Law Commons^™

The President’S Pen And The Bureaucrat’S Fiefdom, John C. Eastman

John C. Eastman

No Free Lunch, But Dinner And A Movie (And Contraceptives For Dessert)?, John C. Eastman

John C. Eastman

The Power To Control Immigration Is A Core Aspect Of Sovereignty, John C. Eastman

John C. Eastman

Cheating Marriage: A Tragedy In Three Acts, John C. Eastman

John C. Eastman

In his dissenting opinion in United States v. Windsor, Justice Scalia accused the Court of “cheating,” because it decided an issue that properly belonged to the voters. But the cheating that went on in the case, and the parallel case involving Proposition 8 in California, was also of the vintage variety. This article tells the largely untold story about the many machinations by elected officials and judges to produce the end result in favor of same-sex marriage, from conflicts of interest, to collusion by nominally “opposing” counsel, and finally to an aggressive refusal by high-ranking government lawyers (including one who …

From Plyler To Arizona: Have The Courts Forgotten About Corfield V. Coryell?, John Eastman

John C. Eastman

The U.S. Constitution assigns plenary authority to determination naturalization policy to the Congress. Yet increasingly the Courts have undermined Congress's policy judgments with invented constitutional rights. This article explores how the Courts have enhanced the three principal magnets to illegal immigration and thereby undermined congressional policy: employment; education and other social services; and citizenship itself.

Hidden Gems In The Historical 2011-2012 Term, And Beyond, John C. Eastman

John C. Eastman

No abstract provided.

Papers, Please: Does The Constitution Permit The States A Role In Immigration Enforcement?, John C. Eastman

John C. Eastman

Born In The U.S.A.? Re-Assessing Birthright Citizenship In The Wake Of 9/11, John C. Eastman

John C. Eastman

Testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives, Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims (Sept. 29, 2005) contends that the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment has been misconstrued as mandating birthright citizenship. Rather, the clause was a codification of the 1866 Civil Rights Act, which quite clearly exempted from the automatic citizenship provisions children of parents who owed allegiance to a foreign power - i.e., those who were in the U.S. only temporarily (and particularly those who were in the U.S. illegally). This was the understanding of those who drafted and those who ratified the 14th Amendment, …

Full Faith And Republican Guarantees: Gay Marriage, Fmpa, And The Courts, John Eastman

John C. Eastman

"What difference does it make to your heterosexual marriage if I enter into a homosexual marriage?" Such is the frequent rejoinder to claims that traditional marriage needs to be protected by state or federal law or even by a federal constitutional amendment. Here I explore answers to that rejoinder. Marriage may be an individual bond, but it is fostered by society because it also fulfills fundamental societal functions. Indeed, we have an unbelievably important example of unintended consequences from another profound change to this important societal institution: no-fault divorce. The United States did not embrace no-fault divorce until 1969, and …

How Large Is Too Large For The Rule Of Law? Testimony Before The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Hearing To Consider Proposals To Split The Ninth Circuit Court Of Appeals, John C. Eastman

John C. Eastman

Proposals to split the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit have been around since the 1950s. A serious proposal was made to split both the 5th and the 9th back in the 1970s; the 5th was in fact split (into the current 5th and the 11th), but the 9th Circuit remains as it was, by far the largest circuit court in the country, responsible for more than 40% of the nation's territorty and 1 in every 5 members of its population. The Circuit currently has 28 active judges authorized and nearly 50 actually sitting (including senior circuit judges). …

Does The First Amendment's Freedom Of The Press Clause Place The Institutional Media Above The Law Of Classified Secrets?, John Eastman

John C. Eastman

Testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, contending that Section 798 of the Espionage Act, prohibiting the publication of classified information regarding U.S. communications capabilities, can constitutionally be applied to the media, for several reasons: 1) A majority of the Justices in the Pentagon Papers case recognized that prior restraints on publication of highly sensitive, classified information regarding ongoing military and communications operations would be permissible; 2) The prospect of post-publication liability for violating the Espionage Act was also recognized by a majority of the Justices; and 3) The Freedom of Press Clause of the …

The Constitutionality Of The Nsa Surveillance Program: A Letter To The House Judiciary Committee, John Eastman

John C. Eastman

Following the December 2005 disclosure by the New York Times of a highly-classified National Security Agency surveillance program that was authorized by President Bush shortly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, there has been a great national debate, both scholarly and popular, about the legality of the program. Opponents claim that it violates the FISA statute's requirement that executive branch officials first obtain a warrant before conducting surveillance on enemy communications that originate or terminate in the United States itself. They also claim that, even if FISA statute was implicitly amended by the post-9/11 Authorization …

Listening To The Enemy: The President's Power To Conduct Surveillance Of Enemy Communications During Time Of War, John Eastman

John C. Eastman

Ever since the New York Times published classified information in December 2005 about the efforts by the National Security Agency to intercept enemy communications to or from sources in the United States (as authorized by the President in his capacity as Commander-In-Chief), there has been a great hew and cry about the President's "illegal" conduct. Calls of impeachment have even been heard, both in the media and in the halls of Congress. The Congressional Research Serviced weighed in at the request of members of Congress, concluding that "it might be argued" that the President had violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance …

Adequacy And The Rights Revolution: Reinterpreting The Education Clauses In State Constitutions, John C. Eastman

John C. Eastman

No abstract provided.

