Constitutional Law Commons^™

Why You Should Read My Book Anyhow: A Reply To Trevor Morrison, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Authors rarely have the opportunity to respond to their reviewers in the same issue in which the review is published, so I am grateful to the Cornell Law Review for inviting me to do so and to Trevor Morrison for graciously agreeing. I am also appreciative of the respectful tone that Professor Morrison employs in his comments on a book with which he so obviously disagrees. Coming from a critic, the positive qualities he attributes to Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty are especially significant. Yet he does disagree with me, which means that I disagree with him, …

In Defense Of The Debt Limit Statute, Anita S. Krishnakumar

Faculty Publications

The debt limit statute is a critical feature of the federal budget process and prompts frequent legislation to increase the government's borrowing authority. In this Article, Professor Anita S. Krishnakumar examines the history of the debt limit statute as well as its function in the fiscal constitution. The Article deconstructs several popular criticisms of the debt limit statute, arguing that the criticisms exaggerate and that the statute in fact serves two important roles: first, the statute is the last remnant of congressional control and accountability over the national debt; second, it acts as an important institutional check on party and …

Spiritual Custody: Relational Rights And Constitutional Commitments, Jeffrey Shulman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Patricia and David Zummo were married on December 17, 1978. When they divorced ten years later, the Zummos were unable to come to agreement about the religious upbringing of their three children. Prior to their marriage, Patricia and David had agreed that they would raise their children in the Jewish faith, and while they were married, "the Zummo family participated fully in the life of the Jewish faith and community." But after the divorce David wanted to take the children to Roman Catholic services as he saw fit, and he refused to arrange for the children's attendance at Hebrew School …

In Search Of A Theory For Constitutional Comparativism, Roger P. Alford

Journal Articles

Constitutional comparativism - the notion that international and foreign material should be used to interpret the U.S. Constitution - is gaining currency. Yet proponents of this practice rarely offer a firm theoretical justification for the practice. This Article contends that constitutional comparativism should be examined from the perspective of constitutional theory. The use of comparative and international material must be deemed appropriate or inappropriate based on a particular judge's interpretive mode of constitutional analysis. The Article presents four classic constitutional theories - originalism, natural law, majoritarianism, and pragmatism - and addresses the propriety of constitutional comparativism under each theory. This …

Constitutional Conversations And New Religious Movements: A Comparative Case Study, Leigh H. Greenhaw, Michael H. Koby

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Using the metaphor of a constitutional conversation to compare the treatment of a relatively new and unpopular religion by the legal systems of the United States, Russia, and Spain, this Article examines the methodology by which laws affecting religion are made and enforced. It uses as a case study the interaction of the Jehovah's Witnesses with the legal system of the United States, comparing it with more recent interactions in Russia and Spain. The Authors argue that while the experience in the United States was profoundly influenced by a common-law methodology, the experience in two civil-law countries, Russia and Spain, …

Waging War: Japan's Constitutional Constraints, John O. Haley

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Both electoral results and public opinion polls have long revealed what most observers have viewed as a paradox if not a contradiction. By significant majorities, the Japanese people appear to oppose any revision of article 9, but support the SDF and their deployment with legislative sanction. The seemingly antithetical aspects of these views can be reconciled if one accepts the proposition that the public is willing to allow an armed force but only within parameters that are still ill-defined. So long as article 9 remains, the government is constrained by the need for legislative approval and at least potential judicial …

The Statutory President, Kevin M. Stack

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

American public law has no answer to the question of how a court should evaluate the president's assertion of statutory authority. In this Article, I develop an answer by making two arguments. First, the same framework of judicial review should apply to claims of statutory authority made by the president and federal administrative agencies. This argument rejects the position that the president's constitutional powers should shape the question of statutory interpretation presented when the president claims that a statute authorizes his actions. Once statutory review is separated from consideration of the president's constitutional powers, the courts should insist, as they …

Originalism, Stare Decisis And The Promotion Of Judicial Restraint, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

If we consider constitutional law as a practice, it is clear that both originalism and precedent play an important role. Neither one is going to vanquish the other, at least not any time soon. We can engage in academic debate about originalism versus stare decisis, as if they were rival modes of interpretation that could operate to the exclusion of the other. But the question of practical importance is one of degree and emphasis: in cases where these two sources of authority arguably point in different directions, which one should have a greater claim to our allegiance?

