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An Interpretivist Agenda, Gary S. Lawson
An Interpretivist Agenda, Gary S. Lawson
Faculty Scholarship
As I write these words, bevies of law clerks assigned to cases involving the Bill of Rights are dutifully editing their bench memos for publication in the national reporter system. Once printed, these bench memos will be solemnly treated by lawyers, scholars, other law clerks, and the occasional judge who runs across them as legally significant, or even binding, interpretations of the Constitution. Two features of this burgeoning mass of otherwise unpublishable law review comments bear mention. First, most of them are tedious, tendentious, pretentious, and badly reasoned when reasoned at all, just as one would expect from authors who …
Territorial Governments And The Limits Of Formalism, Gary S. Lawson
Territorial Governments And The Limits Of Formalism, Gary S. Lawson
Faculty Scholarship
For much of this nation's history, the governance of American territories, such as the island of Guam, was one of the most significant and oft-litigated problems of American constitutional law. In modern times, however, issues of territorial governance have been reduced to the status of constitutional arcana. Professor Lawson maintains that this frequently neglected problem of territorial governance is an ideal context in which to conduct the resurgent modern debate concerning separation of powers theory. Accordingly, Professor Lawson undertakes a formalist analysis of the principal institutions of American territorial governance, finding all of them incompatible with a formalist understanding of …