Constitutional Law Commons^™

The Democratic Deficit, Joseph Raz

Faculty Scholarship

Why democracy? Institutions of government and others must meet conditions of legitimacy. Why? and what are they? what are principles of legitimacy, like the principle of subsidiarity? and how does democracy fit in a theory of legitimacy? The paper surveys what it takes to be the seven most important advantages of democratic government: civil and political rights, more extensive opportunities for people to engage in public affairs, responsiveness to the expressed preferences of the people, stability, peaceful transfer of power, loyalty and solidarity. It then considers the role of legitimation in securing these advantages. These reflection lead to the question …

Asymmetric Constitutional Hardball, Joseph Fishkin, David E. Pozen

Faculty Scholarship

Many have argued that the United States' two major political parties have experienced "asymmetric polarization" in recent decades: The Republican Party has moved significantly further to the right than the Democratic Party has moved to the left. The practice of constitutional hardball, this Essay argues, has followed a similar – and causally related – trajectory. Since at least the mid-1990s, Republican officeholders have been more likely than their Democratic counterparts to push the constitutional envelope, straining unwritten norms of governance or disrupting established constitutional understandings. Both sides have done these things. But contrary to the apparent assumption of some legal …

Our Regionalism, Jessica Bulman-Pozen

Faculty Scholarship

This article provides an account of Our Regionalism to supplement the many accounts of Our Federalism. After describing the legal forms regions assume in the United States — through interstate cooperation, organization of federal administrative agencies, and hybrid state-federal efforts — it explores how regions have shaped American governance across the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

In the years leading up to the New Deal, commentators invoked regions to resist centralization, arguing that state coordination could forestall expansion of the federal government. But regions were soon deployed to a different end, as the federal government relied on regional administration to …

The Search For An Egalitarian First Amendment, Jeremy K. Kessler, David E. Pozen

Faculty Scholarship

Over the past decade, the Roberts Court has handed down a series of rulings that demonstrate the degree to which the First Amendment can be used to thwart economic and social welfare regulation – generating widespread accusations that the Court has created a "new Lochner." This introduction to the Columbia Law Review's Symposium on Free Expression in an Age of Inequality takes up three questions raised by these developments: Why has First Amendment law become such a prominent site for struggles over socioeconomic inequality? Does the First Amendment tradition contain egalitarian elements that could be recovered? And what might a …

Introduction: Troubling Transparency, David E. Pozen, Michael Schudson

Faculty Scholarship

Transparency is a value in the ascendance. Across the globe, the past several decades have witnessed a spectacular explosion of legislative reforms and judicial decisions calling for greater disclosure about the workings of public institutions. Freedom of information laws have proliferated, claims of a constitutional or supra-constitutional "right to know" have become commonplace, and an international transparency lobby has emerged as a civil society powerhouse. Open government is seen today in many quarters as a foundation of, if not synonymous with, good government.

At the same time, a growing number of scholars, advocates, and regulators have begun to raise hard …

1930s Redux: The Administrative State Under Seige, Gillian E. Metzger

Faculty Scholarship

Eighty years on, we are seeing a resurgence of the antiregulatory and antigovernment forces that lost the battle of the New Deal. President Trump's administration has proclaimed the "deconstruction of the administrative state" to be one of its main objectives. Early Trump executive actions quickly delivered on this pledge, with a wide array of antiregulatory actions and a budget proposing to slash many agencies' funding. Invoking the long-dormant Congressional Review Act (CRA), the Republican-controlled Congress has eagerly repealed numerous regulations promulgated late in the Obama Administration. Other major legislative and regulatory repeals are pending, and bills that would impose the …

Our Criminal Laws, Our Constitution, Sarah Seo

Faculty Scholarship

This essay reviews three recently published books that further explore this insight in the twentieth century. At first glance, vagrancy laws, the free will problem, and criminal records may seem to share little in common. But each study illuminates how criminal laws have defined our nation by creating what historian Barbara Welke has termed "borders of belonging," a boundary that laws create between people who enjoy full citizenship and those who do not. After all, a conviction and imprisonment are acts of social and political exclusion. Even the policing of suspected offenders often reveals who does not completely belong.