Originalism – interpreting …

The First Amendment's Original Sin, Lee C. Bollinger

Faculty Scholarship

Times of war place considerable stress on civil liberties, especially ones protected by the First Amendment. When the nation must gather itself to fight an enemy who is intent on killing us, it is perhaps only natural that our tolerance for the usual disorder of dissent will decline. When everyone has to sacrifice for the common good, when fellow citizens are dying in that cause, the costs of speech are visible and serious. Dissent may dissuade or discourage soldiers from fighting; sowing doubt may weaken resolve just when it's needed most; falsehoods and misinformation may lead to catastrophic shifts of …

"The House Was Quiet And The World Was Calm The Reader Became The Book", Burt Neuborne

Vanderbilt Law Review

Professor Neuborne argues that we err in reading the Bill of Rights "in splendid isolation" as a randomly ordered set of clause-bound norms. Instead, he argues that the disciplined order and placement of the thirty-three ideas in the Bill of Rights, especially the six textual ideas united in the First Amendment, reveals a deep contextual structure imposed by the Founders that sheds important light on the meaning of the constitutional text. He argues that the "vertical" order of the first ten amendments, as well as the "horizontal" order of ideas within each amendment, provides important clues to a judge seeking …

Questioning Deference, Christina E. Wells

Faculty Publications

This article examines the accepted axiom that courts should defer to the government's actions during national security crises even when such actions potentially violate citizens' constitutional rights. The paper questions two assumptions underlying that axiom - first, that executive officials are best equipped to determine when security needs justify liberty infringements and, second, that judges are particularly unqualified to meddle in security issues, even when civil liberties are involved. Relying on psychological theories regarding the role that fear plays in skewing risk assessment and historical analyses of past crises, the paper argues that times of crisis lend themselves to unnecessary …

Structuring Sentencing: Apprendi, The Offense Of Conviction, And The Limited Role Of Constitutional Law, Benjamin J. Priester

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Cross Burning, Hate Speech, And Free Speech In America, Edward J. Eberle

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Mental Disorder And The Civil/Criminal Distinction, Grant H. Morris

San Diego Law Review

This essay, written as part of a symposium issue to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the University of San Diego Law School, discusses the evaporating distinction between sentence-serving convicts and mentally disordered nonconvicts who are involved in, or who were involved in, the criminal process–people we label as both bad and mad. By examining one Supreme Court case from each of the decades that follow the opening of the University of San Diego School of Law, the essay demonstrates how the promise that nonconvict mentally disordered persons would be treated equally with other civilly committed mental patients was made and …

Recovering (From) Enlightenment?, Steven D. Smith

San Diego Law Review

The American Constitution at its founding is often associated with "the Enlightenment," and modern liberal constitutionalism continues to be associated with what Bruce Ackerman refers to as "the spirit of the Enlightenment." This article contrasts the essential features of the classical or historical Enlightenment with those of the modern Enlightenment, as reflected in the thinking of theorists like Rawls, Dworkin, and others and as embodied in a good deal of modern constitutional doctrine. The article argues that the modern Enlightenment is more accurately viewed as an inversion than a continuation of the classical Enlightenment. Moreover, this inversion threatens to undermine …

Constitutional Law—Separation Of Powers—Restoring The Constitutional Formula To The Federal Judicial Appointment Process: Taking The Vice Out Of "Advice And Consent", Jason Eric Sharp

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Purposivism In The Delegation Of Rulemaking Authority To The Courts, Michael Rosensaft

ExpressO

The courts are often used by Congress as a “political lightning rod,” when Congress cannot decide how to resolve an issue. Congress relies on administrative agencies for their expertise, and it also makes sense for Congress to delegate some rulemaking authority to the courts, relying on a court’s expertise in developing caselaw in an incremental basis. However, this authority should not be lightly implied. A court can tell that Congress has delegated rulemaking authority to it when the purpose of the statute is clear and the text is broadly worded. It thus makes sense in these cases that purposivism should …

Free Exercise Of Religion In Germany And The United States, Edward J. Eberle

Law Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, Professor Edward Eberle provides a comparative overview of constitutional safeguards affecting religious freedom in Germany and the United States. Specifically the author analyzes the German and American approaches to the free exercise of religion within their respective constitutional systems. The result is an illuminating exposition that provides much insight for comparative and constitutional scholars.

