Constitutional Law Commons^™

Felon Re-Enfranchisement And The Problem Of “Lost” Rights, Josh Feinzig

Faculty Scholarship

By conditioning the restoration of political rights on financial repayment, states have prevented hundreds of thousands of citizens with felony convictions from participating politically—profoundly altering the shape of the American electorate. Courts have upheld the practice by treating restoration as an exercise of legislative grace to nonmembers of the political community. Critics argue that the practice conditions political participation on wealth status and is therefore subject to heightened review.

This Essay traces the disagreement back to an overlooked first-order question: how should the juridical status of a disenfranchised citizen’s “lost” rights be understood? The conventional position assumes that disenfranchisement casts …

The 'Impractical And Anomalous' Consequences Of Territorial Inequity, Jayanth K. Krishnan

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Located in the South Pacific Ocean, American Samoa is one of five populated “unincorporated territories” of the United States. It is unique, though, as those born there are not recognized as American citizens at birth and instead are deemed “noncitizen U.S. nationals.” They enjoy some, but not all, constitutional protections. Two federal appellate courts—the D.C. Circuit (in 2015) and the Tenth Circuit (in 2021)—have ruled that this classification does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause. Both courts have stated that it would be “impractical” and “anomalous” to extend birthright citizenship to the American Samoan community.

Drawing upon a powerful …

Intentional Discrimination And Haredi Jews, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Why Arkansas Act 710 Was Upheld, And Will Be Again, Mark Goldfeder

Scholarly Works

The recent Eighth Circuit ruling in Arkansas Times, LP v. Waldrip, a lawsuit revolving around an Arkansas state anti-discrimination bill, has been widely misreported and generally misunderstood. While the decision was actually very narrow, case-specific, and ripe for review, the misleading information presented to the public has led to speculation and fear that similar anti-discrimination legislation in dozens of other states might somehow be constitutionally deficient. This essay will clarify what actually happened in the Arkansas case, and explain why legislators and advocates around the country do not have to worry about this very limited opinion affecting the legality of …

"Second-Class" Rhetoric, Ideology, And Doctrinal Change, Eric M. Ruben, Joseph Blocher

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

A common refrain in current constitutional discourse is that lawmakers and judges are systematically disfavoring certain rights. This allegation has been made about the rights to free speech and free exercise of religion, but it is most prominent in debates about the right to keep and bear arms. Such “second-class” treatment, the argument goes, signals that the Supreme Court must intervene aggressively to police the disrespected rights. Past empirical work casts doubt on the descriptive claim that judges and policymakers are disrespecting the Second Amendment, but that simply highlights how little we know about how the second-class argument functions as …

Crisis Pregnancy Centers: An Inherently Unjust Limitation To Reproductive Rights, Rebecca Feinberg, Danielle Pacia

Scholarly Works

This paper’s purpose is two-fold. First, it presents an ethical analysis that details why the current practices of Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs) are unethical and violate women’s reproductive freedom. Second, it proposes policy solutions to mitigate inequities and disinformation caused by the practices of CPCs, in an attempt to protect the women who, fall prey to their services

The Supreme Court’S Hands-Off Approach To Religious Questions In The Era Of Covid-19 And Beyond, Samuel J. Levine

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Revitalizing Tribal Sovereignty In Treatymaking, David H. Moore, Michalyn Steele

Faculty Scholarship

In the current model of federal-Indian relations, the United States claims a plenary legislative power, as putative guardian, to regulate Indian tribes. Under this model, tribes are essentially wards in a state of pupilage. But the federal-tribal relationship was not always so. Originally, the federal government embraced, even promoted, a more robust model of tribal sovereignty in which federal-Indian treatymaking and diplomacy figured prominently. Through treaties, the United States and tribes negotiated territorial boundaries, forged alliances, facilitated trade, and otherwise managed their relations. In 1871, Congress attempted to put an end to federal-Indian treatymaking by purporting to strip tribes of …

Book Review: The Restatement And Beyond: The Past, Present, And Future Of U.S. Foreign Relations Law. Edited By Paul B. Stephan And Sarah H. Cleveland. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. Xi, 587., David H. Moore, Paul B. Stephan, Sarah H. Cleveland

Faculty Scholarship

This paper reviews The Restatement and Beyond: The Past, Present, and Future of U.S. Foreign Relations Law (Paul B. Stephan and Sarah H. Cleveland eds., OUP 2020).