The …

Freedom Of Information Beyond The Freedom Of Information Act, David Pozen

Faculty Scholarship

The U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) allows any person to request any agency record for any reason. This model has been copied worldwide and celebrated as a structural necessity in a real democracy. Yet in practice, this Article argues, FOIA embodies a distinctively “reactionary” form of transparency. FOIA is reactionary in a straightforward, procedural sense in that disclosure responds to ad hoc demands for information. Partly because of this very feature, FOIA can also be seen as reactionary in a more substantive, political sense insofar as it saps regulatory capacity; distributes government goods in an inegalitarian fashion; and contributes …

Ptab, Patents, And The Constitution, Philip A. Hamburger

Faculty Scholarship

Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Oil States vs. Greene’s Energy Group, et al. on whether the Patent and Trademark Office, acting through the Patent and Trial Appeal Board (PTAB), can decide the validity of existing patents. The question, in particular, is whether the PTAB is unconstitutionally extinguishing private property rights in a non-Article III forum without a jury. At stake, therefore, is a range of vital issues, including patents, property, and the right to be heard in a real court, with a jury.

The Original Theory Of Constitutionalism, David Singh Grewal, Jedediah S. Purdy

Faculty Scholarship

The conflict between various versions of “originalism” and “living constitutionalism” has defined the landscape of constitutional theory and practice for more than a generation, and it shows no sign of abating. Although each camp has developed a variety of methodological approaches and substantive distinctions, each one also returns to a core concern: the democratic authority of constitutional review. The late Justice Scalia crystallized the originalist concern in his dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges: “It is of overwhelming importance … who it is that rules me. Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, …

The Future Of State Sovereignty, Joseph Raz

Faculty Scholarship

Advances in the legalisation of international relations, and the growing number of international organisations raise the question whether state sovereignty had its day. The paper defines sovereignty in a way that allows for degrees of sovereignty. Its analysis assumes that while sovereignty has become more limited, a trend which may continue, there is no sign that it is likely to disappear. The paper offers thoughts towards a normative analysis of these developments and the prospects they offer. Advocates of progress towards world government, while wise to many of current defects, are blind to the evils that a world government will …

Federalism All The Way Up: State Standing And "The New Process Federalism", Jessica Bulman-Pozen

Faculty Scholarship

This commentary considers what federalism all the way up means for Gerken’s proposed new process federalism. The state-federal integration she documents underscores why judicial policing of “conditions for federal-state bargaining” cannot be limited to state-federal relations in the traditional sense. It must extend to state challenges to the allocation and exercise of authority within the federal government. The new process federalism would therefore do well to address when states will have standing to bring such cases in federal court. After Part I describes contemporary federalism-all-the-way-up litigation, Part II suggests that Gerken’s “Federalism 3.0” complicates both traditional parens patriae and sovereignty …

The Work Of International Law, Monica Hakimi

Faculty Scholarship

This Article crystallizes and then critiques a prominent view about the role of international law in the global order. The view — what I call the “cooperation thesis” — is that international law serves to help global actors cooperate, specifically by: (1) curbing their disputes, and (2) promoting their shared goals. The cooperation thesis often appears as a positive account of international law; it purports to explain or describe what international law does. But it also has normative force; international law is widely depicted as dysfunctional when it does not satisfy the thesis. In particular, heated or intractable conflict is …

International Dealmaking At The White House: Toward A Viable Test Of Allowable Sole Executive Agreements, Joshua Abbuhl

National Security Law Program

The Constitution's Treaty Clause states that the President "shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur." This clause represents the only instance in which the Constitution describes a process by which the United States can conclude agreements with foreign governments. However, the President regularly enters international agreements on his own authority and without the assent of a supermajority of the Senate. This Note explores when the President may lawfully enter such agreements, known as "sole executive agreements."

Executive Federalism Comes To America, Jessica Bulman-Pozen

Faculty Scholarship

This Article proposes a different way of thinking about contemporary American governance, looking to an established foreign practice. Executive federalism – “processes of intergovernmental negotiation that are dominated by the executives of the different governments within the federal system” – is pervasive in parliamentary federations, such as Canada, Australia, and the European Union. Given the American separation of powers arrangement, executive federalism has been thought absent, even “impossible,” in the United States. But the partisan dynamics that have gridlocked Congress and empowered both federal and state executives have generated a distinctive American variant.

