Law Commons^™

Is Progressive Constitutionalism Possible?, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Progressivism is in part a particular moral and political response to the sadness of lesser lives, lives unnecessarily diminished by economic, psychic and physical insecurity in the midst of a society or world that offers plenty. This insecurity is unjust and should end; the suffering should be alleviated, and those lives should be enriched. To do so must be one of the goals of a morally just or justifiable state. Not all suffering and not all lesser lives, of course, give rise to such a response. The suffering attendant to accident, disease, war and happenstance is neither entirely chargeable to …

Federalism, Welfare Reform And The Minority Poor: Accounting For The Tyranny Of State Majorities, Sheryll D. Cashin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The ideals of federalism contributed significantly to the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, which repealed the AFDC entitlement program and devolved broad authority to the states to design and administer programs for welfare reform. Professor Cashin challenges the federalist, a priori assumption that states are the natural situs of policy authority concerning the poor. She argues that the Act is likely to yield harmful consequences for the poor-especially the minority poor-because the political economy of state decisionmaking is more hostile to redistributive aims than is that of national decisionmaking.

The Article tests the …