Law Commons^™

Lost In The Thicket, Brad Snyder

Touro Law Review

As part of a symposium on his biography of Felix Frankfurter, Democratic Justice, Brad Snyder revisits Baker v. Carr and explores the contrasts between Justice William Brennan’s judicially supremacist majority opinion and Frankfurter’s departmentalist dissent and unheeded warnings about empowering the judiciary. As Frankfurter wrote in his Baker dissent, he placed more faith in the U.S. Congress, as opposed to the judiciary, to protect democracy.

The Consent Of The Governed And The Right To Access The Ballot, John D. Feerick

Fordham Law Voting Rights and Democracy Forum

No abstract provided.

Empire In Equity, Seth Davis

Notre Dame Law Review

This Essay tells a story of how a contest for empire contributed to the law of justiciability in the U.S. federal courts. It begins in the eighteenth century in the Carnatic, a region in East India, winds its way through the territory of the Cherokee Nation in the nineteenth century, and eventually touches on the State of Tennessee in the twentieth. It is a story about a 1793 decision of the English Court of Chancery that American lawyers and judges would come to cite for the principles that courts will not address political questions and that equity will not intervene …

Taking Judicial Legitimacy Seriously, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Chief Justice Roberts appears worried about judicial legitimacy. In Gill v. Whitford, the Wisconsin gerrymandering case, he explicitly worries about the message the Court would send if it wades into the gerrymandering debate. More explicitly, he worries about “the status and integrity” of the Court if is seen as taking sides in politically charged controversies. Similarly, during his confirmation hearing, Roberts warned that the Court has a limited role in our constitutional scheme and must stay within it. To decide cases on the basis of policy and not law would compromise the Court’s legitimacy. This Essay is skeptical. For one, …

Sovereign Immunity - The State Department’S Decision To Recognize And Allow The Claim Of Sovereign Immunity Is Binding Upon The Courts And Is Not Subject To Review Under The Administrative Procedure Act, Robin B. Gray Jr., George P. Shingler

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

International Law - Justiciability - Appellants Have Standing To Seek Injunction Against United States Trade With Southern Rhodesia, But Their Suit States A Claim Incapable Of Judicial Resolution, George Shingler

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Justice Brennan's Gender Jurisprudence, Rebecca Korzec

Akron Law Review

However, less attention has been focused on Justice Brennan's dramatic impact on the Supreme Court's gender jurisprudence. More than any other member of the Court, Justice Brennan recognized the complexity and pervasiveness of sex discrimination and its costs to society as a whole. Brennan's opinions recognized that sex differentiation is largely cultural in origin, rather than based on "real" gender differences. As a result, Justice Brennan created a truly independent gender jurisprudence, eventually emerging as the architect of the Supreme Court's contemporary test for evaluating claims of sex-based discrimination.

Understanding the significance of Brennan's contribution requires an appreciation of the …

The New Deference-Based Approach To Adjudicating Political Questions In Corporate Ats Cases: Potential Pitfalls And Workable Fixes, Seth Korman

Richmond Journal of Global Law & Business

Much has been made of executive-branch attempts to exert control over cases brought against corporations under the Alien Tort Stat- ute. Under the Bush Administration, the executive branch repeatedly sought to influence district court opinions through targeted letters to the court or statements of interest. These letters, frequently written by the State Department legal advisor, sought to convince courts that adjudication of claims against corporate defendants would have an ad- verse effect on U.S. foreign policy, thus triggering the political question doctrine and forcing the courts to rule the claims nonjusticiable. Though some courts have, in fact, deferred entirely to …

Simplifying The Prophecy Of Justiciability In Cases Concerning Foreign Affairs: A Political Act Of State Question, Deborah Azar

Richmond Journal of Global Law & Business

Justiciability doctrines in the foreign affairs arena have been described as involving large elements of prophecy. First, this article will examine the justifications and application of the political question doctrine in cases involving foreign affairs. Second, this article will discuss the justifications and application of the act of state and political question doctrines. Third, this article will analyze whether the act of state doctrine can be encompassed within the political question doctrine. Fourth, this article will propose a framework that can be applied in cases involving political questions in foreign affairs.

