Law Commons^™

Sounding The Legitimacy Alarm Bell: When Does The Media Discuss The U.S. Supreme Court’S Legitimacy?, Rachael Houston

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

These media outlets cover the Court in such ways because they openly promote a particular political ideology through endorsements, donations, ownership, or slant in coverage. They cater to audiences with similar political beliefs and tailor their coverage accordingly. For example, Fox News was created by Rupert Murdoch to appeal to a conservative audience. So, its content is purposefully conservative and assessed as right-leaning by media bias charts. As a result, polling data reveals that Republicans trust Fox News more than any other outlet. At the same time, Robert “Ted” Turner, the founder of CNN, is a donor to left-progressive causes …

Supreme Court Legitimacy Under Threat? The Role Of Cues In How The Public Responds To Supreme Court Decisions, Laura Moyer, Scott Boddery, Jeffrey Yates, Lindsay Caudill

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

Understanding how the public views the Court and its rulings is crucial to assessing its institutional stability. However, as scholars note, “People are broadly supportive of the court and believe in its ‘legitimacy’—that is, that Supreme Court rulings should be respected and followed. But we don’t know that much about whether people actually agree with the case outcomes themselves.” In this article, we highlight empirical research investigating the factors that affect public agreement with Court decisions, highlighting recent developments from our work. At the onset, it is to note that the public generally hears about the Court’s decisions from media …

“Lawyers’ Work”: Does The Court Have A Legitimacy Crisis?, Lackland Bloom

St. Mary's Law Journal

Talk of the Supreme Court’s legitimacy is pervasive. It can’t be avoided by anyone paying attention. The question this article addresses is does the Supreme Court have a legitimacy crisis. The title “Lawyers’ Work” is taken from Justice Scalia’s dissenting opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey in which he declared that as long as the Court decides cases by engaging in “Lawyers’ Work” the public will leave it alone. This article concludes that Justice Scalia was partially though not entirely correct.

The article begins by considering the concept of judicial legitimacy as developed and studied by political scientists. Next it …

The Wolf We Feed: Democracy, Caste, And Legitimacy, Benjamin Justice, Tracey L. Meares

Michigan Law Review Online

Procedure is central to American public legal discourse. From the soaring rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence to the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the American legal tradition rests on the principle that law must be both derived and applied according to fair process. Consider that in the 2020 election the Trump Administration resorted to fervent and false allegations of widespread voter fraud—that the election process was fundamentally unfair—in order to weaponize Republican voters’ ostensible commitments to fairness against what was, objectively, one of the least procedurally unfair elections in history. Yet the four-year period of the Trump …

Protecting America's Elections From Foreign Tampering: Realizing The Benefits Of Classifying Election Infrastructure As "Critical Infrastructure" Under The United States Code, Allaire M. Monticollo

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Defending Democracy: A New Understanding Of The Party-Banning Phenomenon, Gur Bligh

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Recent years have witnessed a growing tendency among established democracies to battle political extremism by banning extremist parties. This Article explores this phenomenon in its wide-ranging international manifestations. The Article aims to challenge the prevalent paradigm underlying the discussion of party banning and to introduce a new paradigm for conceptualizing the party-banning phenomenon in its current reincarnation. Traditionally, the discussion concerning party banning has been strongly shaped by the traumatic experience of Hitler's rise to power and the collapse of the Weimar Republic. Hence, it has focused upon parties that are overtly opposed to democracy, like communist or fascist parties. …

What Do We Want In A Presidential Primary - An Election Law Perspective, Chad Flanders

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Although the 2008 presidential primaries were in many ways a resounding success in terms of turnout, attention, and sheer excitement, many noted the pressing need for reform. States were rushing to hold their primaries sooner than ever, giving rise to "Super-Duper Tuesday," where twenty-four states had their primaries on the same day. The Democratic nominee at one point looked like it might be decided by the votes of so-called "Superdelegates"-party regulars beholden to no one. As the Democratic nomination contest wore on, Rush Limbaugh, in "Operation Chaos," encouraged his "dittoheads" to raid the party primaries of the Democrats, tilting the …

Peter Aucoin, Mark D.Jarvis &Lori Turnbull, Democratizing The Constitution: Reforming Responsible Government, Gregory Tardi

Dalhousie Law Journal

In the aftermath of the Prorogation of Parliament on December 4, 2008, upon the advice of Prime Minister Stephen Harper to then Governor General Michaelle Jean, a particular theme in Canadian literature about governance has flourished. This theme is the influence ofconstitutionalism, democracy and legitimacy on government and politics. In the view of many scholars there is a serious imbalance between the executive branch on one hand and the legislative branch on the other. The sense ofimbalance has generated proposals for changes to the practice of Westminster-style parliamentary democracy in the service of democratic legitimacy.

Equality And Partiality, Daniel A. Cohen

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Equality and Partiality by Thomas Nagel

Politics Against Law, Ernest Van Den Haag

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Politics of Law: A Progressive Critique by David Kairys