Constitutional Law Commons^™

The Founding Fathers Said I Am Not Subject To Term Limits, Elias Arroyo

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

When The Police Get The Law Wrong: How Heien V. North Carolina Further Erodes The Fourth Amendment, Vivan M. Rivera

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

Political Dysfunction And The Election Of Donald Trump: Problems Of The U.S. Constitution's Presidency, David Orentlicher

Scholarly Works

In this article, Professor Orentlicher examines the Constitution's design for the executive branch. He argues that by opting for a single executive rather than a multi-person executive, the Constitution causes two serious problems-it fuels the high levels of partisan polarization that we see today, and it increases the likelihood of misguided presidential decision making. Drawing on the experience in other countries with executive power shared by multiple officials, he proposes a bipartisan executive.

Scalia On Abortion: Originalism... But, Why?, Robert Cassidy

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Original Understanding Of "Property" In The Constitution, Paul J. Larkin Jr.

Marquette Law Review

Contemporary Supreme Court jurisprudence treats “property” as far less deserving of judicial protection than “life” or “liberty.” The Supreme Court, however, has misread American legal history. Anglo-American traditions, customs, and law held that property was an essential ingredient of the liberty that the Colonists had come to enjoy and must be protected against arbitrary governmental interference. The Framers’ generation believed that “property” and “liberty” were equally important institutions and that neither one could exist without the other. The Framers venerated property as a means of guaranteeing personal independence because (among other things) the concept of “property” embraced the legal rights …

November Madness: A Proposal For Representative Democracy Brackets To Eliminate The Undue Influence Of Money On Elections, Daniel P. Valentine

Texas A&M Law Review

This Comment proposes Representative Democracy Brackets, a multi-level manner of choosing candidates in which all voters have an equal voice, but which by its structure reduces the effect of mass marketing in favor of a focus on forming and evaluating interpersonal relationships. By implementing Representative Democracy Brackets, a state or the United States can achieve the twin benefits of decreasing the undue effects of political spending and increasing the quality of the resulting decisions. The proposed brackets winnow the pool of voters until it is small enough to make an informed decision.

This Comment defines the problem by reviewing the …

Taking Constitutional Identities Away From The Courts, Pietro Faraguna

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

In federal states, constitutional identity is the glue that holds together the Union. On the contrary, in the European Union—not a fully-fledged federation yet—each Member state has its own constitutional identity. On the one hand, the Union may benefit from the particular knowledge, innovation, history, diversity, and culture of its individual states. On the other hand, identity-related claims may have a disintegrating effect. Constitutional diversity needs to come to terms with risks of disintegration. The Treaty on the European Union seeks a balance, providing the obligation to respect the constitutional identities of its Member states. Drawing from the European experience, …

Australians' "Right" To Be Bigoted: Protecting Minorities' Rights From The Tyranny Of The Majority, Jillian Rudge

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) is a federal statute prohibiting behavior that offends, insults, humiliates, or intimidates people based on their race, nationality, ethnicity, or immigration status. It appropriately limits the right to freedom of expression where the exercise of that right encroaches on other, equally fundamental rights to equality and freedom from discrimination. The RDA is one of Australia’s few human rights laws focused on fighting racism. It is especially important for protecting the rights of minorities since Australia lacks a constitutional or federal bill of rights. Unfortunately, in 2014 and 2015, conservative politicians called for a repulsion of …

Can Prosecutors Be Both Coach And Referee?, Rebecca Roiphe

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Why Enumeration Matters, Richard A. Primus

Michigan Law Review

The maxim that the federal government is a government of enumerated powers can be understood as a “continuity tender”: not a principle with practical consequences for governance, but a ritual statement with which practitioners identify themselves with a history from which they descend. This interpretation makes sense of the longstanding paradox whereby courts recite the enumeration principle but give it virtually no practical effect. On this understanding, the enumerated-powers maxim is analogous to the clause that Parliament still uses to open enacted statutes: “Be it enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty.” That text might imply that the Queen is …

Congress And The Reconstruction Of Foreign Affairs Federalism, Ryan Baasch, Saikrishna Bangalore Prakash

Michigan Law Review

Though the Constitution conspicuously bars some state involvement in foreign affairs, the states clearly retain some authority in foreign affairs. Correctly supposing that state participation may unnecessarily complicate or embarrass our nation’s foreign relations, the Supreme Court has embraced aggressive preemption doctrines that sporadically oust the states from discrete areas in foreign affairs. These doctrines are unprincipled, supply little guidance, and generate capricious results. Fortunately, there is a better way. While the Constitution permits the states a limited and continuing role, it never goes so far as guaranteeing them any foreign affairs authority. Furthermore, the Constitution authorizes Congress to enact …

Politics At Work After Citizens United, Ruben J. Garcia

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

There are seismic changes going on in the political system. The United States Supreme Court has constitutionalized the concentration of political power in the “one percent” in several recent decisions, including Citizens United v. FEC. At the same time, unions are representing a shrinking share of the workforce, and their political power is also being diminished. In order for unions to recalibrate the balance of political power at all, they must collaborate with grassroots community groups, as they have done in several recent campaigns. There are, however, various legal structures that make coordination between unions and nonunion groups difficult, …

The Death Knell For The Death Penalty: Judge Carney's Order To Kill Capital Punishment Rings Loud Enough To Reach The Supreme Court, Alyssa Hughes

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Tradition At War With Itself: A Reply To Professor Rana's Review Of America's Forgotten Constitutions: Defiant Visions Of Power And Community, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

his essay responds to Professor Aziz Rana's review essay, "The Many American Constitutions," 93 Texas Law Review 1193 (2015).

