Constitutional Law Commons^™

Redeeming The Welshed Guarantee: A Scheme For Achieving Justiciability, Ethan J. Leib

Faculty Scholarship

In this article, I suggest that Congress re-pass its progressive legislation under the jurisdictional basis of its Guarantee Clause power. While arguments for justiciability continue to be made, a pragmatic way to achieve it has not been spelled out. Part II will lay out versions of republicanism I hope to see discussed in the context of the Guarantee Clause. Part III will explore republicanism's excessive attention on the courts, recommending the aforementioned approach of Jeremy Waldron. Part IV will briefly suggest how some of the legislation recently curtailed by the Supreme Court might be justified under a theory of legislative, …

A Balanced Diet Of First Amendment Cases, Joel Gora

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Federalism And The Rehnquist Court, Calvin R. Massey

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Foreword: The Legal History Of The Great Sit-In Case Of Bell V. Maryland, William L. Reynolds

Faculty Scholarship

Reviews the environment and history of the 1960 Baltimore sit-in case that eventually made its way to the United States Supreme Court.

Youngstown: Pages From The Book Of Disquietude, Philip Chase Bobbitt

Faculty Scholarship

The Youngstown holding is widely admired. One reads with pride those passages in which the Supreme Court denies to a president with whom they are in considerable political sympathy the power to enlarge executive authority by militarizing the homeland. And yet one wonders, as we confront in the 21st century a lethal foreign enemy who has demonstrated the ability to infiltrate and assault the domestic environment, precisely what restraints ought to govern a presidential response to that enemy.

Splitting The Atom Of Marshall's Wisdom, Susan Herman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Bush V. Gore As An Equal Protection Case, Richard Briffault

Faculty Scholarship

In Bush v. Gore, the United States Supreme Court applied the Equal Protection Clause to the mechanics of state election administration. The Court invalidated the manual recount of the so-called undervote – that is, ballots that vote-counting machinery had found contained no indication of a vote for President – which the Florida Supreme Court had ordered to determine the winner of Florida's vote for presidential electors in the 2000 presidential election. The United States Supreme Court reasoned that the principles it had previously articulated in applying the Equal Protection Clause to the vote were violated by the Florida court's …

Charter Insights For American Equality Jurisprudence, Stephen F. Ross

Faculty Scholarship

Although both the Canadian Charter and the United States Constitutions protect persons from denial of equal protection of the law, the interpretation of the broad language of the two equality guarantees has been quite different. The Supreme Court of Canada has adopted an approach of substantive equality, concluding that section 15 is designed to prevent the loss of human dignity that accompanies discrimination based on disadvantage and stereotype. At least with regard to race, a majority of the justices on the United States Supreme Court adhere to a jurisprudence of formal equality, concluding that the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit …

Constitutional Design: Proposals Versus Processes, Donald L. Horowitz

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Incomplete Compensation For Takings, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

If a tribunal determines that a state actor has expropriated foreign investment property, or, under Chapter 11 of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), that a state actor has adopted a regulation that is "tantamount to" an expropriation of foreign investment property, then that tribunal must determine the amount of compensation owed. International law has developed methods to determine the size of a compensation award when a state formally expropriates property. But the notion, reflected in Chapter 11 of NAFTA, that states may be required to pay compensation to foreign investors for what are, in effect, regulatory takings, is …

Separation And Interpretation, Philip A. Hamburger

Faculty Scholarship

Should the establishment clause be interpreted in terms of "separation between church and state"? If not, how should the establishment clause be interpreted?

At stake, first, is the character of religious freedom in the United States. In particular, will lingering separationist notions continue to affect the interpretation of the First Amendment? Notwithstanding the claims made on behalf of separation, there is reason to fear that it is not the religious freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment. Indeed, it will be seen that the interpretation of the First Amendment in terms of "separation of church and state" has tangibly diminished this …

Powers Inherent In Sovereignty: Indians, Aliens, Territories, And The Nineteenth Century Origins Of Plenary Power Over Foreign Affairs, Sarah H. Cleveland

Faculty Scholarship

Does the United States have powers inherent in sovereignty? At least since the 1819 decision in McCulloch v. Maryland, conventional wisdom has held that national government is one of limited, enumerated powers and exercises “only the powers granted to it” by the Constitution and those implied powers “necessary and proper” to the exercise of the delegated powers. All powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states and to the people. In the 1936 decision in United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., however, the Supreme Court asserted that federal authority over foreign relations operated independently …

Vouchers And Steering, Vincent A. Blasi

Faculty Scholarship

Does the Establishment Clause require that educational voucher programs not be designed in a manner that encourages parents to choose religious schools over secular alternatives? If there is such an "anti-steering" principle implicit in the First Amendment, how should courts elaborate and enforce it?

