Suchergebnisse

In these reflections presented at a Symposium hosted by Duquesne University School of Law on "The Future of the Establishment Clause in Context: Neutrality, Religion, or Avoidance?" I examine the constitutional politics driving the interpretation of the Establishment Clause. I suggest that the Supreme Court's recent case law on taxpayer standing may signal a return to the founding design of the Establishment Clause. At the founding, the Establishment Clause constrained the actions of only the national government, disabled only Congress from establishing a religion, and vigorously protected the sovereignty of states. Each of these three signposts - national interdiction, congressional disability, and state sovereignty - may yet again soon hold true if the Supreme Court continues on what appears to be its current path toward de-incorporating the Establishment Clause.

Constitutionalism compels and constrains all dimensions of our everyday lives in ways large and small that we often do not fully appreciate—perhaps because constitutions take many forms that we do not generally associate with constitutionalism. From the arts, sports, trade, entertainment, politics, and war, constitutionalism is both the point of departure and the port of call. In this Article, I explore whether and how we might distinguish among these seemingly infinite types of constitutions. First, I critique conventional distinctions separating public from private constitutions, and international from national and local constitutions. Then, I build on that deconstructive exercise to propose a theory of constitutionalism that distinguishes between constitutional basics and constitutional virtues. I subsequently undertake a comparative inquiry, applying this new model of constitutionalism to ask on what basis we might distinguish between a constitution of a nation from a constitution of a private organization.

The current line of presidential succession is no safer than playing presidential roulette. It imprudently privileges politics and tradition over competence and leadership. We should rethink the rules that currently govern succession to the Presidency – legal and constitutional rules that, in my view, serve the wrong institutional and political interests. The task I have given myself in these pages is to propose and defend an alternative to the current presidential succession regime: revising the order of succession to insert former living presidents – in reverse chronological order of service beginning with former presidents of the same party as the unavailable president – into the line of succession and concurrently removing the House Speaker and the Senate President pro tempore from the line of succession. Temporary presidential succession is a promising alternative to the current succession regime for several reasons that I endeavor to justify. Yet even if readers disagree with my proposed alternative to the current line of presidential succession, the larger purpose of my project nevertheless remains achievable: to probe the values that currently shape presidential succession and to invite reflection about whether they are the right ones for our time.

From the introduction: The Tea Party movement and its constitutional vision for the United States is perhaps the hottest topic in American public law today. The rising tide of popular support for the Tea Party movement has transformed what was once cast aside as a fleeting faction into a formidable force in American politics—one that could augur significant consequences for the contours of American constitutional law in the years ahead.

The Tea Party movement and its constitutional vision for the United States is perhaps the hottest topic in American public law today. The rising tide of popular support for the Tea Party movement has transformed what was once cast aside as a fleeting faction into a formidable force in American politics—one that could augur significant consequences for the contours of American constitutional law in the years ahead.

To withhold from citizens the power of constitutional amendment is to withhold more than a mere procedural right. It is to hijack their most basic of all democratic rights. Nothing is more democratically objectionable than dispossessing citizens of the power to rewrite the charter governing the boundary separating the citizen from the state, and citizens from themselves. Sequestering this democratic right commandeers the sovereignty that gives democracy its meaning and throws away the key to unlock the handcuffs that constitutions fasten to the wrists of citizens. With the enduring tension pitting constitutionalism versus democracy as my backdrop, I endeavor in this paper to make three contributions to the scholarly literature. First, I improve the theoretical foundations of constitutional entrenchment by unveiling a new theory to understand the varying degrees of constitutional permanence. Second, I develop an original taxonomy of entrenchment clauses, beginning with what I call preservative entrenchment, transformational entrenchment and reconciliatory entrenchment. And, third, in reaching the conclusion that entrenchment undermines the participatory values that give constitutionalism its meaning, I propose an alternative to entrenchment that I call the entrenchment escalator. In contrast to entrenchment clauses that render constitutional amendments a constitutional impossibility, the entrenchment escalator provides a promising alternative that both embraces the expressive function of entrenchment and remains consistent with the promise of constitutionalism.

Constitutional theory has long regarded the separation of powers as unique to presidential systems and incompatible with parliamentary ones. In this Article, I suggest that the core values of the separation of powers are achievable in both presidential and parliamentary systems, contrary to the conventional wisdom which insists that the separation of powers is the exclusive province of presidentialism. This conclusion – that parliamentary and presidential systems are comparably receptive to the practical and philosophical strictures of the separation of powers – unlocks interesting possibilities for rethinking constitutional structure anew.