Coase And Accommodation: A Reply, Frederick Mark Gedicks

Faculty Scholarship

Written for a Festschrift in honor of Michael Perry, this essay responds to the argument that the Coase theorem refutes the third-party harm doctrine, which holds that the Establishment Clause prohibits any religious accommodation imposing material burdens (“harms”) on those who derive no benefit from the accommodation because they do not engage in the exempted practice (“third parties”). In economic terms, the third-party harm doctrine prohibits negative externalities created by religious accommodations which shift material costs of practicing the accommodated religion to a relatively small number of third parties who practice a different religion or none at all.

Enter Coase, …

In The Name Of Diversity: Why Mandatory Diversity Statements Violate The First Amendment And Reduce Intellectual Diversity In Academia, Daniel M. Ortner

Catholic University Law Review

In the 1950s and 1960s in many parts of the country, a professor could be fired or never hired if he refused to denounce communism or declare loyalty to the United States Constitution. The University of California system took the lead in enforcing these loyalty oaths. These loyalty oaths were challenged all the way up to the United States Supreme Court and were soundly rejected, establishing the centrality of academic freedom and open inquiry on the university campus. So why are loyalty oaths making their resurgence in the form of mandatory diversity statements? Universities have begun requiring faculty members to …

Legal Introspection Towards The Development Of Right To Privacy As Fundamental Right In India, Payal Thaorey

Indonesia Law Review

Privacy of the individual is an essential aspect of dignity. The ability of the individual to protect a zone of privacy enables the realization of the full value of life and liberty. Liberty has a broader meaning of which privacy is a subset. All liberties may not be exercised in privacy. Yet others can be fulfilled only within a private space. Privacy enables the individual to retain the autonomy of the body and mind. The autonomy of the individual is the ability to make decisions on vital matters of concern to life. The journey of right to privacy has been …

Hukum Tata Negara Adat Minangkabau Dan Aceh Dalam Bingkai Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia, Raihan Hudiana

Jurnal Konstitusi & Demokrasi

As the state's fundamental law, the constitution is a legal document that regulates the general provisions of reference for making more specific laws and regulations. The birth of a constitution stems from the shared consensus of a nation that contains the distinctive values of its people, including those in Indonesia. Indonesia has various kingdoms with a long history in each region that is part of it, including Aceh and Minangkabau. The condition of the two regions with a long history of civilization has led to customary constitutional law based on prevailing values. The validity of customary law raises questions about …

Menyoal Pengawasan Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Terhadap Independensi Pembentukan Peraturan Komisi Pemilihan Umum, Teddy Handiar Yobel

Jurnal Konstitusi & Demokrasi

This paper talks about General Elections Commission independence concept within General Elections Commissions establishment as a part of People Representative Council supervision. The main goal is to search the right stance following the debate of General Elections Commission independence. After the answer emerges, the discovery from the research paper can become reference regarding the answer about General Elections Commissions debate in term of forming General Elections Commission regulations. Specifically, the big question that could be answered from this research is whether General Elections Commission independence disturbed with the consultation obligatory within General Elections Commission regulations establishment? By way of normative, …

Perkembangan Pengaturan Tindakan Afirmasi Perempuan Pada Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Republik Indonesia, Ishmah Naqiyyah

Jurnal Konstitusi & Demokrasi

This research discusses the development of affirmative action arrangements to increase women's representation in the DPR RI and how the implementation of these arrangements since the beginning of affirmative action was applied in 2004 until the last time affirmative action for the DPR was applied, namely in 2014. The research method used is normative juridical with a legal history approach. The discussion begins by analyzing affirmative action in the Political Party Law, the General Election Law for Members of the DPR, DPD, and DPRD, and the Law on the People's Consultative Assembly, the House of Representatives, the Regional Representatives Council, …

Compelled Unionism In The Private Sector After Janus: Why Unions Should Not Profit From Dissenting Employees, Giovanna Bonafede

Catholic University Law Review

This Note examines the impact of the 2018 landmark labor law case Janus v. AFSCME. Janus held it unconstitutional under the First Amendment to require public sector employees to pay fees to a union to which they are not a member. The Supreme Court based their decision on the idea that compelling public employees to subsidize union speech to which they disagreed violated their free speech rights. The author argues that the Court’s holding in Janus should be extended to protect the free speech rights of private sector employees through a finding of state action in the private unionized …

Foreword: The Free Speech Record Of The Roberts Court, William D. Araiza

Brooklyn Law Review

On April 9, 2021, scholars gathered at Brooklyn Law School to consider the free speech themes highlighted by a catalogue of the Roberts Court’s free speech jurisprudence. The speakers provided incisive and timely insight on these themes—insight that is reflected in the catalogue and accompanying papers published in this symposium issue of the Brooklyn Law Review. This introduction provides an overview of this symposium issue and the questions presented by each article and essay.

