Ilan Wurman on Eric Segall on Originalism
Michael Ramsey
At the Claremont Review of Books, Ilan Wurman (Arizona State) has the second part of his review of recent critiques of originalism (here is the first part): Originalism’s New Critics, Part 2: Faith (reviewing Eric Segall, Originalism as Faith). From the introduction: Georgia State law professor Eric Segall’s new book, Originalism as Faith, makes a more […]
David Forte on John Dickinson on Free Speech
Michael Ramsey
At Liberty Law Blog, David Forte (Cleveland State): Dickinson, “Penman of the Revolution,” on Freedom of the Press. From the core of the discussion: At that First Continental Congress, the renowned penman [John Dickinson] was also the primary author of three other documents…. Most important to the history of freedom of the press, the delegates assigned […]
Ilan Wurman on Jonathan Gienapp on Originalism
Michael Ramsey
At the Claremont Review of Books, Ilan Wurman (Arizona State): Originalism's New Critics, Part 1: Fixing Fixity (reviewing The Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era by Jonathan Gienapp). Here is the introduction: Brett Kavanaugh’s ascension to the United States Supreme Court is sure to thrust originalism center stage in the debates […]
Statutory Originalism with Liberal Results: New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira
Michael Ramsey
Yesterday's unanimous Supreme Court opinion in New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira is a lot more interesting than it sounds. The Court, per Justice Gorsuch [Justice Kavanaugh not participating] held that the Federal Arbitration Act’s exclusion from arbitration for disputes involving the “contracts of employment” of certain transportation workers applies to truck driver Dominic Oliveira’s independent […]
Orin Kerr on State Constitutional Interpretation
Michael Ramsey
At Volokh Conspiracy, Orin Kerr: Theories of State Constitutional Interpretation. From the beginning: I recently read Judge Jeffrey Sutton's excellent new book, 51 Imperfect Solutions: States and the Making of American Constitutional Law. As readers may know, the book argues for a rejuvenation of state constitutionalism. Near the end of the book, Judge Sutton offers […]
Legal Theory Lexicon on Corpus Linguistics
Michael Ramsey
At Legal Theory Blog, Larry Solum's Legal Theory Lexicon has this entry on Corpus Linguistics. From the introduction: Recently . . . lawyers, judges, and legal scholars have discovered a data-driven approach to ascertaining the semantic meaning of disputed language. This technique, called "corpus linguistics," has already been used by courts and plays an increasingly […]
More on the President’s Delegated “Emergency” Power
Michael Ramsey
At Dorf on Law, Michael Dorf: National Emergencies: The Big Picture. Here's the core of the argument: The statutory authorities that Trump would invoke to build (part of) his southern border wall cede power to the president in a way that is hard to square with the spirit of the Constitution–even in normal times with […]
Daniel Chen & Elliott Ash: What Kind of Judge Is Brett Kavanaugh?
Michael Ramsey
Daniel L. Chen (Directeur de Recherche, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Toulouse School of Economics, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, University of Toulouse Capitole, Toulouse, France) and Elliott Ash (ETH Zurich) have posted What Kind of Judge Is Brett Kavanaugh? A Quantitative Analysis (Cardozo Law Review, 2018) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This […]
More Supreme Court Textualism
Michael Ramsey
The Supreme Court delivered two unanimous decisions in unexceptional cases this week: Culbertson v. Berryhill (per Justice Thomas) and Henry Schein Inc. v. Archer & White Sales Inc. (per Justice Kavanaugh). Both opinions are notable as strongly textualist, though. In Schein, the question presented was Whether the Federal Arbitration Act permits a court to decline […]
A Response to Andrew Hyman on Coke and Due Process
Evan Bernick
[Editor's note: Evan Bernick is a visiting lecturer at Georgetown University Law Center and a resident fellow of Georgetown's Center for the Constitution.] In a pair of posts on this site, Andrew Hyman has criticized Randy Barnett and my Article, “No Arbitrary Power: An Originalist Theory of the Due Process of Law,” which is forthcoming […]