In the years following the Second World War, religious freedoms in Germany developed along similar, individualist paths to those found in the United States Constitution. However, unlike the Constitution, the Basic Law's provisions touching on religious liberty are detailed and quite elaborate and …

Symbolic Counter-Speech, Howard M. Wasserman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The New Post 9/11 America Or The Making Of King George: A Review Of Executive Power In The Effort To Combat Global Terrorism As It Relates To The Power Of The Purse, Woodrow E. Turner

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Proportionality Between Crimes, Offenses, And Punishments, James Headley

St. Thomas Law Review

Blackstone said of the Roman Empire, after it embraced unjust laws, "and then the Empire Fell. The United States Supreme Court embraces unjust laws and is inconsistent regarding substantive due process and proportionality in criminal cases, and substantive due process and proportionality in civil cases. The Due Process Clause and the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment require proportionality and fairness, meaning that the punishment must fit the crime, and that the penalty must be appropriate to the offense. Throughout a long history of jurisprudence, the Supreme Court has developed or embraced two varying theories of due process …

The Anti-Emergency Constitution, Laurence H. Tribe, Patrick O. Gudridge

Articles

No abstract provided.

Foreword: The Ohio Constitution On The Occasion Of Its Bicentennial, Kevin F. O'Neill

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This symposium issue of the Cleveland State Law Review publishes the papers that were presented at a conference marking the bicentennial of the Ohio Constitution. That conference, held here at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in April 2003, examined the history and assessed the vitality of our state constitution. The conference was conceived and its planning was supervised by our Dean, Steven H. Steinglass, who has devoted significant scholarly attention to the Ohio Constitution. In light of my own endeavors in state constitutional law, both as a lawyer and as a scholar, I gladly assisted Dean Steinglass in organizing the conference. …

The Proper Scope Of The Police Power, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this Article, I will contend that the Constitution is not really silent at all on the proper scope of state powers; that the original meaning of what the Constitution says requires that state powers over their citizens have fairly easy to identify limits - though as with most constitutional provisions, applying these limits to particular cases requires judgment and is not a matter of strict deductive logic. This account will require me to briefly review the method of interpretation I advocate - original meaning originalism-and its limits. These limits require that interpretation of original meaning be implemented by means …

Fire, Metaphor, And Constitutional Myth-Making, Robert Tsai

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

From the standpoint of traditional legal thought, metaphor is at best a dash of poetry adorning lawyerly analysis, and at worst an unjustifiable distraction from what is actually at stake in a legal contest. By contrast, in the eyes of those who view law as a close relative of ordinary language, metaphor is a basic building block of human understanding. This article accepts that metaphor helps us to comprehend a court's decision. At the same time, it argues that metaphor plays a special role in the realm of constitutional discourse. Metaphor in constitutional law not only reinforces doctrinal categories, but …

Sunsetting Judicial Opinions, Neal K. Katyal

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Contemporary constitutional law, in its quest for judicial restraint, has primarily focused on "the how" of judging - what interpretive methods will constrain the decisionmaker? This Article, by contrast, focuses on the "when"- if there are reasons to think that today's judicial decisions might later prove to be problematic, then are there methods that alter the timing of those decisions' impact to produce better outcomes? This Article outlines one new method for judicial decisionmaking in the post-9/11 world. Informed by pervasive legislative practices, I contend that the Supreme Court should prospectively declare that some of its national security opinions will …

The Secret Life Of The Political Question Doctrine, Louis Michael Seidman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

"Questions, in their nature political, or which are, by the constitution and laws, submitted to the executive, can never be made in this court."

The irony, of course, is that Marbury v. Madison, itself, "made" a political question, and the answer the Court gave was deeply political as well. As everyone reading this essay knows, the case arose out of a bitter political controversy, and the opinion for the Court was a carefully crafted political document - "a masterwork of indirection," according to Robert McCloskey's well-known characterization, "a brilliant example of Chief Justice Marshall's capacity to sidestep danger while seeming …

Out Of Bounds, Louis Michael Seidman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Lawrence v. Texas creates a crisis for inclusive constitutionalism. Too often, advocates of inclusion and tolerance wish to include only those ideas and groups with which they agree. The test for true inclusion and tolerance, however, is whether we are willing to protect groups when they engage in conduct of which we disapprove. It follows that the boundaries of inclusion cannot be established simply by moral argument; yet, any plausible version of constitutional law must use some method to bound the people and activity that it protects. Defenders of inclusive constitutionalism have not been successful in identifying a method, independent …

Article Iii And The Cause Of Action, Anthony J. Bellia Jr.

Journal Articles

This Article undertakes a systematic exploration of the concept of the "cause of action" as it is used by courts and scholars in making arguments about the scope of the federal judicial power. The concept of the cause of action figures prominently in debates about such fundamental questions as what kinds of cases Congress may empower federal courts to adjudicate (jurisdiction), who may initiate a case in federal court (standing), and when a federal court may afford a plaintiff a private remedy for the violation of a federal regulatory scheme (implied rights of action). Federal courts have answered these questions, …

Fun With Dick And Jane And Lawrence: A Primer On Education Privacy As Constitutional Liberty, Susan P. Stuart

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.