The Roberts Court—Its First Amendment Free Expression Jurisprudence: 2005­–2021, Ronald K.L. Collins, David L. Hudson Jr.

Brooklyn Law Review

The decisional law of the First Amendment is an area of law formulated, for the most part, by the high court of the land. At the same time, the study of free speech is equally a study in political philosophy and law. Supreme Court justices have left their mark on the First Amendment free speech doctrine and have made names for themselves in the process. This study explores the impact of Chief Justice John Roberts and the Roberts Court on the free speech doctrine. By examining the case law in this area and the justices and lawyers who craft it, …

The Law Of License Plates And Other Inevitabilities Of Free Speech Context Sensitivity, William D. Araiza

Brooklyn Law Review

This article, written for a symposium on Ronald Collins’s and Professor David Hudson’s catalogue of the Roberts Court’s First Amendment free speech jurisprudence, reconsiders the longstanding tension between rigid free speech rules and more contextual standards. It examines that debate by considering a set of relatively recent free speech cases in which the Court ostensibly adopted rigid rules, but in doing so arguably cloaked its reliance on more contextual factors by manipulating those rules. In cases dealing with national security and judicial electoral speech, the Court manipulated the strict scrutiny the Court insists applies to nearly every content-based speech restriction …

Introductory Remarks: The Roberts Court And The First Amendment: An Introduction, Geoffrey R. Stone

Brooklyn Law Review

On April 9, 2021, Geoffrey R. Stone delivered the following introductory remarks at The Roberts Court and Free Speech Symposium at Brooklyn Law School. An adaptation of Geoffrey R. Stone, Free Speech in the Twenty-First Century: Ten Lessons from the Twentieth Century Lead Article (2008), Dean Stone detailed the history of the pre-Roberts Court First Amendment jurisprudence and laid the foundation for the symposium’s scholarly discourse.

Free Speech Still Matters, Joel M. Gora

Brooklyn Law Review

In its first ten years, the Roberts Court proved to be the most speech protective Court in a generation, if not in our history; however, in the intervening five years, the Court has faced intense pressures, ranging from heightened criticism of its First Amendment jurisprudence to seismic changes in the makeup of the Court to very real proposals for court “packing.” Despite these powerful forces, the Roberts Court has surprisingly stayed true to its commitment to—and guardianship of—the First Amendment. Nevertheless, in the face of modern political correctness and cancel culture, free speech has rarely been in a more precarious …

The Anti-Free Speech Movement, Robert Corn-Revere

Brooklyn Law Review

What does it mean for the Supreme Court, under Chief Justice John Roberts, to be “good” when it comes to the First Amendment? First Amendment lawyer Robert Corn-Revere tackles this question, by looking at the history of censorship in the United States. Through a historical lens, Mr. Corn-Revere examines the arguments for regulating “bad” speech in order to promote “good” speech, and analogizes this approach to the work of early American censors like Anthony Comstock. This article examines how the history of censorship has shaped First Amendment law, and ultimately through his analysis, Mr. Corn-Revere identifies several examples of what …

Transition Administration, Michael Herz, Katherine A. Shaw

Articles

The period from November 3, 2020 to January 20, 2021, was unlike any presidential transition in our history. President Donald Trump refused to accept his ballot-box defeat, instead battling to overturn the election’s outcome. This dramatic public campaign was waged in state and federal courts, state legislatures, the offices of state and local election officials, the Department of Justice, and finally the halls of Congress, where on January 6, 2021, a mob incited by the President stormed the Capitol with the explicit goal of preventing the final counting of electoral votes for Joe Biden. These efforts had more mundane and …

Implikasi Pilihan Metode Konversi Suara Terhadap Proporsionalitas Perolehan Kursi Dalam Pemilihan Umum Anggota Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat, Bimo Fajar Hantoro

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

Choice of vote conversion method, as an element of the general election system, has implications for the degree of proportionality. The degree of proportionality in question is divided into two elements, namely between the percentage of seats acquired and the fairness to large and small parties. The author here is interested in measuring the degree of proportionality generated by each of the vote conversion methods. The author then performs a simulation to measure these two elements from two families of vote conversion methods, namely the Quota method and the Divisor method. The simulation results show that in terms of proportionality …

