause challenges, fashioned loosely along the same lines as the HRID. Although it does not advocate that the Court revivify the rules created by the early decisions, the Note proposes that the Court look to the private parties' expectations and, more specifically, to the reasonableness of those expectations in deciding the clause's applicability to a particular case. Part I provides a brief history of the Contract Clause and its development. This Part follows the clause from the Constitutional Convention through the 1980s to illustrate the Court's …
The Failed Discourse Of State Constitutionalism, James A. Gardner
The Failed Discourse Of State Constitutionalism, James A. Gardner
Michigan Law Review
In this article, I approach these questions in two steps. First, I examine the status of state constitutional law as it is practiced today. I conclude that, contrary to the claims of New Federalism, state constitutional law today is a vast wasteland of confusing, conflicting, and essentially unintelligible pronouncements. I argue that the fundamental defect responsible for this state of affairs is the failure of state courts to develop a coherent discourse of state constitutional law that is, a language in which it is possible for participants in the legal system to make intelligible claims about the meaning of state …