Constitutional Law Commons^™

Historical Gloss, Constitutional Convention, And The Judicial Separation Of Powers, Curtis A. Bradley, Neil S. Siegel

Faculty Scholarship

Scholars have increasingly focused on the relevance of post-Founding historical practice to discern the separation of powers between Congress and the executive branch, and the Supreme Court has recently endorsed the relevance of such practice. Much less attention has been paid, however, to the relevance of historical practice to discerning the separation of powers between the political branches and the federal judiciary — what this Article calls the “judicial separation of powers.” As the Article explains, there are two ways that historical practice might be relevant to the judicial separation of powers. First, such practice might be invoked as an …

Brief Of Professor Stephen E. Sachs As Amicus Curiae, Bnsf Railway Co. V. Tyrrell, Stephen E. Sachs

Faculty Scholarship

[This brief was filed in support of the petitioner in No. 16-405 (U.S., cert. granted Jan. 13, 2017).]

BNSF Railway Co. should win this case, but on statutory grounds alone. BNSF makes three arguments:

1) That Daimler AG v. Bauman forbids Montana’s exercise of general personal jurisdiction here;

2) That Congress has not sought to license the state’s exercise of jurisdiction; and

3) That such a license would be void under the Fourteenth Amendment.

BNSF’s first two arguments are fully persuasive and decide the case. As a result, the Court should decline to reach the third argument. Not only is …

What Is Foreign Relations Law?, Curtis A. Bradley

Faculty Scholarship

This draft first chapter of The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Foreign Relations Law considers what is potentially encompassed by the term “foreign relations law,” and what it might mean to think about it as a distinct field of law that can be compared and contrasted across national jurisdictions. The chapter begins by outlining some differences between foreign relations law and international law. It then describes the development of foreign relations law as a field of study within the United States and considers why, at least until recently, it has not been treated as a field in most other countries. Finally, …

Originalism Without Text, Stephen E. Sachs

Faculty Scholarship

Originalism is not about the text. Though the theory is often treated as a way to read the Constitution’s words, that conventional view is misleading. A society can be recognizably originalist without any words to interpret: without a written constitution, written statutes, or any writing at all. If texts aren’t fundamental to originalism, then originalism isn’t fundamentally about texts. Avoiding that error helps us see what originalism generally is about: namely, our present constitutional law, and its dependence on a crucial moment in the past.

What Can Europe Tell Us About The Future Of American Federalism?, Ernest A. Young

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Cumulative Constitutional Rights, Kerry Abrams, Brandon L. Garrett

Faculty Scholarship

Cumulative constitutional rights are ubiquitous. Plaintiffs litigate multiple constitutional violations, or multiple harms, and judges use multiple constitutional provisions to inform interpretation. Yet judges, litigants, and scholars have often criticized the notion of cumulative rights, including in leading Supreme Court rulings, such as Lawrence v. Texas, Employment Division v. Smith, and Miranda v. Arizona. Recently, the Court attempted to clarify some of this confusion. In its landmark opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Court struck down state bans on same-sex marriage by pointing to several distinct but overlapping protections inherent in the Due Process Clause, including the right to individual …

Transnational Constitution-Making: The Contribution Of The Venice Commission On Law And Democracy, Paul Craig

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Commission for Democracy through Law, better known as the Venice Commission. While part of the Council of Europe, the Venice Commission is much less understood than the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), notwithstanding the existing literature. This chapter therefore seeks to explicate and evaluate. It begins by explicating the organizational foundations of the Venice Commission, followed by analysis of its remit and role. The focus then shifts to triggering and working methodology.

The remainder of the article is concerned with evaluation of the Commission’s role in relation to constitution-making as broadly conceived, the analysis being situated within the literature …

Judging Congressional Elections, Lisa M. Manheim

Georgia Law Review

A pivotal clause of our Constitution suffers from
uncertainty and neglect. The result has scrambled the law
of contested congressional elections. These high-stakes
disputes turn on questions of procedure, and in particular
on questions of forum. Yet across the country, an
unpredictable and ad hoc set of regimes governs these
fundamental questions. The culprit behind the confusion
is Article I, Section 5 of the United States Constitution,
which states that "Each House shall be the Judge of the
Elections ... of its own Members." This command may
seem straightforward, if a bit unsettling-it allows
Congress to decide who has won …

Trans-Lating The Eighth Amendment Standard: The First Circuit's Denial Of A Transgender Prisoner's Constitutional Right To Medical Treatment, Bethany L. Edmondson

Georgia Law Review

In December of 2014, the First Circuit Court of Appeals
held, en banc, that the Massachusetts Department of
Corrections was not constitutionally obligated to provide
Michelle Kosilek, a transgender prisoner, with sexual
reassignment surgery. Kosilek sued the prison, arguing
that her Eighth Amendment rights against cruel and
unusual punishment were violated. The First Circuit held
that Kosilek did not have a serious medical need, due to
the prison's alternative treatment, and that the prison was
not deliberately indifferent to that need. This Note argues
that the First Circuit erred in applying the "serious
medical need" prong of the cruel and …

