Michael Rappaport: The Constitutionality of a Limited Convention
Michael Ramsey
Michael Rappaport (University of San Diego School of Law) has posted The Constitutionality of a Limited Convention: An Originalist Analysis (Constitutional Commentary, Vol. 81, p. 53, 2012) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This article revisits the classic question of whether the Constitution allows limited conventions. The Constitution provides two methods for proposing constitutional amendments: the congressional proposal method […]
An Interesting Project on Madison’s Notes
Mike Rappaport
At National Review Online, Ed Whelan has a post on Crowd-Sourcing James Madison’s Notes of the Debates on the Constitution. The post is about the new project that the Brookings Institution’s Benjamin Wittes has helped to launch in partnership with the Center for the Constitution. Ed writes: Thanks to the development of software named ConText, […]
Ian C. Bartum: Constitutional Value Judgments and Interpretive Theory Choice
Michael Ramsey
Ian C. Bartum (University of Nevada, Las Vegas, William S. Boyd School of Law) has posted Constitutional Value Judgments and Interpretive Theory Choice (Florida State University Law Review, Vol. 40, No. 2, 2013) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Philip Bobbitt’s remarkable work describing the ‘modalities’ of constitutional argument is an immense contribution to the […]
Nelson Lund: Stare Decisis and Originalism
Mike Rappaport
Nelson Lund (George Mason University School of Law) has posted Stare Decisis and Originalism: Judicial Disengagement from the Supreme Court's Errors (George Mason Law Review, forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Originalism has had an uneasy relationship with stare decisis, but the two seem wedded in a way that precludes divorce and thus encourages […]
David Upham: Pierce v. Society of Sisters, Natural Law, and the Pope’s Extraordinary – But Undeserved– Praise of the American Republic
Mike Rappaport
David R. Upham (University of Dallas) has posted Pierce v. Society of Sisters, Natural Law, and the Pope’s Extraordinary – But Undeserved– Praise of the American Republic on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In his 1929 encyclical, Divini Illius Magistri (On Christian Education), Pope Pius XI paid an extraordinary tribute to the United States, the […]
Originalism in the Blogs: Michael Stern on the “Wirt-Rappaport Debate”
Michael Ramsey
At Point of Order, Michael Stern: What’s Happening? Rerunning the Wirt-Rappaport Debate on the Recess Appointments Clause.
Patrick Charles and Kevin Francis O’Neil: Saving the Press Clause from Ruin
Mike Rappaport
Patrick J. Charles and Kevin Francis O’Neil have posted Saving the Press Clause from Ruin: The Customary Origins of a ‘Free Press’ as Interface to the Present and Future (Utah Law Review, Vol. 2012, No. 3, 2012) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Based on a close reading of original sources dating back to America's […]
Originalism in the Blogs: Michael Stern on Recess Appointments
Michael Ramsey
At Point of Order, Michael Stern has an interesting series of posts on the Recess Appointments Clause: So About that Recess Appointments Clause The Recess Appointments Clause and the War of 1812 The Recess Appointments Clause, Original Vacancies and Attorney General Wirt. (The last cites Mike Rappaport's definitive article on the subject).
John Hoelle: The Virtue of a Natural Law Reading of the U.S. Constitution
Michael Ramsey
John C Hoelle (University of Colorado at Boulder) has posted The Virtue of a Natural Law Reading of the U.S. Constitution (Consortium, 2011) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Natural law was arguably fundamental to the U.S. Constitutional project: the Framers apparently assumed courts would interpret and apply unwritten natural law concepts alongside the enacted provisions […]
Andrew Koppelman: Bad News For Everybody: Lawson and Kopel and Health Care Reform and Originalism
Michael Ramsey
Andrew Koppelman (Northwestern University School of Law) has posted Bad News for Everybody: Lawson and Kopel on Health Care Reform and Originalism (Yale Journal Online, Forthcoming; Northwestern Public Law Research Paper No. 11-66) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Gary Lawson & David Kopel’s Bad News for Professor Koppelman: The Incidental Unconstitutionality of the Individual Mandate argues, on […]