Constitutional Commentary articles from December 1998

Constitutional Commentary archives from December 1998

Medium rare scrutiny.(satire)
December 22, 1998... Ah, Minnesota in the summertime! A short but precious interlude: time for grilling meat on the barbecue, enjoying the outdoors, dodging the mosquitoes, and reading the end-of-the-Term Supreme Court decisions. I received a new Weber grill for...

The most-cited Federalist Papers.
December 22, 1998... In early 1998, the George Washington Law Review held a Symposium on "Textualism and the Constitution." At that event, Professor William Eskridge presented a paper entitled "Should the Supreme Court Read the Federalist Papers But Not Statutory...

Another chat with the lady in the grocery line: Clinton v. Jones.(Pres Bill Clinton, Paula Jones)
December 22, 1998... I had gone to the grocery store for a few breakfast items, and was standing in the ten-items-or-less line, counting how many items each of the four people ahead of me had in their baskets. My hopes for a quick exit from the grocery store were...

The Ten Commandments in Alabama.(controversy over displaying Ten Commandments in courtroom)
December 22, 1998... This brief essay approaches the well-known "Alabama Ten Commandments" controversy from the perspective of interest group strategy. The situation, of course, has been endlessly analyzed in both legal and political terms, each side staking out a...

Unenumerated constitutional rights and unenumerated biblical obligations: a preliminary study in comparative hermeneutics.
December 22, 1998... I. INTRODUCTION In 1986, Robert Cover wrote of an "explosion of legal scholarship placing interpretation at the crux of the enterprise of law."(1) As examples of this phenomenon, Cover cited the works of such influential scholars as Ronald...

Unoriginalism's law without meaning.
December 22, 1998... ORIGINAL MEANINGS: POLITICS AND IDEAS IN THE MAKING OF THE CONSTITUTION. By Jack N. Rakove.(1) New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1996. Pp. 439. Hardcover, $35.00. Saikrishna B. Prakash(2) It is curious and depressing that there continues to...

Ackermania or uncomfortable truths?(historian Bruce Ackerman)
December 22, 1998... WE THE PEOPLE: TRANSFORMATIONS. By Bruce Ackerman.(1) The Belknap Press Of Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Ma. Volume 2, 1998. Pp. xi, 515. $29.95. L.A. Powe, Jr.(2) There is probably not a single constitutional scholar in the...

Free speech in its forgotten years.
December 22, 1998... FREE SPEECH IN ITS FORGOTTEN YEARS. By David M. Rabban.(1) Cambridge University Press. 1997. Pp. xi, 404. Daniel A. Farber(2) Rip Van Winkle-like, the First Amendment slumbered from 1800 to 1920. Or so we are accustomed to think. The...

A century lost: the end of the originalism debate.
December 22, 1998... "I happen to like originalist arguments when the weight of the evidence seems to support the constitutional outcomes I favor...."(1) INTRODUCTION Almost one hundred years ago, Professor Arthur W. Machen published an article in...

Impeachment and accountability: the case of the first lady.
December 22, 1998... The spouse of the President of the United States long has played an important role in the nation. The First Spouse's increasingly public involvement in policy matters, though, requires greater definition of the First Spouse's...