Law Commons^™

Examination Of The Constitutional Amendment On Marriage: Hearing Before The Subcomm. On The Constitution, Civil Rights, And Property Rights Of The S. Comm. On The Judiciary, 109th Cong., Oct. 20, 2005 (Statement Of Professor Louis Michael Seidman, Geo. U. L. Center), Louis Michael Seidman

Testimony Before Congress

No abstract provided.

Reply Brief For Petitioner, Hamdan V. Rumsfeld, No. 04-702 (U.S. Jan. 03, 2005), Neal K. Katyal

U.S. Supreme Court Briefs

No abstract provided.

The Majoritarian Difficulty: Affirmative Action, Sodomy, And Supreme Court Politics, Darren L. Hutchinson

Faculty Articles

This Article challenges liberal and conservative assessments of Lawrence, Gratz, and Grutter. Although the outcome of these cases might indeed prove helpful to the agendas of social movements for racial and sexual justice, progressive scholars and activists should not receive these cases with elation. Instead, the research of constitutional theorists, critical legal scholars, and political scientists allows for a more contextualized and guarded account of and reaction to these decisions. Instead of representing extraordinary victories for oppressed classes, these cases reflect majoritarian and moderate views concerning civil rights, and the opinions contain many doctrinal elements that reinforce, …

Reconsidering The Law Of Democracy: Of Political Questions, Prudence, And The Judicial Role, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In Vieth v. Jubelirer, the U.S. Supreme Court seemed poised to offer the Court's definitive position on political gerrymandering questions. Yet the Court splintered along familiar lines and failed to offer a definitive answer. This Article focuses on the plurality opinion, and particularly its conclusion that judicially manageable standards are wanting in this area. This conclusion is implausible and masks the real question at the heart of the case. The Vieth plurality is best understood by examining the Court's political and prudential concerns, as cabined by the political question doctrine. One understanding is simply that the plurality is making a …

Domesticating The Gerrymander: An Essay On Standards, Fair Representation, And The Necessary Question Of Judicial Will, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The U.S. Supreme Court has moved beyond its cautious intervention in Baker v. Carr and now firmly controls the law of democracy. Yet political gerrymandering questions so understood have traditionally proven difficult for the Court to examine properly. The recent Vieth v. Jubelirer is but a further example of this phenomenon. This Essay situates Vieth within the reapportionment revolution and ultimately concludes that the central question in gerrymandering cases is the question of judicial will and whether the Court will choose to exercise its power. This Essay closes with a cautionary note: in light of the Court's general performance in …

Constitutionalization, Girardeau A. Spann

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Students of constitutional law tend to suspect pretty early on that the Constitution simply means whatever the Supreme Court says that it means. Rather than fight that intuition, I think it is best to treat the student insight as one of the basic starting assumptions when teaching a course in Constitutional Law. The goal then becomes to help students figure out how best to maneuver and feel comfortable in a legal universe where the Constitution has only contingent meaning.

What the Supreme Court does when it clothes its political policy preferences in the garb of constitutional law can be described …

Fig Leaves, Fairytales, And Constitutional Foundations: Debating Judicial Review In Britain, Lori A. Ringhand

Scholarly Works

This paper examines an ongoing debate about the origins and legitimacy of judicial review as practiced in Britain. I begin by examining how British law traditionally has attempted to justify judicial review of governmental actions. I then discuss how that orthodox view has been challenged, and how the proponents of the orthodoxy responded to that challenge. In doing so, I explain how the British debate has evolved into a far-reaching examination of the role of interpretive methodologies in legitimating judicial power. I conclude by exploring how the richness and depth of the British discussion can inform the larger debate about …

Judicial Review Before Marbury, William Michael Treanor

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

While scholars have long probed the original understanding of judicial review and the early judicial review case law, this article presents a study of the judicial review case law in the United States before Marbury v. Madison that is dramatically more complete than prior work and that challenges previous scholarship on the original understanding of judicial review on the two most critical dimensions: how well judicial review was established at the time of the Founding and when it was exercised. Where prior work argues that judicial review was rarely exercised before Marbury (or that it was created in Marbury), …