Viewing American law and politics through the …

The Political Economy Of "Constitutional Political Economy", Jeremy K. Kessler

Faculty Scholarship

Since the early 1990s, constitutional history has experienced a renaissance. This revival had many causes, but three stand out: the Rehnquist Court's attack on formerly sacrosanct features of the "New Deal agenda"; Reagan-Era reassessments of American political development by political scientists, historians, and historical sociologists; and the frustration of constitutional scholars with the inability of legal process theory or political philosophy to produce "authoritative constitutional principles." Spurred by legal crisis and this mix of disciplinary innovation and stagnation, law professors began to tell new stories about our constitutional heritage. They focused on the sources and significance of the New Deal's …

Justice And Accountability: Activist Judging In The Light Of Democratic Constitutionalism And Democratic Experimentalism, William H. Simon

Faculty Scholarship

This essay examines the charge that activist judging is inconsistent with democracy in the light of two recent perspectives in legal scholarship. The perspectives – Democratic Constitutionalism and Democratic Experimentalism – suggest in convergent and complementary ways that the charge ignores or oversimplifies relevant features of both judging and democracy. In particular, the charge exaggerates the pre-emptive effect of activist judging, and it implausibly conflates democracy with electoral processes. In addition, it understands consensus as a basis for judicial legitimacy solely in terms of pre-existing agreement and ignores the contingent legitimacy that can arise from the potential for subsequent agreement.

Juvenile Sentencing Reform In A Constitutional Framework, Elizabeth S. Scott, Thomas Grisso, Marsha Levick, Laurence Steinberg

Faculty Scholarship

In the past decade, the Supreme Court has transformed the constitutional landscape of juvenile crime regulation. In three strongly worded opinions, the Court held that imposing harsh criminal sentences on juvenile offenders violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Roper v Simmons in 2005 prohibited the imposition of the death penalty for a crime committed by a juvenile. Five years later, Graham v. Florida held that no juvenile could be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole (LWOP) for a nonhomicide offense. Then in 2012, Miller v. Alabama struck down statutes that required courts to sentence …

Legal Pathways To Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions Under Section 115 Of The Clean Air Act, Michael Burger, Ann E. Carlson, Michael B. Gerrard, Jayni Foley Hein, Jason A. Schwartz, Keith J. Benes

Faculty Scholarship

Under President Barack Obama the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has promulgated a series of greenhouse gas emissions regulations, initiating the necessary national response to climate change. However, the United States will need to find other ways to reduce GHG emissions if it is to live up to its international emissions reduction pledges, and to ultimately lead the way to a zero-carbon energy future. This paper argues that the success of the recent climate negotiations in Paris provides a strong basis for invoking a powerful tool available to help achieve the country’s climate change goals: Section 115 of the Clean Air …

Firearm Legislation And Firearm Mortality In The Usa: A Cross-Sectional, State-Level Study, Bindu Kalesan, Matthew Mobily, Olivia Keiser, Jeffrey Fagan

Faculty Scholarship

In an effort to reduce firearm mortality rates in the USA, US states have enacted a range of firearm laws to either strengthen or deregulate the existing main federal gun control law, the Brady Law. We set out to determine the independent association of different firearm laws with overall firearm mortality, homicide firearm mortality, and suicide firearm mortality across all US states. We also projected the potential reduction of firearm mortality if the three most strongly associated firearm laws were enacted at the federal level.

Vermeule Unbound, Philip A. Hamburger

Faculty Scholarship

My book asks Is Administrative Law Unlawful? Adrian Vermeule answers “No.” In support of his position, he claims that my book does not really make arguments from the U.S. Constitution, that it foolishly denounces administrative power for lacking legislative authorization, that it grossly misunderstands this power and the underlying judicial doctrines, and ultimately that I argue “like a child.”

My book actually presents a new conception of administrative power, its history, and its unconstitutionality; as Vermeule has noted elsewhere, it offers a new paradigm. Readers therefore should take seriously the arguments against the book. They also, however, should recognize that …

Constitutionalizing Systemic Administration, Gillian E. Metzger

Faculty Scholarship

Will the national administrative state as we know it survive? That question has risen to the fore with the advent of the Trump presidency. The President’s chief strategist has proclaimed “deconstructing the administrative state” to be one of the main pillars of the Trump Administration. Philip Rucker & Robert Costa, Bannon Vows a Daily Fight for ‘Deconstruction of the Administrative State,’ WASH. POST (Feb. 23, 2017). Early Trump actions have been notably anti-regulatory, including requirements that agencies repeal two regulations for each new regulation they propose, keep additional regulatory costs at zero, and plan for reorganization.

