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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Law Professor As Populist, Mark A. Graber
The Law Professor As Populist, Mark A. Graber
University of Richmond Law Review
A new populism is taking root in the strangest soil, American law schools. Tocqueville regarded "the profession of law" as an "aristocratic element," "a sort of privileged body in the scale of intellect." Lawyers, he observed, belonged to "thehighest political class," and routinely developed "some of the tastes and habits of aristocracy." During the 1990s, however, bold challenges to elite rule in the name ofpopular majoritarianism were issued by distinguished professors and chair holders at the most prestigious law schools in the United States. Such leading jurists as Richard Parker, Jack Balkin, Akbil Reed Amar, Sanford Levinson, and Mark Tushnet …
Change And Continuity On The Supreme Court: Conversations With Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Philippa Strum
Change And Continuity On The Supreme Court: Conversations With Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Philippa Strum
University of Richmond Law Review
Justice Harry A. Blackmun used to enjoy telling a story about Supreme Court conferences during the Court's 1970 term, his first on the Court. Warren Burger was ChiefJustice; Hugo Black was the most senior Justice. Court protocol, of course, is that the Chief Justice begins the discussion of each case, the most senior Justice speaks second, and the floor goes in turn to each of the other Justices according to descending seniority. Chief Justice Burger would present a case by laying out the issues involved as he saw them and the decision he believed the Court should reach. Then he …
Privacy And Celebrity: An Essay On The Nationalization Of Intimacy, Robert F. Nagel
Privacy And Celebrity: An Essay On The Nationalization Of Intimacy, Robert F. Nagel
University of Richmond Law Review
I start from the rather obvious proposition that in recent years the American public has placed a high value on the right of privacy. This general commitment to privacy was what kept Robert Bork, despite his qualifications, off the Supreme Court, and more recently it was what kept William Clinton, despite his behavior, in the White House. Bork's nomination was a threat to the constitutional right to use contraceptives and to choose abortion, while the impeachment charges against Clinton were a threat to the moral distinction between public political life and private sexual behavior. The power that the idea of …
Reanimator: Mark Tushnet And The Second Coming Of The Imperial Presidency, Neal Devins
Reanimator: Mark Tushnet And The Second Coming Of The Imperial Presidency, Neal Devins
University of Richmond Law Review
A world without judicial review? Not that long ago-when the Left fought tooth and nail to defend the legacy ofthe Warren and (much of the) Burger Courts-the thought of taking the Constitution away from the courts would have been horrific. Witness, for example, Edward Kennedy's depiction of "Robert Bork's America!' as "a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, [and] rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids." Bork's sin, of course, was embracing a kind of populist constitutional discourse, that is, the notion that the founders "banked …
Comparing Alternative Approaches About Congress's Role In Constitutional Law, Charles Tiefer
Comparing Alternative Approaches About Congress's Role In Constitutional Law, Charles Tiefer
University of Richmond Law Review
Mark Tushnet's Taking the ConstitutionAway from the Courts presents many aspects of the theme expressed in its title. I find most interesting the aspect concerning Congress's role in constitutional law. I like this aspect because I spent almost two decades working on constitutional law in Congress, principally as the House of Representatives' Solicitor and Deputy General Counsel representing the House of Representatives in countless constitutional controversies, and I have written a good deal about it. Tushnet provides us with an alternative perspective from which we can view Congress both during that time and since. Tushnet's book is kind enough to …