Bob Bauer on the Senate’s Refusal to Try an Impeachment
Michael Ramsey
At Lawfare, Bob Bauer: Can the Senate Decline to Try an Impeachment Case? From the introduction: Does the Senate have an obligation to conduct a trial of the president if the House impeaches him? With the increased prospects for an impeachment inquiry now that the Democrats have taken control of the House of Representatives, most discussions […]
Mark Seidenfeld: The Theoretical Bankruptcy of Textualism
Michael Ramsey
Mark Seidenfeld (Florida State University College of Law) has posted The Theoretical Bankruptcy of Textualism (13 pages) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This Essay contends that textualist interpretation – by which it means the search for the most likely public meaning of the words of a statute – in inconsistent with Congress’s responsibility for the substance […]
William Baude: Ex Parte Levitt
Michael Ramsey
William Baude (University of Chicago Law School) has posted Ex Parte Levitt (Texas Law Review, Vol. 98, 2019) (31 pages) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In Ex Parte Levitt, the Supreme Court denied standing to a pro se litigant making esoteric claims against the appointment of Justice Hugo Black. The Court’s short opinion is now […]
Mark Pulliam on Abandoning the Gold Standard
Michael Ramsey
At Law and Liberty, Mark Pulliam: Abandoning Gold and the Constitution? (reviewing Sebastian Edwards, American Default; The Untold Story of FDR, the Supreme Court, and the Battle over Gold (Princeton Univ. Press 2018)). From the introduction: Constitutional law scholars tend to focus on decisions involving abortion, same-sex marriage, desegregation, and administrative law, ignoring one of […]
Michael McConnell on “an Establishment of Religion”
Michael Ramsey
At Volokh Conspiracy, Michael McConnell (Stanford) has a long guest post on the Maryland cross case (American Legion v. American Humanist Association) and the meaning of an Establishment of Religion: "Cleaning Up the Lemon Mess". From the core of the argument: … [T]he amicus brief I filed on behalf of the Becket Fund … argues that the Court […]
Neal Goldfarb: Corpus Linguistics in Legal Interpretation
Michael Ramsey
Neal Goldfarb (LAWnLinguistics blog; Visiting Scholar, Georgetown) has posted Corpus Linguistics in Legal Interpretation: When Is It (In)appropriate? (53 pages) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Corpus linguistics can be a powerful tool in legal interpretation, but like all tools, it is suited for some uses but not for others. At a minimum, that means that […]
Michael Dorf and Martin Lederman on Justice Thomas on Originalism and NYT v. Sullivan
Michael Ramsey
At Dorf on Law, Michael Dorf criticizes Justice Thomas' criticism of New York Times v. Sullivan: How to Test Whether Justice Thomas Favors "Halfway Originalism". Among other important points, he asks: Why does Justice Thomas object to Sullivan? … Justice Thomas thinks that a state should be allowed to adopt the rules of Sullivan and its progeny in "striking […]
Stephanie Barclay et al. on Corpus Linguistics and the Establishment Clause
Michael Ramsey
Stephanie H. Barclay (BYU Law School), Brady Earley (Brigham Young University, students) and Annika Boone (Harvard Law School, students) have posted Original Meaning and the Establishment Clause: A Corpus Linguistic Analysis (Arizona Law Review, Vol. 61, 2019) (60 pages) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Debates about the original meaning of the Establishment Clause are […]
Martin Minot: The Irrelevance of Blackstone
Michael Ramsey
Martin Minot (J.D/M.A. candidate '19, University of Virginia) has posted The Irrelevance of Blackstone: Rethinking the Eighteenth-Century Importance of the Commentaries (Virginia Law Review, Vol. 104, No. 7, 2018) (39 pages) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This Note challenges William Blackstone's modern position as the "oracle of the law" in the eighteenth century. In […]
University of Virginia Symposium on the Future of Originalism
Michael Ramsey
From the University of Virginia media page: Judges, scholars and practitioners will focus on constitutional interpretation and re-examine a landmark civil liberties case during a conference Feb. 28 at the University of Virginia School of Law. “The Future of Originalism: Conflicts and Controversies,” sponsored by the Law School’s Federalist Society chapter, will begin at 9:45 […]