Digital Commons Network^™

American Public Law Revolution, Victoria Frances Nourse

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Supreme Court has birthed a public law revolution. This revolution should not be known as a constitutional revolution because it is bigger than constitutional law—it covers statutory and administrative law as well. This revolution has been powered not by social movements, but by an interpretive philosophy known as originalism. Originalism has been deeply misunderstood by its critics. This Article examines three myths about originalism—that it is primarily about history, that it is a traditional theory of adjudication, and that it is democratic. Originalism is a semantic theory, not a theory of history, and it is a theory that privileges …

Article 49, Paragraph 3 Of The French Constitution Of 4 October 1958, Jacques Barde

Revue Marocaine de Droit, d'Economie et de Gestion (Moroccan Journal of Law, Economics and Management)

This article analyzes Article 49, paragraph 3, of the French Constitution of 4 October 1958, a mechanism that allows the government to commit its responsibility for the adoption of a bill unless a motion of censure is passed. The study explains the legal logic of this procedure, its relationship to confidence and censure, and its role in the balance between government and parliament under the Fifth Republic. It also reviews the political uses of the provision in legislative practice and the constitutional debates surrounding its effects on parliamentary deliberation. The article highlights both the efficiency and the democratic tensions associated …

The Political Constraint On Constitutional Law, Abderrahmane Amalou

Revue Marocaine de Droit, d'Economie et de Gestion (Moroccan Journal of Law, Economics and Management)

This article examines the extent to which constitutional law is conditioned by political power and by the concrete structure of the state. It argues that constitutional norms cannot be understood in isolation from the historical, ideological, and institutional context in which they operate. The paper studies how political forces shape the meaning, scope, and effectiveness of constitutional rules, especially in states where formal institutions coexist with strong political constraints. It thus presents constitutional law not as a purely autonomous legal order, but as a field deeply marked by relations of power.

Article 31 Of The 1972 Constitution And Treaty Law, Hassan Ouazzani Chahdi

Revue Marocaine de Droit, d'Economie et de Gestion (Moroccan Journal of Law, Economics and Management)

This study examines the provisions of Article 31 of the Moroccan Constitution of 1972 in relation to treaty law. It analyzes the constitutional allocation of powers in the negotiation, ratification, and approval of international agreements, and discusses the categories of treaties that require prior legislative authorization. The article places the Moroccan constitutional framework in comparative perspective and evaluates its ambiguities regarding simplified agreements, parliamentary control, and the place of treaties within the domestic legal order. It thus sheds light on the relationship between constitutional law and international commitments in Morocco.

Organic Laws In Morocco: A Comparative Study, Mohammed Acharki

Revue Marocaine de Droit, d'Economie et de Gestion (Moroccan Journal of Law, Economics and Management)

This study examines the emergence and legal status of organic laws in Morocco in comparative perspective. It discusses how this category of norms relates to the constitution, ordinary legislation, and the organization of public powers, while also comparing Moroccan developments with other constitutional systems. The article explores the definition, fields of application, adoption procedures, and constitutional effects of organic laws, emphasizing their special place within the legal hierarchy. It argues that organic laws play an important role in shaping constitutional practice and institutional organization.

Reference To Spain’S Most Modern Agrarian Laws And The Constitutional Norms That Inform Spanish Agrarian Law, Juan Jose Sanz Jarque

Revue Marocaine de Droit, d'Economie et de Gestion (Moroccan Journal of Law, Economics and Management)

This paper provides an overview of the principal modern agrarian laws in Spain and the constitutional principles that shape Spanish agrarian law. It identifies major legislative texts on agrarian reform and development, cooperatives, rural leases, agrarian transformation societies, and family farming, and then relates them to constitutional provisions adopted in 1978. The article shows how constitutional norms concerning property, social rights, environmental protection, regional development, and public intervention influence the interpretation and orientation of agrarian legislation. It offers a concise legal framework linking statutory reform to broader constitutional objectives in agriculture.

Constitutional Structure And Election Law, Manoj Mate

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Since Bush v. Gore, scholarship on election law has centered on a theoretical debate between rights-based and structural theory approaches, and the appropriate role and scope of judicial intervention in election law cases. However, these debates have not fully assessed the degree to which the Court’s approach to constitutional structure has fundamentally reshaped election law. Over the past two decades, the Court has increasingly emphasized the importance of constitutional structure-based approaches in election law cases.

