Constitutional Commentary articles from December 2002

Constitutional Commentary archives from December 2002

The Grinch who stole legislation (a sequel).(Poem)
December 22, 2002... THE GRINCH WHO STOLE LEGISLATION (A SEQUEL) Every Prof up in Chenville loved Statutes a LOT, But the students who lived South of Chenville did NOT. Now don't ask me why, no one quite knows the reason, But the kids hated...

"Equal protection, my ass!"? Bush v. Gore and Laurence Tribe's 'hall of mirrors.'(response to Laurence Tribe, Harvard Law Review, vol. 115, p. 170, 2001)
December 22, 2002... Almost every lawyer with litigation experience, even if only in law school moot court exercises, has experienced what might be called "acquired conviction syndrome." Having taken on a client's cause, and worked hard to develop the best...

The unbearable wrongness of Bush v. Gore.(response to article by Nelson Lund in this issue, p. 543)
December 22, 2002... INTRODUCTION Again? Another article about Bush v. Gore? (1) Is there anything of substance left to say that has not already been said? I think there has to be--as long as there remain serious observers who react to the Supreme Court's...

Carnival of mirrors: Laurence Tribe's "Unbearable Wrongness".(response to article in this issue, p. 571)
December 22, 2002... Professor Tribe has now done to me just what I claim he did to the Supreme Court in eroG v. hsuB. (1) By repeatedly distorting what I actually said, Unbearable Wrongness (2) creates illusory targets that Professor Tribe then holds up to...

Lost at the equal protection carnival: Nelson Lund's "Carnival of Mirrors."(response to article in this issue, p. 609)
December 22, 2002... Talk about losing sight of the forest for the trees! What I trust interests readers is what to make of the equal protection twist in Bush v. Gore, not an exchange of volleys between scholars. That exchange having descended from the trivial to...

Keeping legal history "legal" and judicial activism in perspective: a reply to Richard Pildes.(response to article in Constitutional Commentary, vol. 17, p. 295, 2000)
December 22, 2002... I. INTRODUCTION The apparently innocent phrase "legal history" has demonstrated itself to be extremely treacherous territory. It encompasses both history and law, each a full discipline in itself. Ordinary law teachers who tire of the case...

Keeping legal history meaningful.(response to article by Charles A. Heckman in this issue. p. 625)
December 22, 2002... A Response to Charles A. Heckman's "Keeping Legal History 'Legal' and Judicial Activism in Perspective: A Reply to Richard Pildes" The end of Reconstruction is conventionally identified as the 1876 disputed Presidential election and...

Washington, Patton, Schwarzkopf and ... Ashcroft?(use of title "General" for Attorney-General and Solicitor-General)
December 22, 2002... I. INTRODUCTION--GENERALS, GENERALS EVERYWHERE War may be too important to be left to the generals, but law, apparently, is not. If you attend a Supreme Court argument in a case of sufficient significance to be argued by the Solicitor...

How many judges does it take to make a Supreme Court?
December 22, 2002... How many judges does it take to make a supreme court? Three? Five? Seven? Nine? Or more? If state as well as federal courts are considered, all answers have been correct at one time or another, in one court or another. State constitutions...

The President's Authority over Foreign Affairs: An Essay in Constitutional Interpretation.(Book Review)
December 22, 2002... THE PRESIDENT'S AUTHORITY OVER FOREIGN AFFAIRS: AN ESSAY IN CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION. By H. Jefferson Powell (1). Carolina Academic Press. 2002. Pp. ix, 165. $ 30.00. Jeff Powell, one of our leading constitutional historians, has...

Separation of Church and State.(Book Review)
December 22, 2002... SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE. By Philip Hamburger. (1) Harvard University Press. 2002. Pp. 514. $49.95. A degree of conventional constitutional interpretation is backward-looking, sometimes even nostalgic. Adjudication demands...

The English Constitution.(Book Review)
December 22, 2002... THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION. By Walter Bagehot. (1) Edited by Paul Smith. (2) Cambridge University Press. 2001. Pp. xxxii, 253. $21.00 Of all the works of nineteenth-century British constitutional scholarship that have come down to us, two...

The Gay Rights Question in Contemporary American Law.(Book Review)
December 22, 2002... THE GAY RIGHTS QUESTION IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN LAW. By Andrew Koppelman. (1) University of Chicago Press, 2002. Pp. 210. Cloth $48.00, Paper $17.00. Andrew Koppelman teaches both political science and law, and it is thus unsurprising...

Our Unsettled Constitution: A New Defense of Constitutionalism and Judicial Review.(Book Review)
December 22, 2002... OUR UNSETTLED CONSTITUTION: A NEW DEFENSE OF CONSTITUTIONALISM AND JUDICIAL REVIEW. Louis Michael Seidman. (1) Yale University Press. 2001. Pp. 260. $35.00. A decade ago, Glenn Reynolds published a brief essay in which he invited scholars...

Free Speech: "The People's Darling Privilege", Struggles for Freedom of Expression in American History.(Book Review)
December 22, 2002... FREE SPEECH, "THE PEOPLE'S DARLING PRIVILEGE": STRUGGLES FOR FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IN AMERICAN HISTORY. By Michael Kent Curtis. (1) Duke University Press. 2000. Pp. 512. $34.95. Michael Kent Curtis summarizes his book, Free Speech, 'The...

Theodore Rex.(Book Review)
December 22, 2002... Theodore Rex By Edmund Morris. (1) Random House, 2001. Pp. 864. $35.00 Last fall, while reading Theodore Rex, Edmund Morris's impressive second installment of his multi-volume biography of Theodore Roosevelt, I happened upon an article in...