He contends: (1) my portrayal of American constitutionalism might contain a “hidden” teleological understanding of the development of constitutional law; (2) my notion of "conventional sovereignty" sometimes seems content-free and at other times "interlinked with liberal egalitarianism"; and (3) a focus on failed constitutions "inadvertently tends to compartmentalize the overall tradition."

I answer in the following ways: (1) I reject any sense that constitutional law has moved in an arc of steady progress toward Enlightenment and instead embrace a tradition of …

Prayer And The Meaning Of The Establishment Clause: A Debate On Town Of Greece V. Galloway, Patrick M. Garry

ConLawNOW

Greece v. Galloway involved the constitutionality of the town of Greece’s practice of opening its monthly town board meetings with an invocation given by a volunteer chaplain of the month. The issue in Greece was not the appropriateness, sensitivity, or wisdom of the prayers, nor whether some people are offended by the prayers.

The Establishment Clause is not about feelings, just as the Speech Clause is not about the feelings of people who disagree with or are offended by other people’s speech. The Establishment Clause is not an individual rights clause; it is a clause focused on the institutional liberty …

Who Amended The Amendment?, John Olsson

ConLawNOW

The purpose and intent of the Sixth Amendment of the US Constitution has been repeatedly distorted by textualist misinterpretation, orchestrated by elements of the judiciary more concerned with preserving the power of government than the rights of individual defendants. As a result, it is hard to know what the Amendment stands for, since it has been successively re‑interpreted and, effectively, amended for at least the past 80 years and possibly longer. The author argues that it is time for courts to return to the spirit of the laws that actuated the Bill of Rights over two hundred years ago, and …

The Founders On: "Does The Constitution Work?", Craig A. Stern

ConLawNOW

Whether the Constitution works depends upon the purpose of its working. Discerning that purpose, however, has resisted consensus. Consequently, this article suggests a roundabout way to supply at least a tentative answer to the question whether the Constitution works. The Founders believed that the Constitution, like any republican form of government, would work only for a moral and religious people. They framed and adopted the Constitution in that belief. John Adams warned that without morality and religion, the passions of the people “would break the strongest cords of our Constitution.” A glance at how some cords have fared with a …

Constitutionalizing Fetal Rights: A Salutary Tale From Ireland, Fiona De Londras

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

In 1983, Ireland became the first country in the world to constitutionalize fetal rights. The 8th Amendment to the Constitution, passed by a referendum of the People, resulted in constitutional protection for “the right to life of the unborn,” which was deemed “equal” to the right to life of the “mother.” Since then, enshrining fetal rights in constitutions and in legislation has emerged as a key part of anti-abortion campaigning. This Article traces the constitutionalization of fetal rights in Ireland and its implications for law, politics, and women. In so doing, it provides a salutary tale of such an approach. …

Tone Deaf To The Past: More Qualms About Public Meaning Originalism, Jack Rakove

Fordham Law Review

    With some apologies for a vast degree of oversimplification, let us stipulate that there are two main forms of originalism. One is known as “semantic” or “public meaning” originalism. Its leading advocates include Lawrence Solum, Keith Whittington, and Randy Barnett (professional friends, all). The leading premise of semantic originalism is that the meaning of the constitutional text—or, more specifically, of its individual clauses—was fixed at the moment of its adoption. Under this view, the goal of constitutional interpretation is to recover that original meaning, and the best way to do that pivots on reconstructing how an informed reader, whether a …

Historians And The New Originalism: Contextualism, Historicism, And Constitutional Meaning, Martin S. Flaherty

Fordham Law Review

    Toward that end, this Foreword addresses three matters. First, it considers why the use of history in constitutional interpretation is inescapable. Next, it suggests that the Essays in this forum do not go far enough in debunking the idea of “public meaning” originalism as a serious alternative to previous approaches. Finally, the balance of this Foreword reviews the also perhaps inescapable misuses of history that constitutional interpretation invites and considers the type of misuse that public meaning originalism represents.