Originalism And Level Of Generality, Peter J. Smith

Georgia Law Review

Even if one concedes that the meaning of the
Constitution today is its original meaning, at what level of
generality should one seek that meaning? In considering
whether bans on same-sex marriageviolate the Fourteenth
Amendment, for example, should we seek to determine how
the framers of the Amendment would have answered that
question, or should we instead seek to discern the broad
principle-perhaps "equality" or "no caste-like
discrimination"-that the Amendment objectively
incorporated, even if application of that principle today
might produce results that the framers would not have
anticipated? The level of generality at which we ask the
question almost …

1930s Redux: The Administrative State Under Seige, Gillian E. Metzger

Faculty Scholarship

Eighty years on, we are seeing a resurgence of the antiregulatory and antigovernment forces that lost the battle of the New Deal. President Trump's administration has proclaimed the "deconstruction of the administrative state" to be one of its main objectives. Early Trump executive actions quickly delivered on this pledge, with a wide array of antiregulatory actions and a budget proposing to slash many agencies' funding. Invoking the long-dormant Congressional Review Act (CRA), the Republican-controlled Congress has eagerly repealed numerous regulations promulgated late in the Obama Administration. Other major legislative and regulatory repeals are pending, and bills that would impose the …

Brief Of Amicus Curiae Children’S Law Clinic At Duke Law School Advocates For Children’S Services Of Legal Aid Of North Carolina Public Schools First Nc, Jane R. Wettach, Peggy Nicholson, K. Ricky Watson Jr., Celia Pistolis, Aisha Forte, Jennifer Story, Kevin Zhao

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Family Reunification And The Security State, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Fair For Whom? Why Debt-Collection Lawsuits In St. Louis Violate The Procedural Due Process Rights Of Low-Income Communities, Aimee Constantineau

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fidelity To Our Imperfect Constitution: A Response To Five Views, James E. Fleming

Faculty Scholarship

In my recent book, Fidelity to Our Imperfect Constitution, I put forward a sustained critique of originalism in all its forms and defend what Ronald Dworkin called a "moral reading" of the U. S. Constitution and what Sotirios A. Barber and I have called a "philosophic approach" to constitutional interpretation. In this essay for the UNAM symposium on the book, I reply to five thoughtful commentaries. First, as against Barber's commentary, I justify responding to the "persistent resurgence of originalism" and attempting to "save the new originalists from themselves" by showing the extent to which many of them acknowledge …

Imagining Equity And Inclusion: South Africa's International Economic Politics And Reflections On The Writings Of Justice Dikgang Moseneke, Erika George

Faculty Scholarship

In honour of Justice Dikgang Moseneke, this essay takes up his invitation to imagine an ethos consistent with South African Constitutionalism, one which could promote economic justice. This essay explores how the tools of international economic law as utilised by South Africa could serve as a means of transformation to advance the end of a more inclusive economic globalisation. South Africa's trade policies and participation in international business and human rights policy initiatives are offered as illustrations of a shift towards asserting interests aligned with the country's constitutional economic justice commitments. First, emphasising Justice Moseneke's writings outside of his rulings …

A License To Kill: State Sponsored Death In The Oldest Colony In The World, Emmanuel Hiram Arnaud

Faculty Scholarship

The article discusses the death penalty in Puerto Rico as a means of state violence by the United States over Puerto Rico. In light of this, the author recounts the Puerto Rican colonial experience through a legal lens, beginning with the first organic law of Puerto Rico and the Insular Cases. Afterwards, the author examines the imposition of the death penalty on Puerto Rico and the challenges it has faced based on the due process of the fourteenth amendment. The article concludes with the stating how the death penalty is as another expression of the U.S. Congress plenary powers over …

Recent Applications Of The Supreme Court's Hands-Off Approach To Religious Doctrine: From Hosanna-Tabor And Holt To Hobby Lobby And Zubik, Samuel J. Levine

Scholarly Works

In each of the past four terms, the United States Supreme Court has decided a case with important implications for the interpretation and application of the Religion Clauses of the United States Constitution: Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & Sch. v. EEOC, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, Inc., Holt v. Hobbs, and, most recently, Zubik v. Burwell. Although the Court’s decisions in these cases addressed—and seemed to resolve—a number of questions central to Free Exercise and Establishment Clause jurisprudence, including recognition of the “ministerial exception” and religious rights of a corporate entity, the decisions left a number of questions unanswered, such as …

The Middle Class, Urban Schools, And Choice, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

It is common knowledge that middle- and upper-class parents tend to disfavor urban public schools, and often move to suburbs in order to avoid having to send their children to those schools. Thus, the condition of urban public schools contributes to suburban sprawl- that is, the movement of people and jobs from city to suburb.  This article discusses a variety of possible solutions to the unpopularity of urban schools among middle-class parents.  Part I of the Article suggests that this problem is a cause as well as a result of middle-class flight: that is, urban schools have poor reputations because …

Take The Fifth... Please!: The Original Insignificance Of The Fifth Amendment's Due Process Of Law Clause, Gary S. Lawson

Faculty Scholarship

The Fifth Amendment’s Due Process of Law Clause adds nothing to the Constitution’s original meaning. Every principle for limiting federal executive, judicial, and even legislative powers that can plausibly be attributed to the idea of “due process of law” – from the principle of legality forbidding executive or judicial action in the absence of law to the requirement of notice before valid judicial judgments to a limitation on arbitrary governmental action that today goes under the heading of “substantive due process” – is already contained in the text and structure of the Constitution of 1788. The Fifth Amendment Due Process …