This Article analyzes these dynamics and advances a typology of constitutional structure-based approaches in election law. Drawing on scholarship on modalities of interpretation and …

Does Article I Of The Constitution Prohibit The States From Creating Their Own Cryptocurrencies?, Kevin Fontenot

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

The market for cryptocurrency (crypto) has exploded in size since the first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, was created in 2009. As of September 4, 2024, the value of all existing cryptocurrency was $2.02 trillion. On November 14, 2024, this value reached a high of $3.2 trillion, apparently in response to the election of pro-crypto President Donald Trump. Despite the fact that cryptocurrencies have been at the forefront of many high profile scandals, consumers still flock to them. For example, celebrities including Hailey Welch (colloquially known as “Hawk Tuah girl”), Logan Paul, and Jason Derulo have been criticized for allegedly goading consumers into …

Discriminatory Effect(S), W. Kerrel Murray

Faculty Scholarship

In constitutional law, “discriminatory effect” often matters. So it’s surprising how often we don’t quite know what it means. That opacity is trans-substantive; it has been a recent pitfall in contexts as diverse as admissions-policy challenges under the Equal Protection Clause, personal-jurisdiction disputes under the “dormant” Commerce Clause, and, under the Free Exercise Clause, requests for exemptions from facially neutral laws.

This Article’s first corrective is a novel typology. Constitutional discriminatory effect is murky, in part, because it has many types; we perceive it in myriad ways across constitutional domains. Comprehending this complexity enhances our understanding of what discriminatory-effect rules …

Communicative Legitimacy: The Supreme Court's Hidden Cultural Binaries In The U.S. Civil Sphere, Steven Arrigg Koh

Faculty Scholarship

How does the U.S. Supreme Court establish its legitimacy? Over the last two hundred years in U.S. society, the Court has interpreted the U.S. Constitution on watershed issues such as slavery, segregation, and marriage equality. And yet the Constitution is just 7,591 words. A puzzle thus emerges: how does the Court intelligibly interpret this short text for U.S. society? This article develops a new theoretical and empirical cultural sociological account of such Supreme Court decision-making, which it calls “communicative legitimacy.” According to this theory, which draws on Jeffrey Alexander’s civil sphere theory, the Court consistently and inevitably draws on a …

Penalty Box: The Eighth Amendment’S Role In The Fbar Penalties Game, Tessa B. Walter

Georgia State University Law Review

A sharp disagreement has emerged among federal circuit courts regarding the application of the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause to penalties for failing to file a Foreign Bank Account Report (FBAR). This has created legal uncertainty for individuals with foreign financial interests. The resulting circuit split leads to disparate outcomes, where the constitutionality of a penalty is dependent on the jurisdiction in which it is challenged.

The divergence in judicial opinion centers on a fundamental question: Whether the substantial civil penalties for willful FBAR violations constitute a punitive “fine” or a remedial measure intended to compensate the government. The statutory …

The Free Exercise Of Religion As A Privilege, Kyron Huigens

Georgia State University Law Review

In the span of a decade, the Supreme Court has restructured the Free Exercise Clause entirely. It has removed the counterweight of disestablishment; it has sought parity between religion and secularity by means of strict scrutiny analysis turning on a principle of nondiscrimination; and it has opened the way to a general exemption from secular law for the faithful by ceding the question of what counts as an exercise of religion to the faithful themselves. This Article proposes reading the free exercise of religion as a privilege in response to these changes. This privilege stands against secular law in the …

Originalism, Official History, And Perspectives Versus Methodologies, Keith N. Hylton

Faculty Scholarship

This paper addresses a well-worn topic: originalism, the theory that judges should interpret the U.S. Constitution in a manner consistent with the intent of its framers. I am interested in the real-world effects of originalism. The primary effect advanced by originalists is the tendency of the approach to constrain the discretion of judges. However, I identify another effect of originalism: the creation of official histories, a practice that imposes a hidden tax on society. Another question I consider is whether originalism should be considered a methodology of analyzing the law or a perspective on the law; I argue that originalism …

What Motivates Selectors To Pick A Woman Justice?, Maria C. Escobar-Lemmon, Alice J. Kang, Miki Caul Kittilson, Shan-Jan Sarah Liu

ConLawNOW

This article examines increases in women’s appointment to high courts around the world. It builds on research suggesting that movement by countries to appoint the first women to important benches often influenced neighboring countries. The same authors here look at the related feature that women in advanced industrial countries are appointed to constitutional and supreme courts sooner when subject to electoral pressure. They suggest that electoral pressure is not defined by the left-right ideological spectrum, but rather depends on a more specific support for gender equality.

