Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Law
Tragedies Of The Cultural Commons, Etienne C. Toussaint
Tragedies Of The Cultural Commons, Etienne C. Toussaint
Faculty Publications
In the United States, Black cultural expressions of democratic life that operate within specific historical-local contexts, yet reflect a shared set of sociocultural mores, have been historically crowded out of the law and policymaking process. Instead of democratic cultural discourse occurring within an open and neutral marketplace of ideas, the discursive production and consumption of democratic culture in American politics has been rivalrous. Such rivalry too often enables dominant White supremacist cultural beliefs, values, and practices to exercise their hegemony upon law’s production and meaning. The result has been tragedy for politically disempowered and socioeconomically excluded communities.
This Article uses …
Disaggregating Legislative Intent, Jesse M. Cross
Disaggregating Legislative Intent, Jesse M. Cross
Faculty Publications
In statutory interpretation, theorists have long argued that the U.S. Congress is a “they,” not an “it.” Under this view, Congress is plural and nonhierarchical, and so it is incapable of forming a single, institutional intent. Textualists contend that this vision of Congress means interpreters must move away from concerns about intent altogether, and that they instead should speak in the register of textualism and its associated constitutional values, such as notice and congressional incentivization.
However, even if legislators’ intentions never coalesce into an institutional intent, a disaggregated-intent theory of legislation remains possible. Under this theory, statutes are understood as …