Law Commons^™

The False Promise Of The Converse-1983 Action, John F. Preis

Indiana Law Journal

The federal government is out of control. At least that’s what many states will tell you. Not only is the federal government passing patently unconstitutional legislation, but its street-level officers are ignoring citizens’ constitutional rights. How can states stop this federal juggernaut? Many are advocating a “repeal amendment,” whereby two-thirds of the states could vote to repeal federal legislation. But the repeal amendment will only address unconstitutional legislation, not unconstitutional actions. States can’t repeal a stop-and-frisk that occurred last Thursday. States might, however, enact a so-called “converse-1983” action. The idea for converse-1983 laws has been around for some time but …

Step Aside, Mr. Senator: A Request For Members Of The Senate Judiciary Committee To Give Up Their Mics, Paul E. Vaglicia

Indiana Law Journal

In 1995, a law professor at the University of Chicago Law School dubbed the Supreme Court confirmation hearings “vapid and hollow” and added that they, as implemented, “serve little educative function, except perhaps to reinforce lessons of cynicism that citizens often glean from government.” Ironically, this same law professor, Elena Kagan, later endured the confirmation hearings as a nominee and currently sits as the 112th Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. While she may be one of the few to ever reach a seat on the High Court, she is not alone in her assessment of the Supreme Court’s lackluster …

Building The Federal Judiciary (Literally And Legally): The Monuments Of Chief Justices Taft, Warren And Rehnquist, Judith Resnik

Indiana Law Journal

The “federal courts” took on their now familiar contours over the course of the twentieth century. Three chief justices—William Howard Taft, Earl Warren, and William Rehnquist—played pivotal roles in shaping the institutional, jurisprudential, and physical premises. Taft is well known for promoting a building to house the U.S. Supreme Court and for launching the administrative infrastructure that came to govern the federal courts. Earl Warren’s name has become the shorthand for a jurisprudential shift from state toward federal authority; the Warren Court offered an expansive understanding of the role federal courts could play in enabling access for a host of …

Standing Lessons: What We Can Learn When Conservative Plaintiffs Lose Under Article Iii Standing Doctrine, Heather Elliott

Indiana Law Journal

The Supreme Court’s Article III standing doctrine has plagued liberal groups for nearly forty years. Recently, however, the doctrine has blocked a number of conservative lawsuits opposing gay marriage, the 2010 health care law, and the expansion of federal funding for stem cell research.

What can we learn from these cases? Because contemporary criticisms of standing doctrine have usually come from the left and defenses from the right, it is commonplace to associate arguments for broad standing with left-wing political agendas.

But, as some scholars have shown, a version of narrow standing helped liberals protect New Deal legislation in the …

Televising The Supreme Court: Why Legislation Fails, R. Patrick Thornberry

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.