Constitutional Commentary articles from March 2000

Constitutional Commentary archives from March 2000

Against diversity.(diversity jurisdiction)
March 22, 2000... "Diversity" is a concept that has outgrown its origins and outlived its usefulness. In the end, it is really just a code word for preferential treatment. With little analytic basis, it was originally designed as a remedy for vague and...

Measuring First Amendment value: Rebraf's first chronicle.
March 22, 2000... "Professor," a voice whined, "may I have a few minutes of your time?" With difficulty, I tore my eyes away from the latest work of Habermas. (Or was it Derrida? Some arcane European anyway.) I could hardly believe my eyes. There,...

The day after: do we need a "Twenty-Eighth Amendment?"
March 22, 2000... Having decided on a fixed term presidency and quadrennial electoral assessment of a president's performance, and having all but abandoned the parliamentary model of a "president" beholden to Congress for his power, the framers of our...

Is the Miranda caselaw really inconsistent? A proposed Fifth Amendment synthesis.
March 22, 2000... In Miranda v. Arizona(1) the Supreme Court held that custodial interrogation amounts to unconstitutional compulsion to be a witness against oneself, unless the interrogation is preceded by the famous warnings or "equally effective" measures to...

Dworkin as an originalist.(Ronald M. Dworkin)
March 22, 2000... I. INTRODUCTION Ronald Dworkin is regarded as one of the leading critics of originalism in constitutional interpretation. But he has recently undergone something of a conversion, and now apparently endorses a version of originalism. ...

That sick chicken won't hunt: the limits of a judicially enforced non-delegation doctrine.
March 22, 2000... INTRODUCTION Since the resolution of the New Deal constitutional crisis, the non-delegation doctrine has lived a "fugitive existence at the edge of constitutional jurisprudence."(1) Advocates of the doctrine argue that legislative...

Origins of the Bill of Rights.(Review)
March 22, 2000... ORIGINS OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS. By Leonard W. Levy. (1) New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 1999. Pp. xii, 306. Hardcover, $30.00. As part of my Cold War era public-school education, I was taught that the Soviet bill of rights guaranteed...

The Trouble with Principle.(Review)
March 22, 2000... THE TROUBLE WITH PRINCIPLE. By Stanley Fish.(1) Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1999. 328 pp. $14.95. In his latest book, Stanley Fish attacks liberal political theory in general and First Amendment theory in particular.(3) To...

An Affair of State: The Investigation, Impeachment, and Trial of President Clinton.(Review)
March 22, 2000... AN AFFAIR OF STATE: THE INVESTIGATION, IMPEACHMENT, AND TRIAL OF PRESIDENT CLINTON. By Richard A. Posner(1) Harvard University Press. 1999. Pp. 266. $24.95 Richard Posner is one of my heroes. I mean, the guy has written 23 books, he's...