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Full-Text Articles in Law

Conducting The Constitution: Justice Scalia, Textualism, And The Eroica Symphony, Ian Gallacher Jan 2006

Conducting The Constitution: Justice Scalia, Textualism, And The Eroica Symphony, Ian Gallacher

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The goal of this article is a very modest one: to use one piece of music, the first movement of Beethoven's Eroica symphony, to consider how legal scholars, using the doctrinal principles they have developed to interpret the Constitution, would interpret the piece as conductors. This article makes no pretense of offering a new genre of legal hermeneutics; there is no suggestion here that a "law and musicology" movement will provide a comprehensive analytical framework which we can use to solve problems of Constitutional interpretation. Rather, this article suggests that musical interpretative "doctrines"--if so loose a collection of practices merits …


State Executive Lawmaking In Crisis, Jim Rossi Jan 2006

State Executive Lawmaking In Crisis, Jim Rossi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Courts and scholars have largely overlooked the constitutional source and scope of a state executive's powers to avert and respond to crises. This Article addresses how actual and perceived legal barriers to executive authority under state constitutions can have major consequences beyond a state's borders during times of crisis. It proposes to empower state executives to address federal and regional goals without any previous authorization from the state legislature-a presumption of state executive lawmaking, subject to state legislative override, which would give a state or local executive expansive lawmaking authority within its system of government to address national and regional …


Are We There Yet?: Measuring Success Of Constitutional Reform, Maria Dakolias Jan 2006

Are We There Yet?: Measuring Success Of Constitutional Reform, Maria Dakolias

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Like many other countries in the world, the United Kingdom has been modernizing its constitutional arrangements. But unlike all other countries, there is no codified, written constitution. Since 1997, that unwritten constitution has undergone a radical overhaul. Taken together, the changes to systems and institutions represent the most sustained program of reform in the United Kingdom for a century. The main question is whether these reforms were successful. What does success mean? As is well known, implementation is the key to success. So evaluating the reforms and discussing successes and challenges are not only important for the U.K. internal dialogue …