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Full-Text Articles in Law
A Matter Of Power: Structural Federalism And Separation Doctrine In The Present, Frances Howell Rudko
A Matter Of Power: Structural Federalism And Separation Doctrine In The Present, Frances Howell Rudko
Faculty Publications
Public reaction to the 1823 Supreme Court decision in Green v. Biddle prompted John Marshall’s letter to Henry Clay, who had argued the case as amicus curiae for the defendant. The letter is significant because Marshall, who had been a legislator himself, candidly expresses not only his personal dissatisfaction with the congressional assault on the 1823 decision but also the constitutional basis for his opinion. The significance of Marshall’s extrajudicial opinion becomes more apparent when it is considered in the aftermath of the recent tug-of-war between Congress and the Court which culminated in the decision in City of Boerne v. …
The Contradictions Of Mainstream Constitutional Theory, Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, Gary Peller
The Contradictions Of Mainstream Constitutional Theory, Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, Gary Peller
Faculty Scholarship
For the last four decades, some form of "process" theory has dominated conventional constitutional theory, on the bench and in the academy. The organizing, usually implicit, background assumption is that the exercise of governmental power – whether by legislatures or courts – is to be tested for normative legitimacy against a set of procedures. Writing as critics of the basic framework of process theory, Professors Kimberli Crenshaw and Gary Peller discuss the contributions and constraints of a proceduralist constitutional law discourse. In light of direct democracy initiatives claiming the power of legislation, and a substantively conservative judiciary defining the "law," …