Philosopher King Courts: Is The Exercise Of Higher Law Authority Without A Higher Law Foundation Legitimate?, John C. Eastman

John C. Eastman

When our nation's Founders designed our constitutional system of government as the means to secure the inalienable rights described in the Declaration of Independence, they placed great stock in the structural provisions of the Constitution, even greater than in a judicially-enforceable bill of rights. Although they certainly envisioned judicial review, it is hard to fathom that they would have sanctioned a judiciary that decides every major (and a good number of the minor) political issue of the day. Even less clear is the ground of authority on which the modern-day court rests. This article considers several possible claims of legitimacy …

Politics And The Court: Did The Supreme Court Really Move Left Because Of Embarrassment Over Bush V. Gore?, John C. Eastman

John C. Eastman

The premise of the "hot topics" panel at the 2005 AALS convention was that the Rehnquist Court had in 2004 retreated from its bolder conservatism, asserting itself on the side of individual liberty against a federal government that had grown increasingly cavalier toward civil liberties during three years of a war on terror and two decades of a renewed war on crime. Proof of the premise was said to be found in a pair of Sixth Amendment cases, Crawford v. Washington and Blakely v. Washington, and also in the trilogy of terrorism cases, Rumsfeld v. Padilla, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, and …

Is The Solomon Amendment F.A.I.R.: Some Thoughts On Congress's Power To Impose This Condition On Federal Spending, John Eastman

John C. Eastman

In this article, I explore the constitutionality of the Solomon Amendment, by which Congress required that recipients of federal grants to institutions of higher education permit the military to conduct job interviews on campus despite the institution's objection to the military's ban on homosexuality in the military. I first consider the constitutionality of the spending program on which the Solomon Amendment imposed conditions, recognizing that spending for education is not part of the enumerated powers of Congress. I then consider Congress's power to raise and support armies, and concludes that a plausible, originalist argument can be made that federal support …

Judicial Review Of Unenumerated Rights: Does Marbury's Holding Apply In A Post-Warren Court World?, John C. Eastman

John C. Eastman

Prepared to commemmorate the bicentennial of the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Marbury v. Madison, this article explores the limits of the original holding, its expansive interpretation in the 20th Century to claims of judicial supremacy, even exclusiveness, in constitutional interpretation, and the various theories that would support such claims. The article explores in some detail the particularly troubling claim of judicial power to create new, unenumerated rights when the Court itself has rejected the foundational, natural rights principles that would lend legitimacy to the enterprise.

Anatomy Of The Federal Litigation: Challenging The Legislature's Actions In The Wake Of Guinn V. Legislature, John C. Eastman

John C. Eastman

In July 2003, the Supreme Court of Nevada issued an extraordinary writ of mandate to the Nevada Legislature, directing it to enact a bill raising taxes to support increased education spending, by a simple majority vote rather than the 2/3 vote required by the Nevada Constitution. This article describes the federal court litigation that was filed to challenge that ruling, and explores the merits of the case, both procedurallyl and substantively. Most importantly, the article explores the meaning of the Republican Guaranty Clause of Article IV of the U.S. Constitution, and Justice O'Connor's invitation in New York v. United States …

The Revival Of Federalism, John C. Eastman

John C. Eastman

This article explores the efforts over the past quarter century by the conservative public interest law movement to revive the principle of federalism and, ultimately, the notion that the federal government is one of only limited, enumerated powers. Focussing on the Commerce Clause, the article traces the original meaning of the powers of the federal government over interstate commerce, as those powers were understood by those who drafted and ratified the Constitution, and contrasts that understanding with the expansionist view of the Commerce Clause adopted by the New Deal Court, which became the ruling orthodoxy for more than half a …

The Limited Nature Of The Senate's Advice And Consent Role, John C. Eastman

John C. Eastman

This article reprints both the oral and prepared testimony provided to the U.S. House of Representatives, Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution, on October 10, 2002, at a hearing entitled, A Judiciary Diminished is Justice Denied: The Constitution, the Senate, and the Vacancy Crisis in the Federal Judiciary. In it, I contend that the Senate's role in confirming the President's judicial nominees is much more limited than has been claimed in recent years; that the President has the sole power of nomination, and the primary power of appointment, subject to a check by the Senate so that the appointment power …

The Magic Of Vouchers Is No Sleight Of Hand: A Reply To Steven K. Green, John Eastman

John C. Eastman

In a provacative 2002 article, The Illusory Aspect of 'Private Choice' for Constitutional Analysis,, Professor Steven Green challenged both the constitutionality and the policy benefits of school vouhcers. The Supreme Court put to rest the constitutional objection in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris shortly after the article was published, but I argue here that the issue should not even have been close. As originally understood, the Establishment Clause was a federalism provision, barring the national government from maked a national church, but also barring the national government from intervening with existing state support of religion. I then take issue with Steven Green's …

