Constitutional Commentary articles from December 2003

Constitutional Commentary archives from December 2003

In re Hundred Acre Wood.(sovereignty)
December 22, 2003... The question came before the Court today: Is the Hundred Acre Wood sovereign, or a mere instrumentality? The justices divided on the question in opinions delivered orally, as follows: Owl, J. The presuppositions of our constitutional schema...

The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 and the commerce clause.
December 22, 2003... The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 (PBABA), signed into law on November 5, 2003, by President Bush, (1) bans the use of partial-birth abortions throughout the United States except when necessary to save the fife of the mother....

Homage to Clio: the historical continuity from the Articles of Confederation into the Constitution.
December 22, 2003... Abstract: The nature of the United States continued even as the Articles of Confederation were replaced by the Constitution. The Constitution is a radical document, but unstated assumptions about political institutions continued from the...

Recess appointments and an independent judiciary.
December 22, 2003... Presidents Clinton and Bush have revived a quiescent executive power, that of recess appointments to the bench. In the last few days of his presidency Mr. Clinton made one such appointment. Following suit, Mr. Bush has now made two. All three...

The dimension of the Supreme Court.
December 22, 2003... It is a rare occurrence when the New York Times, (1) Washington Post, (2) NPR, (3) and even Jack Kilpatrick (4) discuss a political science paper. Nonetheless, that is what happened after A Pattern of Analysis of the Second Rehnquist US Supreme...

The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth Century America.(Book Review)
December 22, 2003... THE MORMON QUESTION: POLYGAMY AND CONSTITUTIONAL CONFLICT IN NINETEENTH CENTURY AMERICA. By Sarah Barringer Gordon (1) University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. 2002. Pp. xiv, 337. $49.95 (hard); $19.95 (paper). "By convention, and...

Emblems of Pluralism: Cultural Differences and the State.(Book Review)
December 22, 2003... EMBLEMS OF PLURALISM: CULTURAL DIFFERENCES AND THE STATE. By Carol Weisbrod. (1) Princeton University Press. 2002. Pp. ix, 222. $45.00. The Amish community disciplines its members through the meidung (shunning), under which community...

How Democratic Is the American Constitution?(Book Review)
December 22, 2003... HOW DEMOCRATIC IS THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION? By Robert A. Dahl. (1) New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 2001. Pp. 208. Hardcover, $19.95 "How democratic is the American constitution?" Dahl asks. Well, in 2000, for the fourth time in our...

You Can't Say That: The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws.(Book Review)
December 22, 2003... YOU CAN'T SAY THAT: THE GROWING THREAT TO CIVIL LIBERTIES FROM ANTIDISCRIMINATION LAWS. By David Bernstein. (1) Washington, D.C. Cato Institute. 2003. Pp. 198. $20.00. Restrictions on expression present a harder case for...

The story of McCulloch: banking on national power.
December 22, 2003... There is no denying the importance of McCulloch v. Maryland. (1) As of April 14, 2004, it had received a total of 7,307 cites in the Westlaw computer base. Many scholars consider it the single most important opinion in the Court's history....

Brilliance remembered.(Daniel Farber's contributions to constitutional law scholarship)(Testimonial)
December 22, 2003... Twenty years ago Daniel Farber cofounded Constitutional Commentary. (1) Dan's essay on McCulloch v. Maryland, (2) "Banking on National Power," concludes the twentieth volume of this journal. (3) Among his many achievements in twenty-two years...