Judging The Law Of Politics, Guy-Uriel Charles

Michigan Law Review

Election law scholars are currently engaged in a vigorous debate regarding the wisdom of judicial supervision of democratic politics. Ever since the Court's 1962 decision in Baker v. Carr, the Court has increasingly supervised a dizzying array of election-related matters. These include the regulation of political parties, access to electoral ballots, partisanship in electoral institutions, the role of race in the design of electoral structures, campaign financing, and the justifications for limiting the franchise. In particular, and as a consequence of the Court's involvement in the 2000 presidential elections in Bush v. Gore, a central task of election …

Redistricting In A Post-Shaw Era: A Small Treatise Accompanied By Districting Guidelines For Legislators, Litigants, And Courts, Katharine Inglis Butler

University of Richmond Law Review

Legislators in jurisdictions with even modest minority populations will find adopting a challenge-resistant redistricting plan to be more difficult than ever before. The problem is how much consideration to give to race. Too little consideration may produce a plan subject to challenge under the Voting Rights Act (the "Act"). Too much consideration may produce a plan subject to challenge on constitutional grounds.

Sense And Nonsense: Standing In The Racial Districting Cases As A Window On The Supreme Court's View Of The Right To Vote, Judith Reed

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Congressional redistricting draws the lines within which battles for political power will be fought. It is no surprise, therefore, that the redistricting process has long been the subject of social debate and legal dispute. The Supreme Court has not been able to resolve this dispute, in part, because the Justices have conflicting interpretations of the right to vote. While some Justices view voting as an individual right, others maintain that voting is correctly perceived as group right. This lack of consensus regarding the definition of the right to vote has led to a confusing articulation of the harm implicated by …

Constitutional And Statutory Challenges To Local At-Large Elections, Timothy G. O'Rourke

University of Richmond Law Review

On April 22, 1980, in City of Mobile v. Bolden the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of at-large elections for the three-member city commission in Mobile, Alabama. In so doing, the Court reversed the judgment of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that Mobile's at-large plan impermissibly diluted the electoral influence of black voters in violation of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the Constitution. The Supreme Court's decision in Bolden [I] emerged from a sharply divided court. A six-person majority in the case consisted of four justices-Stewart, Burger, Powell, and Rehnquist-who joined in a plurality opinion; Justice …

The Discriminatory Effects Of At-Large Elections, Barbara L. Berry, Thomas R. Dye

Florida State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Marbury V. Madison, Lord Coke, And Dr. Bonham: Relics Of The Past, Guidelines For The Present—Judicial Review Intransition?, George P. Smith, Ii

Seattle University Law Review

The purpose of this article is to explore the modern significance of Coke's influence as analyzed and interpreted through the famous Bonham's Case and thereby to provide an insight into the development of our own concepts of judicial review, as borrowed from the English, in its original historical legal perspective and as seen through the decision in Marbury v. Madison and applied modernly in the principle case of Baker v. Carr.

Right To Privacy- Direct Injury Must Be Shown Before A Court May Grant Relief From General Governmental Surveillance

University of Richmond Law Review

The right of privacy is an aggregate of many separate rights, each of which is guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Although the right of privacy was not recognized per se at common law, today it is acknowledged by a majority of jurisdictions as a separate actionable legal right.