Transcript: The Roberts Court And Free Speech Symposium, Michael T. Cahill, Joel M. Gora, Geoffrey R. Stone, Ronald K.L. Collins, David L. Hudson Jr., Floyd Abrams, Ellis Cose, Robert Corn-Revere, Genevieve Lakier, William D. Araiza, Helen Norton, Nadine Strossen, Erwin Chemerinsky

Brooklyn Law Review

On April 9, 2021, the Brooklyn Law Review gathered a panel of First Amendment scholars for a symposium on the Roberts Court's free speech jurisprudence. This transcript captures the panelists' diverse perspectives on the free speech themes highlighted by the Roberts Court's free speech jurisprudence.

Broken Promesa: Why The United States Should Abandon Its Use Of The Territories Clause To Control The Local Affairs Of Puerto Rico, Julia R. Cummings

Brooklyn Law Review

Puerto Rico’s sovereignty status is an anomaly. Since the United States acquired the island in 1898, the federal government has treated Puerto Ricans differently compared to residents of its other acquired territories. The United States also exerts significant control over Puerto Rico’s local affairs, most recently through the enactment and enforcement of the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) in response to the current debt crisis in Puerto Rico. This note assesses the validity of the federal government’s use of the territories clause to control local Puerto Rican affairs, examining the complex history between the United States …

Evaluasi Kebijakan Peradilan Elektronik (E-Court) Mahkamah Agung Republik Indonesia, Abdul Rachmat Ariwijaya, Palupi Lindiasari Samputra

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

This study aims to evaluate the administrative policies and electronic trial (E-Court) of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Indonesia and the judicial bodies under it in achieving the principles of administering judicial power, namely: simple, fast, and low-cost justice. The research method uses a retrospective evaluation theory that directs the present results after implementing the E-Court policy. The data used consisted of secondary data (documents) and primary data through in-depth interviews from experts and E-Court policymakers. The results showed that the E-Court policy succeeded in clarifying the Supreme Court of the Republic of Indonesia's organization in realizing simple, …

Perkembangan Kedudukan Hukum (Legal Standing) Dalam Pengujian Administratif Di Pengadilan Tata Usaha Negara Dan Uji Materi Di Mahkamah Agung, Oce Madril, Jery Hasinanda

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

Legal standing is one of the most important aspect accordance citizen legal protection from government act which is general or concrete . In implementation at Indonesia, there are many changes in the legal standing rule. Nevertheless, this changes of rule is considered not to clarify related legal standing aspect that has impact to citizen who are having trouble for access to justice through Administratif Judicial at Administratif Court and Judicial Review at Supreme Court. Plus, the emergence of many judge decision from Administrative Court and Supreme Court Judge that sometimes expanding the meaning of legal standing, but sometimes restricting the …

Pergeseran Kompetensi Absolut Dari Peradilan Umum Ke Peradilan Tata Usaha Negara: Gugatan Perbuatan Melawan Hukum Oleh Penguasa (Onrechtmatige Overheidsdaad), Muhamad Raziv Barokah, Anna Erliyana

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

The absolute competency-shifting in adjudicating a lawsuits against the law by authorities from the general court to the state administration court suddenly based on Supreme Court Regulation No. 2/2019 raises 2 (two) issues regarding differences in the parameters of evaluating government actions in terms of civil law with state administration law and a significant reduction in the time period for filing a lawsuit from 30 (thirty) years to 90 (ninety) days. This research takes the form of a normative juridical approach to the rule of law. This study concludes there are differences in the parameters of the OOD Claims between …

Fourth Amendment Limits On Extensive Quarantine Surveillance, Benjamin Wolters

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

The devastation wreaked by the COVID-19 pandemic spurred innovations in technology and public policy. Many countries rushed to implement extensive quarantines, and some introduced disease surveillance, including location tracking to enforce quarantines. Though the United States has never implemented high-tech quarantine surveillance, such technology will certainly be available for the next disease outbreak.

Absent significant doctrinal change, the Fourth Amendment likely bars some, but not all, forms of quarantine surveillance. Quarantine surveillance probably constitutes a Fourth Amendment “search” that generally must be backed by probable cause. This probable cause requirement, and its subcomponent of individualized suspicion, likely applies differently to …