Law Commons^™

Elizabeth Cady Stanton And The Notion Of A Legal Class Of Gender, Tracy A. Thomas

Akron Law Faculty Publications

In the mid-nineteenth century, Elizabeth Cady Stanton used narratives of women and their involvement with the law of domestic relations to collectivize women. This recognition of a gender class was the first step towards women’s transformation of the law. Stanton’s stories of working-class women, immigrants, Mormon polygamist wives, and privileged white women revealed common realities among women in an effort to form a collective conscious. The parable-like stories were designed to inspire a collective consciousness among women, one capable of arousing them to social and political action. For to Stanton’s consternation, women showed a lack of appreciation of their own …

Law, History, And Feminism, Tracy A. Thomas

Akron Law Faculty Publications

This is the introduction to the book, Feminist Legal History. This edited collection offers new visions of American legal history that reveal women’s engagement with the law over the past two centuries. It integrates the stories of women into the dominant history of the law in what has been called “engendering legal history,” (Batlan 2005) and then seeks to reconstruct the assumed contours of history. The introduction provides the context necessary to appreciate the diverse essays in the book. It starts with an overview of the existing state of women’s legal history, tracing the core events over the past two …

Electing Our Judges And Judicial Independence: The Supreme Court's "Triple Whammy", Martin Belsky

Akron Law Faculty Publications

In this article, Martin Belsky makes the case for judicial selection based on merit, as opposed to popular elections. Belsky cites Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Company and the recent defeat of three Iowa supreme court justices because of their opinion in a controversial gay marriage case for the proposition that judicial elections can, and do, yield unjust results. Belsky asserts the need for judicial independence, but concludes that this goal is not achievable through elections because of the "triple whammy" of constitutional limitations: (1) the First Amendment protection of the right of judges and judicial candidates to give specific, …

Constantly Approximating Popular Sovereignty: Seven Fundamental Principles Of Constitutional Law, Wilson Huhn

Akron Law Faculty Publications

The concept of “popular sovereignty” is not a simple, singular, unified concept; instead, as it has developed in the United States, popular sovereignty embraces the following seven fundamental principles:

1. The Rule of Law. The people are sovereign and their will is expressed through law.

2. Limited Government. The people are sovereign, not the government. By adopting the Constitution the people created the government, imposed limits upon its power, and divided that power among different levels and branches.

3. Inalienable Rights. Every individual person is sovereign in the sense that he or she retains certain inalienable rights, which the government …

Constitutionality Of The Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act Under The Commerce Clause And The Necessary And Proper Clause, Wilson Huhn

Akron Law Faculty Publications

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a comprehensive federal statute that attempts to extend health insurance coverage to tens of millions of Americans and to expand health insurance coverage by eliminating exclusions for preexisting conditions, increase medical loss ratios, abolish annual and lifetime limits, and other reforms. A necessary provision of this law (the individual mandate) requires most individuals to maintain health insurance coverage. The individual mandate has been challenged in a number of lawsuits on the ground that Congress lacks the power under the Constitution to require individuals to purchase health insurance. The power of Congress to …

Book Review, Tracy Thomas

Con Law Center Articles and Publications

No abstract provided.

Reassessing The Avoidance Canon In Erie Cases, Bernadette Bollas Genetin

Con Law Center Articles and Publications

No abstract provided.