Elisa Arcioni & Adrienne Stone: Constitutional Change in Australia
Michael Ramsey
Elisa Arcioni (University of Sydney Law School) and Adrienne Stone (University of Melbourne Law School) have posted Constitutional Change in Australia: The Paradox of the Frozen Continent (Routledge Handbook on Comparative Constitutional Change, edited by Alkmene Fotiadou and Xenophon Contiades (forthcoming)) (19 pages) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The story of constitutional change under the […]
Gouverneur Morris’s Rewriting of the Constitution
Mike Rappaport
Recently, the Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism held its annual Works-in-Progress Conference. One of the papers was written by Dean William Treanor of Georgetown Law School. (Both Bill and I were at Yale Law School as students and we both wrote originalist student notes, though from very different perspectives.) Bill’s paper “Framer’s Intent: […]
Michael Dorf on Jam v. IFC
Michael Ramsey
At Dorf on Law, Michael Dorf has an interesting long post on the Supreme Court's recent statutory decision in Jam v. International Finance Corporation: Did Jam v. IFC Kill Purposivism? As he summarizes the case: Jam v. Int'l Finance Corp is a lawsuit by Indian citizens against an international organization alleging that the latter's lax supervision […]
More from Julian Davis Mortenson on Executive Power
Michael Ramsey
At Volokh Conspiracy, Julian Davis Mortenson (Michigan) has finished his series of guest posts on the original meaning of executive power. Here are his last three posts: The Executive Power Was an Empty Vessel Executive Power and the Metonymy Error The Executive Power Clause—Crux of the Constitutional Settlement (I noted his first two posts earlier, […]
Craig Lerner: Justice Scalia’s Eighth-Amendment Jurisprudence
Michael Ramsey
Recently published, in the current issue of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Craig S. Lerner (George Mason University – Antonin Scalia Law School): Justice Scalia's Eighth-Amendment Jurisprudence: The Failure of Sake-of-Argument Originalism (42 Harv. J.L.P.P 91 (2019)). From the introduction: This Article analyzes the tension between originalism and precedent in a politically […]
Ilya Somin: Making Federalism Great Again
Michael Ramsey
Ilya Somin (George Mason University – Antonin Scalia Law School) has posted Making Federalism Great Again: How the Trump Administration's Attack on Sanctuary Cities Unintentionally Strengthened Judicial Protection for State Autonomy (Texas Law Review, Symposium on “Reclaiming—and Restoring—Constitutional Norms,” forthcoming) (60 pages) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: “Sanctuary cities” – jurisdictions that refuse to […]
The Reference Canon and the 14th Amendment
Michael Ramsey
Regarding this post, reader Matt Estrin has this comment: Do you think the different canons of statutory construction can/should also be applied to constitutional provisions? If so would the "reference canon" as recently used by the Supreme Court in Jam v. International Finance Corp. be a reason to actually read incorporation, whether by the Due […]
The Relevance of the Preamble to Constitutional Interpretation
Mike Rappaport
The preamble to the United States Constitution is something that is widely employed within political and theoretical arguments but is virtually never relied upon in court cases interpreting the Constitution. Is this treatment correct under the Constitution’s original meaning? The preamble provides that “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a […]
The Senate Has No Duty to Try Impeachments
David Weisberg
[The following response to this post is from occasional guest-blogger David E. Weisberg. — Ed.] If the House impeaches President Trump, would the Senate be constitutionally obligated to hold a trial, or would it be constitutionally permissible for the Senate simply to do nothing? Prof. Bauer argues that the Senate has an affirmative obligation, and in […]
Julian Davis Mortenson on Executive Power
Michael Ramsey
Julian Davis Mortenson (Michigan) is guest blogging at Volokh Conspiracy on his new paper Article II Vests Executive Power, Not the Royal Prerogative. His opening post is here, with this introduction: When the Founders agreed that "[t]he executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America," the core phrase had […]