Altered States: Review Of John T. Noonan, Jr., 'Narrowing The Nation's Power: The Supreme Court Sides With The States', John Eastman

John C. Eastman

Conversative Ninth Circuit Judge John Noonan's book, 'Narrowing the Nation's Power: The Supreme Court Sides with the States', lambasts the Supreme Court's federalism decisions, a hallmark of the Rehnquist Court's revival of the limits on national power originally envisioned by those who drafted and ratified the Constitution. This review takes Judge Noonan to task for misconstruing the original meaning of the Constitution's Commerce Clause, for example, but agrees with his assessment that the Court's 11th Amendment jurisprudence is a doctrinal mess.

Re-Evaluating The Privileges Or Immunities Clause, John C. Eastman

John C. Eastman

In its 1999 case, Saenz v. Roe, the Supreme Court re-invigorated a long-dead clause of the Constitution, the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the 14th Amendment. Oddly, though, the opinion was written by Justice Stevens, one of the staunchest devotees of a living Constitution rather than originalism. As odd: Justice Thomas, the most consistent originalist on the Court, was in dissent. In his view, any reinvigoration of the Privileges or Immunities Clause should displace, rather than augment, the untethered jurisprudence that expansively interpreted other clauses of the 14th Amendment to cover the neutered Privileges or Immunities Clause, and it should …

The Gao's Assault On The Executive Branch, John C. Eastman

John C. Eastman

This article explores the constitutional issues involved with the General Accounting Office's suit to force Vice President Cheney to disclose notes and attendance records from confidential, executive-branch meetings of an energy task force established by the President to give advice on a national energy policy. Noting that the presidency was deliberately designed to be able to operation with secrecy and dispatch, when necessary, the article concludes that the GAO's suit is a dangerous violation of separation of powers principles.

Wrong Claim, Wrong Party, Wrong Court: Assessing The Petition Brought By A Coalition Of Clergy, Lawyers, & Professors On Behalf Of Detainees Held By The U.S. Military In Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, John C. Eastman

John C. Eastman

This brief article assesses the merits of the habeas corpus petition filed by a group of Los Angeles-based attorneys and professors on behalf of terrorists being detained by the United States in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It argues that the petitioners had no standing; that the Central District of California had no geographic connection and therefore no jurisdiction; and that the Constitution's guarantee of the writ of habeas corpus did not does not extend to non-citizens beyond the borders and sovereign authority of the United States.

Re-Entering The Arena: Restoring A Judicial Role For Enforcing Limits On Federal Mandates, John Eastman

John C. Eastman

The mini-revolution in 1994 that gave Republicans control of Congress for the first time in forty years, and which led to the enactment of the Unfunded Mandate Reform Act of 1995 (UMRA) as part of the Contract with America, was designed in part to revive some foundational constitutional principles, including federalism, enumerated powers, and the non-delegation of lawmaking authority. This Article considers how successful the UMRA has been in furthering these principles and how shortcomings of the UMRA that have become evident over the past seven years might be corrected to further these principles still further. Part II of the …

Stare Decisis: Conservatism's One-Way Ratchet Problem, John Eastman

John C. Eastman

The doctrine of stare decisis serves several purposes, among them judicial efficiency, consistency, manageability, and reliance. These are all conservative virtues. Yet is it possible for a conservative-minded jurist to adhere strictly to principles of stare decisis that would require affirming precedents by progressive courts that did not similarly follow principles of stare decisis because of the progressive belief in an inevitable forward march of history? How is a conservative court to treat such precedent? If it adheres to it solely because of stare decisis, does not the ebb and flow of the Court between conservative and progressive majorities mean …

Lessons From The Past: Is There Anything New In Constitutional Law?, John C. Eastman

John C. Eastman

Review of David P. Currie, The Constitution in Congress: The Jeffersonians, 1801-1829 (Univ. of Chicago Press 2001). Modern-day constitutional lawyers learn their trade largely from reading and discussing judicial opinions, but there is in our nation's history a rich tradition of constitutional debate in the other branches of the government. In this volume - the second in his look at constitutional debates in Congress, Professor David Currie does a masterful job not only describing the most significant constitutional debates of the Jeffersonian-era Congresses, but also demonstrating how relevant those debates are for current constitutional disputes, whether it be the impeachment …

The Senate Is Supposed To Advise And Consent, Not Obstruct And Delay, John C. Eastman, Timothy Sandefur

John C. Eastman

This article explores the original understanding of the Constitution's division of power between the President and the Senate with respect to judicial appointments. The President is given the sole power to nominate, and the primary role in appointment, while the Senate was understood as having a much more limited role, serving as a check on the President to prevent appointments for political favor, family connection, etc. What the founders did not envision was a co-equal role for the Senate--that would have undermined the kind of accountability that comes from assigning the principal role to a single individual: the President. And …