The Constitutionalization Of Indian Private Law, Shyamkrishna Balganesh

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter examines the relationship between private law and constitutional law in India, with particular emphasis on tort law. It considers the Indian Supreme Court’s expansion of its fundamental rights jurisprudence over the past thirty years, as well as its effort to transcend the public law/private law divide. It also explains how the Court’s fusion of constitutional law and tort law has affected the independent efficacy, normativity, and analytical basis of equivalent private law claims in India. It argues that the Court’s efforts have only undermined the overall legitimacy of private law mechanisms in the country, and that this phenomenon …

Constitutional Amendment, Madhav Khosla

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter examines the formal method for constitutional amendment provided for in Article 368 of the Indian Constitution. It first reviews the early cases that gave rise to the Basic Structure doctrine, which placed substantive restrictions upon the power of amendment, before exploring subsequent developments and the application of the doctrine. It considers how Indian courts have addressed the idea of an unconstitutional constitutional amendment, with particular emphasis on the architectural framework that the courts have envisioned the Constitution to have. It explains how the Basic Structure doctrine has been used to understand the principles on which constitutionalism must depend.

Rule Originalism, Jamal Greene

Faculty Scholarship

Constitutional rules are norms whose application depends on an interpreter's identification of a set of facts rather than on her exercise of practical judgment. This Article argues that constitutional interpreters in the United States tend to resolve ambiguity over constitutional rules by reference to originalist sources and tend to resolve uncertainty over the scope of constitutional standards by reference to nonoriginalist sources. This positive claim unsettles the frequent assumption that the Constitution's more specifw or structural provisions support straightforward interpretive inferences. Normatively, this Article offers a partial defense of what it calls "rule originalism," grounded in the fact of its …

The Early Years Of First Amendment Lochnerism, Jeremy K. Kessler

Faculty Scholarship

From Citizens United to Hobby Lobby, civil libertarian challenges to the regulation of economic activity are increasingly prevalent. Critics of this trend invoke the specter of Lochner v. New York. They suggest that the First Amendment, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and other legislative "conscience clauses" are being used to resurrect the economically libertarian substantive due process jurisprudence of the early twentieth century. Yet the worry that aggressive judicial enforcement of the First Amendment might erode democratic regulation of the economy and enhance the economic power of private actors has a long history. As this Article demonstrates, anxieties …

The Meming Of Substantive Due Process, Jamal Greene

Faculty Scholarship

Substantive due process is notoriously regarded as a textual contradiction, but it is in fact redundant. The word "due" cannot be honored except by inquiring into the relationship between the nature and scope of the deprived interest and the process-whether judicial, administrative, or legislative-that attended the deprivation. The treatment of substantive due process as an oxymoron is what this Essay calls a constitutional meme, an idea that replicates through imitation within the constitutional culture rather than (necessarily) through logical persuasion. We might even call the idea a "precedent," in the nature of other legal propositions within a common law system. …

A Nonoriginalism For Originalists, Jamal Greene

Faculty Scholarship

Originalism is an ideology, not a practice. It is a brand, an affiliation, a set of background principles, an often unstated set of restorative commitments. As James Fleming says in his book, Fidelity to Our Imperfect Constitution, originalism is an "ism." As an "ism," Fleming writes, originalism did not exist before the 1970s: "Constitutional interpretation in light of original understanding did exist, but original understanding was seen as merely one source of constitutional decision-making among several-not as a general theory of constitutional interpretation, much less the exclusive legitimate theory."

This brief Comment on Fleming's book takes the practice Fleming identifies---"constitutional …

Constitutional Bad Faith, David E. Pozen

Faculty Scholarship

The concepts of good faith and bad faith play a central role in many areas of private law and international law. Typically associated with honesty, loyalty, and fair dealing, good faith is said to supply the fundamental principle of every legal system, if not the foundation of all law. With limited exceptions, however, good faith and bad faith go unmentioned in constitutional cases brought by or against government institutions. This doctrinal deficit is especially striking given that the U.S. Constitution twice refers to faithfulness and that insinuations of bad faith pervade constitutional discourse.

This Article investigates these points and their …

Auer As Administrative Common Law, Gillian E. Metzger

Faculty Scholarship

To some, Auer deference stands apart from the rest of administrative law. On the one hand, Auer is distinguished from other forms of deference as uniquely constitutionally problematic, because it grants agencies deference for their own interpretations of their own regulations. This, according to Justice Scalia (accepting an argument raised by his former law clerk, John Manning), violates “fundamental principles of separation of powers” by “permit[ing] the person who promulgates a law to interpret it as well.” On the other, Auer deference is also seen as uniquely at odds with the Administrative Procedure Act. Thus, Scalia criticized Auer not simply …