Legal History Commons^™

Normative History And Congress's Enforcement Power Under The Reconstruction Amendments, Edward Cantu

Faculty Works

As an originalist matter, what degree of logistical power did the Framers of the Reconstruction Amendments want Congress to have in actualizing the substantive guarantees of those amendments? In the 1990s the Court, seeking to revive its federalism vigilance, answered: "relatively limited power." Scholars pounced, and it quickly became "settled" in the scholarly literature that the Court had misread the historical record regarding the Framers' intent. Despite the scholarly reactions, the Roberts Court has carried the Rehnquist Court's torch on this interpretative matter. As such, strident accusations of conservative judicial activism toward the Roberts Court have paralleled the charges leveled …