Law Commons^™

A Short History Of Sex And Citizenship: The Historians' Amicus Brief In Flores-Villar V. United States, Kristin Collins

Faculty Scholarship

The historians’ amicus brief that accompanies this essay was submitted to the Supreme Court in Flores-Villar v. United States, an equal protection challenge to federal statutes that regulate the citizenship status of foreign-born children of American parents. When the parents of such children are unmarried, federal law encumbers the ability of American fathers to secure citizenship for their children, while providing American mothers with a nearly unfettered ability to do the same. The general question before the Court in Flores-Villar – and a question that the Court has addressed in sum and substance on two other occasions during the last …

Veterans Benefits In 2010: A New Dialogue Between The Supreme Court And The Federal Circuit, Paul Gugliuzza

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court rarely grants certiorari in a veterans benefits case. Congress gave the Federal Circuit exclusive jurisdiction over veterans appeals in 1988 but, until 2009, the Supreme Court had reviewed only two Federal Circuit veterans decisions. In the 2010 Term, however, the Court decided its second veterans case in less than two years. Although patent lawyers are familiar with a trend of increasing Supreme Court interest in the Federal Circuit’s work, little attention has been paid to the similar, albeit incipient, trend that may be emerging in the field of veterans law.

In this contribution to the annual Federal …

An Inductive Understanding Of Separation Of Powers, Jack M. Beermann

Faculty Scholarship

Separation of powers is one of least understood doctrines in U.S. law and politics. Underlying a great deal of separation of powers analysis is the conventional view that the United States Constitution requires a strict separation between the three branches of government and that efforts within one branch to influence or control the exercise of another branch’s powers are illegitimate and should be rejected whenever possible. Although its simplicity might be appealing, this image of strict separation is inconsistent with both the Framers’ understanding of separation of powers and with the law as developed by the Supreme Court in the …