Administration Of Municipal Services In Light Of The Equal Protection Clause

University of Richmond Law Review

Disparities in the quality of human existence have been present throughout civilized societies whenever men have assembled, forming urban communities. The larger and more established these communities have become, the more pronounced have become the social disparities which separate their citizenry. Much of this social division is attributable to the age-old economic differences between the "haves" and the "have nots" differences accentuated by the complexities of modern urban life. However, with the modernization and increase of all varieties of municipal services, it has become clear that those "on the other side of the tracks" often do not enjoy the same …

One Man-One Vote In The Selection Of Presidential Nominating Delegates By State Party Conventions

University of Richmond Law Review

If any conclusion can safely be drawn from the presidential nominating conventions of 1968, it is that the success of potential third party movements looms as a substantial threat to the traditional two party system in the United States. To a large degree, this fact may be attributed to the lack of balanced voter participation inherent in the nominating processes now employed by the two major parties. This lack of participation has engendered a sense of futility in the minds of the individual party members, causing them to limit their support for the slate of candidates their party ultimately chooses.

The Impact And Constitutionality Of Voter Residence Requirements As Applied To Certain Intrastate Movers, Nicholas K. Brown

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Court, Congress, And Reapportionment, Robert B. Mckay

Michigan Law Review

In the United States, governmental power is divided vertically between nation and states and horizontally, at the national level, among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The Constitution leaves the lines of demarcation deliberately imprecise. Thus, from the beginning it was easy to predict that among those holders of power there would be tension (at least), conflict (probably), or total collapse (a possibility). The miracle of the American governmental system, with just this complexity and lack of definition, is the fact of its survival. It is not at all surprising that there have been a number of crises, some of …

Reapportionment In The Supreme Court And Congress: Constitutional Struggle For Fair Representation, Robert G. Dixon Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Fair representation is the ultimate goal. At the time of the Reapportionment Decisions, much change was overdue in some states, and at least some change was overdue in most states. We are a democratic people and our institutions presuppose according population a dominant role in formulas of representation. However, by its exclusive focus on bare numbers, the Court may have transformed one of the most intricate, fascinating, and elusive problems of democracy into a simple exercise of applying elementary arithmetic to census data. In so doing, the Court may have disabled itself from effectively considering the more subtle issues …

Some Comments On The Reapportionment Cases, Paul G. Kauper

Michigan Law Review

Any appraisal of the Supreme Court's decisions in the legislative reapportionment cases must necessarily distinguish between the basic policy ingredients and social consequences of the decisions on the one hand, and the question whether the results were reached by a proper exercise of judicial power on the other. Respecting the first of these considerations, I have no difficulty identifying the social advantages accruing from these decisions. Because of the stress on the population principle, the decisions will afford a greater voice to urban interests, will make the legislative process more responsive to current needs of particular concern to urban dwellers, …

Residency Requirements For Voting And The Tensions Of A Mobile Society, John R. Schmidhauser

Michigan Law Review

It is the purpose of this article to determine the extent to which persons otherwise qualified to vote are disenfranchised by the complex of state residency requirements and to assess the practical and constitutional aspects of any statutory prospects for change.

Political Thickets And Crazy Quilts: Reapportionment And Equal Protection, Robert B. Mckay

Michigan Law Review

If asked to identify the two most important cases decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in the twentieth century, informed observers would be likely to name, in whichever order, Brown v. Board of Education and Baker v. Carr.

Legislative Apportionment And Representative Government: The Meaning Of Baker V. Carr, Jo Desha Lucas

Michigan Law Review

In three recent cases the Supreme Court has reopened the question of the extent to which federal courts will review the general fairness of state schemes of legislative apportionment. It is a question on which the Court has had nothing to say for over a decade, leaving the bar to patch together the current state of the law from the outcome of cases disposed of without opinion considered against a backdrop of language used in earlier decisions.

The Significance Of Baker V. Carr For Indiana

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Some Reflections On Baker V. Carr, Nicholas Deb. Katzenbach

Vanderbilt Law Review

This article is based on the author's address before the Vanderbilt University School of Law in connection with the school's 1962 Law Day ceremonies. In it, Mr. Katzenbach examines the positions of the various opinions in Baker v. Carr, the significance of the case both for Tennessee and the country as a whole, and the various alternatives open to the district courts for implementing the decision.