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Full-Text Articles in Law
Perpetuities And The Genius Of A Free State, Joshua C. Tate
Perpetuities And The Genius Of A Free State, Joshua C. Tate
Vanderbilt Law Review
Legal history, like all history, is inevitably a speculative affair. No one can be sure what the editors of Justinian's Digest might have excised from long-lost works of classical Roman law; nor can one know for certain what went through the minds of certain justices of the U.S. Supreme Court in the mid-twentieth century when they formed and reformed their views on Roosevelt's New Deal. Of course, scholars can try to chip away at this uncertainty: great progress can be made through educated guesses and learned theories. But certainty about the past is reserved for those who lived in it. …
The Obligation Of Members Of Congress To Consider Constitutionality While Deliberating And Voting: The Deficiencies Of House Rule Xii And A Proposed Rule For The Senate, Russ Feingold
Vanderbilt Law Review
Most scholarly attention on constitutional interpretation is focused on the judicial branch and its role in our system of separation of powers. Nonetheless, constitutional interpretation should not take place solely in the courts. Rather, history suggests our Framers envisioned that members of Congress, as well as the President and the courts, would have an independent and important role to play in interpreting our Constitution. Yet this obligation has eroded such that House Speaker John Boehner, with the support of the Tea Party and his Republican colleagues, called for a "sea change" in the way the House of Representatives operates, with …
Enforcement Discretion And Executive Duty, Zachary S. Price
Enforcement Discretion And Executive Duty, Zachary S. Price
Vanderbilt Law Review
Recent Presidents have claimed wide-ranging authority to decline enforcement of federal laws. The Obama Administration, for example, has announced policies of abstaining from investigation and prosecution of certain federal marijuana crimes, postponing enforcement of key provisions of the Affordable Care Act, and suspending enforcement of removal statutes against certain undocumented immigrants. While these examples highlight how exercises of executive enforcement discretion-the authority to turn a blind eye to legal violations-may effectively reshape federal policy, prior scholarship has offered no satisfactory account of the proper scope of, and constitutional basis for, this putative executive authority. This Article fills that gap. Through …
Bond, Buckley, And The Boundaries Of Separation Of Powers Standing, William Marks
Bond, Buckley, And The Boundaries Of Separation Of Powers Standing, William Marks
Vanderbilt Law Review
A constitutional crisis is at hand. It is 2017, and a new President of the United States has taken office.' The new President generally opposes environmental regulations and accordingly nominated a candidate for Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") with a deregulatory track record. The Senate, however, stood in the way: a proenvironment party holds the majority and threatened to filibuster. New presidents in this situation typically withdraw their nominations to avoid political embarrassment. But this time was different. In a forceful display of executive authority, the President unilaterally installed the nominee as the EPA Administrator. True, this action …
Strange Bedfellows, Jeffrey Schoenblum
Strange Bedfellows, Jeffrey Schoenblum
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
With the maximum rate of federal income tax at 39.6 percent, the Medicare surtax on investment income of 3.8 percent, and some state income tax rates exceeding 9 percent, taxpayers in the highest brackets have been seeking to develop strategies to lessen the tax burden. One strategy that has been receiving increased attention is the use of a highly specialized trust known as the NING, a Nevada incomplete gift nongrantor trust, which eliminates state income taxation of investment income altogether without generating additional federal income or transfer taxes. A major obstacle standing in the way of accomplishing this objective, however, …
The Right To Vote Under State Constitutions, Joshua A. Douglas
The Right To Vote Under State Constitutions, Joshua A. Douglas
Vanderbilt Law Review
This Article provides the first comprehensive look at state constitutional provisions explicitly granting the right to vote. We hear that the right to vote is "fundamental," the "essence of a democratic society," and "preservative of all rights." But courts and scholars are still searching for a solution to the puzzle of how best to protect voting rights, especially because the U.S. Supreme Court has underenforced the right to vote. The answer, however, is right in front of us: state constitutions. Virtually every state constitution includes direct, explicit language granting the right to vote, as contrasted with the U.S. Constitution, which …