“To Assemble Together For Their Common Good”: History, Ethnography, And The Original Meanings Of The Rights Of Assembly And Speech, Saul Cornell

Fordham Law Review

    The Whiskey Rebellion is not generally a major focus in constitutional histories or casebooks. Given this fact, it is hardly surprising that the 1795 case Respublica v. Montgomery seldom figures as more than a minor footnote in scholarly writing about early American constitutional development, if it receives any attention at all. The case has little precedential value for modern First Amendment doctrine and only obliquely implicates larger jurisprudential questions about the rights of assembly and freedom of expression. In strictly doctrinal terms, Montgomery is primarily about the obligation of a justice of the peace to put down a riot, not …

Historicism And Holism: Failures Of Originalist Translation, Jonathan Gienapp

Fordham Law Review

    For as long as the U.S. Constitution has existed, Americans have appealed to the history of its creation to interpret its meaning. But only since the advent of originalism—the well-known constitutional theory that requires interpreting the Constitution today in accordance with its original meaning—has historical study been so immediately implicated by constitutional interpretation. Despite potential, though, for meaningful exchange between originalists and historians, little has taken place. That originalism plays an ever-growing role in contemporary political culture only makes the lack of dialogue all the more unfortunate.

Outsourcing The Law: History And The Disciplinary Limits Of Constitutional Reasoning, Helen Irving

Fordham Law Review

    Debates about the use of history in constitutional interpretation find their primary nourishment in the originalism debate. This has generated a vast amount of literature, but also narrowed the terms of the debate. Originalism is a normative commitment wrapped in a questionable methodological confidence. Regardless of the multiple forms originalism takes, originalists are confident that the meaning (in the sense of intention) that animated the framing of the Constitution can be ascertained and, indeed, that they can ascertain it. The debate has largely focused, then, on whether modern-day scholars and jurists can ascertain original historical meaning or, alternatively, whether they …

Fundamental Unenumerated Rights Under The Ninth Amendment And The Privileges Or Immunities Clause, Adam Lamparello

Akron Law Review

The failure to link the Ninth Amendment and Privileges or Immunities Clause for the purpose of creating unenumerated fundamental rights has been a persistent but rarely discussed aspect of the Court’s jurisprudence. That should change. There need not be an ongoing tension between the Court’s counter-majoritarian role and the authority of states to govern through the democratic process. If the Constitution’s text gives the Court a solid foundation upon which to recognize new rights and thereby create a more just society, then the exercise of that power is fundamentally democratic. The Ninth Amendment and Privileges or Immunities Clause provides that …

Liberty At The Borders Of Private Law, Donald J. Smythe

Akron Law Review

Liberty is both dependent upon and limited by the State. The State protects individuals from the coercion of others, but paradoxically, it must exercise coercion itself in doing so. Unfortunately, the reliance on the State to deter coercion raises the possibility that the State’s powers of coercion might be abused. There is, not surprisingly, therefore, a wide range of literature on the relationship between law and liberty, but most of it focuses on the relationship between public law and liberty. This Article focuses on the relationship between private law and liberty. Private laws are enforced by courts. Since the judiciary …

"A Republic If You Can Keep It", Eric Lane

Constitution Day Lectures

On this day, over 200 years ago, thirty-nine brave delegates of the Constitutional Convention met for the last time to sign the document they had created, the U.S. Constitution.

This year, Eric Lane, Dean of the Maurice A. Deane School of Law and the Eric J. Schmertz Distinguished Professor of Public Law and Public Service at Hofstra University, gave a presentation, “A Republic If You Can Keep It.” The event was held in the Leo A. Guthart Cultural Center Theater, 1st Floor Axinn Library.

Taking Care Of Federal Law, Leah Litman

Articles

Article II of the Constitution vests the “executive power” in the President and directs the President to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” But do these provisions mean that only the President may execute federal law? Two lines of Supreme Court precedent suggest conflicting answers to that question. In several prominent separation-of-powers cases, the Court has suggested that only the President may execute federal law: “The Constitution requires that a President chosen by the entire Nation oversee the execution of the laws.” Therefore, the Court has reasoned, Congress may not create private rights of action that allow nonexecutive …

Book Review: Nothing To Lose But Our Chains: On Constitutional Disobedience, By Louis Michael Seidman, Carissima Mathen

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Book review of Nothing To Lose But Our Chains: On Constitutional Disobedience, by Louis Michael Seidman.

Federalism As A Constitutional Principle, Ernest Young

University of Cincinnati Law Review

Justice O’Connor rightly called federalism “our oldest question of constitutional law.”1 But the constitutional balance between the nation and the states is hardly what the cool kids are talking about these days. My first-year con law students show up each Fall expecting to learn about same-sex marriage, flag burning, and abortion; they’re plainly disappointed when they pick up the syllabus and see how much of the course is going to be about government structure.

The first part of my talk resists that intuition. The notion that federalism is passé is so tragically wrongheaded that I can’t bear to leave it …

The Interdependence Of Our Freedoms, Warren E. Burger

Akron Law Review

IF I WERE TO GIVE A TITLE to what I want to say tonight, in this Bicentennial program, I think I would call it "The Interdependence of our Freedoms" and, in a sense, that is simply a more formal way of saying what the leaders of our revolution told each other, and the people, 200 years ago: we must hang together, or we will hang separately