Law Commons^™

Blurring Institutional Boundaries: Judges' Perceptions Of Threats To Judicial Independence, Alyx Mark, Michael A. Zilis

Political Science Faculty Publications

The legislature wields multiple tools to limit judicial power, but scholars have little information about how judges interpret variant threats and which they find most concerning. To provide insight, we conduct original interviews regarding legislative threats to courts with over two dozen sitting federal judges, representing all tiers of the federal judiciary. We find that judges have a nuanced understanding of threats and tend to identify components of legislative proposals that threaten formal institutional powers as more concerning than those challenging policy set by judges. This distinction has broad implications for our understanding of judicial behavior at the federal level.

The Constitutionality Of An Executive Spending Plan, Paul E. Salamanca

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Operation of government in the absence of appropriations has become relatively common in the United States, particularly when projected expenses exceed projected revenue, making adoption of a budget a difficult task for the legislature. This Article focuses on the budget crisis in the Commonwealth of Kentucky from 2002 through 2003. In Part I, this Article recapitulates the history of the spending plan, including the action filed in Franklin Circuit Court to affirm its constitutionality. In Part II, this Article discusses certain theoretical, historical, and legal principles that inform analysis of the plan. In Part III, it considers certain deviations and …

Legislative Reapportionment—The Kentucky Legal Context, Robert G. Lawson

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In its continuing role as guardian of citizens’ constitutional rights, the Supreme Court in Baker v. Carr unlocked widespread concern for equal representation in state legislatures. Having been suppressed for two decades in which an amazing shift of population has occurred, the question of reapportionment and what to do about it had become one of great importance. In November, 1960, apportionments of 30 state legislatures had been challenged in state and federal courts. In addition, ten cases of an electoral character are presently on the docket of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Apart from the legal implications and …