The Federalism Canons As Ordinary Interpretation, Anthony J. Bellia Jr., Bradford R. Clark

Northwestern University Law Review

Scholars remain generally skeptical of substantive canons of statutory interpretation even as courts continue to employ such canons in important cases. Unlike semantic canons, which help judges discern the best meaning of statutory text in context, substantive canons provide tiebreakers when the text is unclear or require special clarity in order for the text to perform certain functions. Among the substantive canons, the so-called “federalism canons” have been singled out for special scrutiny. The federalism canons are a family of canons that require courts to avoid interpreting an act of Congress to divest states of certain sovereign rights or powers—including …

The Second American Republic: America's Near Century Of Reckoning With A Remade Constitution (1869-1953), Dominick J. Dalton

Masters Theses

The United States of America celebrates the writing of the Declaration of Independence, the country’s statement of sovereignty from her former colonizer, Great Britain, every fourth of July. France, nearly four-thousand eight hundred miles away, celebrates their own form of Independence Day, Bastille Day, every July fourteenth. Since July fourth, 1776, the United States has boasted a proud history of unity and continuity that was only interrupted by four bloody years, the American Civil War (1861-1865). However, France is unable to make such claims. Having five separate Republics, an Empire, and a Reich define their history since that fateful day …

From Dred Scott To Barbara: Birthright Citizenship, Racial Exclusion, And The Enduring Promise Of The Fourteenth Amendment, Jenna A. Milbrodt

CMC Senior Theses

The Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause has guaranteed birthright citizenship to all children born in the United States for hundreds of years. Yet, President Trump’s January 20, 2025, executive order threatens to strip that right from children born to parents unlawfully in the country and temporary visitors. This order, if permitted to stand, would change the definition of US citizenship and render countless children stateless persons without citizenship rights. This paper examines whether birthright citizenship in the US, properly understood, extends to children of unlawful immigrants and temporary visitors. To answer this question, three time periods of change in citizenship rights …

The Future Of Educational Equity In Post-Secondary Education: Student Loan Statutory Reforms Under The Big Beautiful Bill Act, Taylor Myers

Florida Atlantic University Undergraduate Law Journal

Significant reforms to federal student loans, as outlined in the Big Beautiful Bill Act, will have a substantial impact on students pursuing secondary education, including loan limits, income-based repayment plans, and the elimination of specific deferment plans. Subsequently, those most affected by these changes will be low-income borrowers, middle-income borrowers, and graduate students. Recent changes to federal higher education loan policies, such as borrowing limits, income-based repayment plans, and elimination of certain deferments, can leave greater economic barriers within education. Although the policy aims to provide debt relief to borrowers, it raises unresolved constitutional questions, particularly regarding the government's responsibility …

The Missing Constitutional Law Of Executive Conditions, Nicole Huberfeld, Matthew B. Lawrence

Faculty Scholarship

This Article contributes to development of the constitutional law of executive conditions. Courts are wrestling with the constitutionality of federal efforts to encourage what the federal government cannot mandate—speech on particular subjects, participation in cooperative federalism programs, and so on—but have failed to appreciate an important distinction. Binding statutory conditions articulated by Congress or an executive branch delegee (statutory conditions) and non-binding executive conditions articulated by executive branch actors engaged in regulation by deal (executive conditions) are different in constitutionally salient ways that can and should inform the development of workable doctrine. Yet courts, advocates, and scholars have only begun …

From Myers To Slaughter: A Brief Theory Of The Constitutionalization Of Secondary Sources, Dana Neacsu, Paul D. Callister

Faculty Works

For more than two centuries, American constitutional adjudication has relied upon secondary sources. Yet constitutional theory has almost entirely ignored them. Originalism debates constitutional text. Living constitutionalism debates constitutional evolution. Theories of precedent debate judicial authority. None asks a more fundamental question: What role do secondary sources play in constitutional adjudication? This Article argues that the answer has fundamentally changed in the last 100 of years. Chief Justice William Howard Taft's opinion in Myers v. United States (1926) marked a constitutional revolution by transforming secondary authorities from explanatory materials into evidence of constitutional continuity. Exactly one century later, Chief Justice …

The Missing Constitutional Law Of Executive Conditions, Nicole Huberfeld, Matthew B. Lawrence

Faculty Articles

This Article contributes to the development of the constitutional law of executive conditions. The appropriations presidentialism of the second Trump Administration—the shift from bilateral executive/legislative cooperation and compromise in federal spending to executive unilateralism in defiance of congressional control—has forced courts into the administration of federal spending like never before. As a result, judges have been forced to confront legal questions that remained mostly dormant during the era of executive/legislative cooperation, including questions about the constitutionality of efforts to encourage through spending conditions what the federal government cannot mandate (or has not mandated) directly, like speech or silence on particular …

Foreword, Patricia B. Barnett

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Disconsents, Daryl J. Levinson, David E. Pozen

