Constitutional Commentary articles from December 2000

Constitutional Commentary archives from December 2000

Rational basis revue.
December 22, 2000... Constitutional Commentary is no stranger to legal analysis of music(1) or to musings on legal analysis.(2) "Seven years [have] disappear[ed] below [our] feet"(3) since this journal last exercised its quasiconstitutional right to make bad...

Defending judicial supremacy: a reply.
December 22, 2000... In On Extrajudicial Constitutional Interpretation,(1) we put forth and defended the position that the Supreme Court's interpretations of the Constitution should be taken by all other officials, judicial and non-judicial, as having an...

Shrink Missouri, campaign finance, and "the thing that wouldn't leave".
December 22, 2000... During one of the first seasons of Saturday Night Live, perhaps in 1976, the "Not Ready for Prime Time Players" satirized trailers for horror movies. Along with "The Island of Lost Luggage," the skit featured a trailer for "The Thing That...

Fictional documentaries and truthful fictions: the death penalty in recent American film.
December 22, 2000... When it comes to death, most Hollywood movies cheat. They cheat by tinkering with the truth, because the truth as it actually is is too complex or too disturbing to confront honestly. (The so-called happy ending is the most famous form of such...

The Fourteenth Amendment and Native American citizenship.
December 22, 2000... Studies of the federal government's treatment of racial discrimination during the immediate post-Civil War era have dealt almost exclusively with problems related to the status of free blacks. This focus is in many respects entirely...

Unnatural born citizens and acting Presidents.
December 22, 2000... No Person except a natural born Citizen... shall be eligible to the Office of President.(1) No matter who wins the White House this November, I--and millions of other Americans like me(2)--once again will have suffered a certain measure of...

Presidential impeachment: the original misunderstanding.
December 22, 2000... We must never forget that it is a[n eighteenth-century] constitution we are expounding. John Marshall Presidential impeachment and removal from office undoes the result of the last presidential election. So much is indubitably true....

Necromancing the Equal Rights Amendment.
December 22, 2000... In 1972, fifty years after an earlier version was first introduced, both houses of Congress approved the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) by the necessary two-thirds vote, and, in accordance with the Constitution's amendment procedure, sent it to...

Gaylaw: Challenging the Apartheid of the Closet.(Review)
December 22, 2000... GAYLAW: CHALLENGING THE APARTHEID OF THE CLOSET. William N. Eskridge, Jr.(1) Harvard University Press. 1999. Pp. 512. $45.00. The world into which Gaylaw arrives is one whose poles are very far apart. At one pole, a man fatally fractures...

Choosing Equality: School Choice, the Constitution, and Civil Society.(Review)
December 22, 2000... CHOOSING EQUALITY: SCHOOL CHOICE, THE CONSTITUTION, AND CIVIL SOCIETY. By Joseph P. Viteritti.(1) Brookings Institution Press. 1999. Pp. 284. $29.95. If nothing else, this Review Essay, like Professor Viteritti's book, should be timely. As...

One Case at a Time: Judicial Minimalism on the Supreme Court.(Review)
December 22, 2000... ONE CASE AT A TIME: JUDICIAL MINIMALISM ON THE SUPREME COURT. By Cass R. Sunstein.(1) Harvard University Press. 1999. Pp. 290. $29.95. (Hardcover) After a period in which inquiries into constitutional interpretation reigned supreme in...

Taking the Constitution Away from the Courts.(Review)
December 22, 2000... TAKING THE CONSTITUTION AWAY FROM THE COURTS. By Mark Tushnet.(2) Princeton University Press. 2000. Pp. 242. $17.95. (PB) After a period in which inquiries into constitutional interpretation reigned supreme in American constitutional...

Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Right to Bear Arms, 1865-1876.
December 22, 2000... FREEDMEN, THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT, AND THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS, 1866-1876. By Stephen P. Halbrook.(1) Westport, Ct. Praeger Publishers. 1998. Pp. xiii, 230. Hardcover. $55.00 If there is any good justification for the economic cartel in...