Law Commons^™

The Dormant Commerce Clause As A Limit On Personal Jurisdiction, John F. Preis

Law Faculty Publications

For over 70 years, the Due Process Clause has defined the law of personal jurisdiction. This makes sense, because being forced to stand trial in a far-off state will sometimes be fundamentally unfair. What does not make sense, however, is the Dormant Commerce Clause’s apparent irrelevance to personal jurisdiction. The Dormant Commerce Clause addresses state laws affecting interstate commerce, and a plaintiff’s choice of forum is often a commercially driven choice between different state courts. So why isn’t the Dormant Commerce Clause part of personal jurisdiction doctrine?

This Article makes the case for its relevance, and demonstrates how the Dormant …

Presidential Constitutional Interpretation, Signing Statements, Executive Power And Zivotofsky, Henry L. Chambers, Jr.

Law Faculty Publications

This Article explores whether the President should interpret the Constitution aggressively and, if so, whether the President should act on such aggressive interpretations. Part I examines whether the presidential oath and other constitutional duties obligate the President to interpret the Constitution. Part II considers constitutional signing statements as the manifestation of an aggressive approach to presidential constitutional interpretation. Part III considers whether the Constitution is a legal document or a political document, and how that determination might affect how aggressive the President should be when interpreting the Constitution. Part IV considers how the Supreme Court's and Congress's constitutional interpretations might …

Fisher’S Cautionary Tale And The Urgent Need For Equal Access To An Excellent Education, Kimberly J. Robinson

Law Faculty Publications

In this Comment, I argue that much greater care and attention must be paid to the educational opportunity gaps and resulting achievement gaps that prompt many colleges and universities to rely on affirmative action. Increased attention to greater equality and excellence in elementary and secondary education can help reduce or eliminate the need for affirmative action, which is an approach that fundamentally aims to ensure equality. Without additional attention to closing opportunity gaps, the Court may declare that the time has come for affirmative action to end, but the United States will not be equipped to maintain diverse, selective postsecondary …

Transforming The “Thurmond Rule” In 2016, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

This piece first analyzes the Rule’s history. Part II explains the convention and its deleterious consequences. Finding that each party reinterprets the notion to stymie appointments—which perverts the selection process, deprives courts of judicial resources for delivering justice, and intensifies the “confirmation wars”—the final Part proffers solutions. Because the Rule has multiple detrimental effects, it warrants abolition.

Confirming Judges In The 2016 Senate Lame Duck Session, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

In this piece, Professor Carl Tobias descriptively scrutinizes the nomination and confirmation regimes throughout the administration of President Barack Obama. The article critically evaluates selection finding that persistent Republican Senate obstruction resulted in the greatest number of unoccupied posts for the longest duration, briefly moderated by the 2013 detonation of the “nuclear option,” which constricted filibusters. Nevertheless, the article contends when the Grand Old Party (GOP) attained a chamber majority, Republicans dramatically slowed the nomination and confirmation processes after January 2015. Therefore, openings surpassed ninety before Congress is scheduled to reassemble. Because this dilemma erodes rapid, inexpensive, and equitable disposition, …

Confirm Judge Koh For The Ninth Circuit, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

On February 25, 2016, President Barack Obama appointed United States District Court Judge Lucy Haeran Koh for a judicial emergency vacancy on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The jurist has served professionally for more than six years in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, ably resolving major litigation. Thus, White House efforts to confirm her were unsurprising. Nevertheless, 2016 is a presidential election year when delay infuses many court appointments. That conundrum was exacerbated because the United States Senate Republican majority refused to even consider United States Court of Appeals …

George Washington’S Constitution, Kurt T. Lash

Law Faculty Publications

The ghost of George Washington haunts almost every page of Saikrishna Prakash’s new book, Imperial from the Beginning: The Constitution of the Original Executive. It is a man, not a text, that dominates Prakash’s investigation of the creation of the American Presidency. From the Philadelphia Convention where Washington presided over (and likely influenced) the drafting of Article II, to the military quashing of the Whiskey Rebellion with Washington riding at the head of the new federal army--it is the “imperial” presence and practices of General Washington that Prakash believes generally represent the original understanding of Executive Power.

This is …

Constitutional Economics, Luke P. Norris

Law Faculty Publications

This Article argues that the conventional narrative about the decline of Lochnerism and the rise of mid-century substantive due process jurisprudence is incomplete. That narrative focuses initially on how the premises underlying Lochner’s conception of economic freedom were rejected. The Article instead focuses on how the labor movement articulated an alternative conception of freedom that was adopted by Congress, the Executive, and the Supreme Court. While Lochnerism was premised on a negative view of freedom, the labor movement articulated a positive view of freedom and analogized it to republican freedom of association in the political sphere. By reframing the terms …