Faculty Scholarship

Consent is an indispensable standard and organizing principle in any liberal legal order that prizes self-directed autonomy, self-identified preferences, and collective agreement. Yet consent’s capacity to advance those values has become increasingly uncertain in a society beset by power imbalances, information asymmetries, and multiple forms of polarization. In this Article, we document how the rise of neoliberalism has led to greater reliance on consent throughout U.S. law, while at the same time leading to greater doubts about its moral efficacy and empirical feasibility. Connecting and generalizing pathologies of consent-based regulation that have been identified within myriad domains, the Article identifies …

Justifying The Fourth Amendment, Daniel Epps

Vanderbilt Law Review

Why does the Fourth Amendment belong in the Constitution? This question is not whether society should impose some legal restraints on government searches and seizures. Rather, why should such protections reside in our national charter, superior to other forms of law and insulated from change via ordinary majoritarian political processes? Despite major disputes about the Fourth Amendment's content, Fourth Amendment theorists rarely ask this question. Almost all agree that the Fourth Amendment's constitutional protections are critically important-even if no one can agree exactly what those protections are.
This Article seeks a justification for the Fourth Amendment-the reason why search-and-seizure protections …

Reclaiming Constitutional Authority Of Algorithmic Power, Yiyang Mei, Michael J. Broyde

Faculty Articles

Whether and how to govern AI is no longer a question of technical regulation. It is a question of constitutional authority. Across jurisdictions, algorithmic systems now perform functions once reserved to public institutions: allocating welfare, determining legal status, mediating access to housing, employment, and healthcare. These are not merely administrative operations. They are acts of rule. Yet the dominant models of AI governance fail to confront this reality. The European approach centers on rights-based oversight, presenting its regulatory framework as a principled defense of human dignity. The American model relies on decentralized experimentation, treating fragmentation as a proxy for democratic …

Private Rights Of Action For Election Litigation In The Federal Courts, Derek T. Muller

Journal Articles

Election litigation is surging. But just as litigants pursue more election claims in federal courts than ever before, federal courts are growing more skeptical about their authority to hear them. This Essay, a contribution to the 2025 Arnold Lecture at the University of Arkansas Little Rock, William H. Bowen School of Law, examines the narrowing landscape of private rights of action in election law with a particular focus on claims brought ahead of the 2024 election. It traces the Supreme Court's shift toward formalism, the heavy emphasis on remedies found in federal statutes, and the diminishing avenues for private enforcement …

Pretrial Publicity In A Modern World: Exploration Of Defense Attorney Experiences And Perspectives, Giray Uzen

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This research examined how pretrial publicity, like statements made by law enforcement and prosecutors, affects criminal defense strategy. Using a qualitative, phenomenological design, interviews were held with practicing defense attorneys to understand how they deal with media coverage, protect their clients’ rights, and adjust their strategy when a case starts getting attention. The project identifies common themes, including attorney concerns about biased jurors, distorted narratives, and pressure created by public commentary. Findings work towards reforming policy discussions to respect free speech while protecting the constitutional right to an impartial jury in our modern media environment.

Adequate Representation In Group Litigation, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

Scholarly Works

This article examines the inherent tension between the legal system's desire for "global peace" (finality) and the constitutional requirement for adequate representation in collective lawsuits. While Rule 23 class actions provide structural safeguards—such as judicial oversight of counsel and settlement, and opt-out rights—alternative mechanisms like multidistrict litigation (MDL) and parens patriae suits often lack these protections . Using the In re National Prescription Opiate Litigation as a primary case study, the article illustrates how informal, "backroom" leadership selection in MDLs empowers a small circle of elite "repeat players" at the expense of marginalized groups, such as Native American tribes and …

Abandoning Press Freedom, Ronnell Andersen Jones, Sonja R. West

Scholarly Works

Among elected officials and the broader public, attitudes toward the press are deeply polarized along ideological lines. Polling shows that most liberals favor the press, while conservatives view it more negatively— a partisan divide that has widened significantly over the past decade. Conventional wisdom suggests that the same ideological split is also at work at the Supreme Court, with liberal Justices championing the work of the press while their conservative colleagues express more skepticism. This perception is reinforced by historical examples of liberal Justices advancing press rights alongside broader democracy-engagement and social-justice issues. Recent calls from some conservative Justices to …

Gienapp's Big Book: Conceptual Rupture, Modernism, And The End Of Originalism, Logan E. Sawyer Iii

Scholarly Works

For decades, we have lived in an age of partisan jurisprudence, in which nearly every Republican has embraced originalism, and nearly every Democrat has rejected it. One can mark the start of that era in multiple places, but one good choice is November 11th, 1977. That day, in the pages of National Review, William F. Buckley previewed Government by Judiciary, Raoul Berger’s originalist critique of the Warren Court’s rights revolution. The review, entitled “Berger’s Big Book,” was highly complimentary. Berger’s rebuke of Warren Court activism was, Buckley thought, “devastating.” And he was not alone. Following the publication of Government by …