In this response, I will compare how Professors Lupu and Tuttle and the Court majority in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, the decision last June upholding the Cleveland voucher plan, answer these important questions. I will evaluate their analyses at three levels: (1) basic Establishment Clause values and priorities; (2) doctrinal standard for identifying impermissible favoritism toward …

Conceptualizing Constitutional Litigation As Anti-Government Expression: A Speech-Centered Theory Of Court Access, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

This Article proposes a speech-based right of court access. First, it finds the traditional due process approach to be analytically incoherent and of limited practical value. Second, it contends that history, constitutional structure, and theory all support conceiving of the right of access as the modern analogue to the right to petition government for redress. Third, the Article explores the ways in which the civil rights plaintiff's lawsuit tracks the behavior of the traditional dissident. Fourth, by way of a case study, the essay argues that recent restrictions - notably, a congressional limitation on the amount of fees counsel for …

Rendering Unto Caesar Or Electioneering For Caesar--Loss Of Church Tax Exemption For Participation In Electoral Politics, Alan L. Feld

Faculty Scholarship

The restriction on church participation in political campaigns contained in the Internal Revenue Code operates uneasily. It appears to serve the useful purpose of separating the spheres of religion and electoral politics. But the separation often is only apparent, as churches in practice signal support for a particular candidate in a variety of rays that historically have not cost them their exemptions. Although the limited enforcement by the Internal Revenue Service has reflected the sensitive nature of the First Amendment values present, the federal government should provide more formal elaboration by statute or regulation. Focus on the use of funds …

Privatization And Political Accountability, Jack M. Beermann

Faculty Scholarship

This article is an attempt to draw some general connections between privatization and political accountability. Political accountability is to be understood as the amenability of a government policy or activity to monitoring through the political process. Although the main focus of the article is to examine different types of privatization, specifically exploring the ramifications for political accountability of each type, I also engage in some speculation as to whether there are there situations in which privatization might raise constitutional concerns related to the degree to which the particular privatization reduces political accountability for the actions or decisions of the newly …

Controlling Precedent: Congressional Regulation Of Judicial Decision-Making, Gary S. Lawson

Faculty Scholarship

Modern federal courts scholars have been fascinated by the question of Congress' power to control the jurisdiction of the federal courts.' This fascination is not difficult to explain: the question is theoretically profound and raises fundamental issues about the roles of Congress and the federal courts in the constitutional order.2 As a practical matter, however, the question has proven to be of limited significance. Despite a recent spate of legislation restricting access to courts by prisoners and immigrants,3 people talk about wholesale jurisdiction-stripping far more than they actually do it.

The Natural Rights-Based Justification For Judicial Review, James E. Fleming

Faculty Scholarship

On this panel, we are to consider questions such as "What form should constitutional interpretation by courts take in light of our aspirations to a good society?" For example, should courts engage in "moral readings" of the Constitution by elaborating abstract moral principles of liberty and equality or by making moral arguments about fostering human goods or virtues? In his paper, Justifying the Natural Law Theory of Constitutional Interpretation, Professor Michael Moore defends a sophisticated and powerful version of a moral realist or natural law answer to these questions.2 He confesses that, despite numerous criticisms, his views on the desirability …

Fidelity To Natural Law And Natural Rights In Constitutional Interpretation, James E. Fleming

Faculty Scholarship

It is an honor and a pleasure to comment on Professor Robert P. George's elegant and provocative paper.' For one thing, he is a leading proponent of reviving the natural law tradition in political, legal, and constitutional theory.2 For another, he was a reader of my Ph.D. dissertation in constitutional theory at Princeton University over a decade ago. I am happy to have the chance to reciprocate by reading a work of his and providing a critique of it. Fortunately, I learned at Princeton that vigorous criticism and disagreement are fully compatible with friendship and respect.

Taking Democracy Seriously, Neil B. Cohen

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Beyond Counting Votes: The Political Economy Of Bush V. Gore, Michael Abramowicz, Maxwell L. Stearns

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Thick And Thin: Interdisciplinary Conversations On Populism, Law, Political Science, And Constitutional Change, Mark A. Graber

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Social Democracy And Constitutional Theory: An Institutional Perspective, Mark A. Graber

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Commercial Activity Exception Under The Fsia, Personhood Under The Fifth Amendment And Jurisdiction Over Foreign States: A Partial Roadmap For The Supreme Court In The New Millennium, Stephen J. Leacock

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Challenges To Racial Redistricting In The New Millennium: Hunt V. Cromartie As A Case Study, Guy-Uriel Charles, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Institutionalizing Constitutional Interpretation, Jack Knight

Faculty Scholarship

When a constituent assembly or other constitution-making body convenes in order to draft a constitution, the members of that assembly face a complex task. Their main goal is to agree on a constitution that will serve as the basis for a government for the present and, presumably, future generations. The constitution must establish a framework for the administration of government as well as enumerate the principles that will govern the relationship between the government and the citizenry. This is essentially a process of creating political institutions that will structure the behavior of the members of that society, a set of …

When Can A State Be Sued?, William W. Van Alstyne

Faculty Scholarship

In her Popular Government article "When You Can't Sue the State: State Sovereign Immunity" (Summer 2000), Anita R. Brown-Graham described a series of recent decisions in which a sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court barred individuals from suing states for money damages for certain violations of federal law, such as laws prohibiting discrimination against employees because of their age. In the response that follows, William Van Alstyne argues that this barrier to relief is neither unduly imposing nor novel. The debate over the significance of these decisions is likely to continue. In February 2001, in another case decided by a five-to-four …

Comparing Judicial Selection Systems, Lee Epstein, Jack Knight, Olga Shvetsova

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Piercing The Veil: William J. Brennan's Account Of Regents Of The University Of California V. Bakke, Lee Epstein, Jack Knight

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court As A Strategic National Policymaker, Lee Epstein, Jack Knight, Andrew D. Martin

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.