On Wednesday morning I led a session on “Federalism and the Roberts Court,” in which we considered the likely trajectory of the Court’s federalism jurisprudence. Efforts to reinvigorate the judicial safeguards of federalism were a hallmark of the Rehnquist Court’s jurisprudence. A slim majority of the Court sought to advance this cause in two areas: […]
Author Archive | Dale Carpenter
AALS Mid-Year Meeting: Regime Politics and the Roberts Court:
This morning’s plenary considered “Regime Politics and the Roberts Court.” Moderated by Stephen Griffin (Tulane), the panel featured Pamela Karlan (Stanford), Thomas Keck (Syracuse), and Neil Siegel (Duke). As Griffin explained, the aim of “regime politics” analyses in political science is to explain constitutional doctrine by reference to the governing partisan coalition of which the […]
Kmiec on gay marriage:
Last night I had the pleasure of debating gay marriage against Doug Kmiec at the lawyer’s chapter of the Federalist Society in Chicago. You can read Professor Kmiec’s kind and generous account of the debate at Slate. After about 3 hours of debate, during which many people spoke, twenty remained to vote on the resolution. […]
Fourth Circuit “Logjam”:
The June ABA Journal cover story focuses on the confirmation “logjam” that has left four vacancies on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit — three of which are classified as “judicial emergencies” and one of which has been open for almost 15 years. (There were five vacancies when the article went to […]
When Does the State “Expressly Waive” an Exhaustion Defense to a Brady Claim?
Today, D’Ambrosio v. Bagley, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit split over an interesting question in a capital habeas case: Where a habeas petitioner makes a Brady claim that the government suppressed or withheld mitigating evidence, when does the government “expressly waive” its defense that the petitioner failed […]
AALS Mid-Year Meeting: Executive Power:
This morning’s plenary panel is on executive power. Moderated by conference chair Mark Tushnet, it features the line-up of Kathleen Clark (WashU), Joseph Margulies (Northwestern), Sai Prakash (USD), and Adrian Vermeule (Harvard). Tushnet opens with the observation that the law of executive power seems to “come in waves.” There was “Nixon Law” (impeachment, exec privilege, […]
Green Party Activist Wins GOP Senate Primary in Montana:
Via Richard Winger’s Ballot Access News comes this interesting story. Perennial candidate Bob Kelleher won an upset victory in Montana’s Republican U.S. Senate primary early Wednesday, . . . Kelleher, an 85-year-old attorney from Butte, will challenge Democrat incumbent Max Baucus in November. Baucus is a five-term U.S. senator who had more than $6 million […]
Judicial Nomination Stall:
The Senate has confirmed President Bush’s appellate judicial nominees at an amazingly slow rate. Despite pledges to confirm three additional nominees before Memorial Day, the Senate has only confirmed two nominees all year, while numerous well-qualified nominees sit and wait. By comparison, a Republican Senate confirmed eight of President Clinton’s appellate nominees during his last […]
AALS Mid-Year Meeting: The Changing Roberts Court:
This is the first of a few posts summarizing some of the plenary panels from the AALS mid-year Conference on Constitutional Law, currently underway in Cleveland, Ohio. The opening plenary panel focused on “The Changing Roberts Court.” Moderated by Lori Ringhand (UGeorgia), the panel featured Eric Segall (Georgia State), Erwin Chemerinsky (Duke/UCIrvine), and Lee Epstein […]
California Supreme Court unanimously denies stay in gay-marriage case:
The California Supreme Court has unanimously denied a request to stay its gay-marriage decision until after the November election. By the same 4-3 majority that approved gay marriage on May 15, it also denied a request for a rehearing in the case. According to an earlier decision by state officials, gay couples can begin marrying […]
McCain v. Obama:
For political junkies, this website has a very useful map showing who’s leading in the latest polls in all of the states in the presidential and Senate races. The map is helpfully color-coded by strength of the candidate’s lead. When you drag your mouse over a given state, it tells you when the last poll […]
Is Climate Legislation a “Bill for Raising Revenue”?
This week the Senate is debating S.3036, the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act. A key feature of the bill is the creation of a cap-and-trade system for carbon dioxide emissions. Basically, the government will cap aggregate carbon dioxide emissions and allocate tradeable emission credits (or “allowances”) to firms. The point of such a regime is to […]
Three Decisions, One 5-4:
The Supreme Court handed down three decisions today. There was one 5-4 decision (really a 4-1-4), with an interesting line-up: Justice Scalia delivered the judgment of the Court and wrote an opinion joined by Souter, Ginsburg and Thomas. Justice Stevens concurred in the judgment. Justice Alito dissented, joined by the Chief Justice and Justices Kennedy […]
Other States Intervene in California Marriage Case:
Over the weekend, the NYT reported on an interesting development: Attorneys General from other states are asking the California Supreme Court to stay implementation of its decision legalizing gay marriage. In a letter to the court’s chief justice, Ronald George, the attorneys general — all Republicans — asked that the marriages be put off until […]
A Libertarian Moment?
Reason‘s Nick Gillespie thinks we are “in the beginning of a libertarian moment” (or so he told the NYT). Like others, including Michael Kinsley, he believes libertarians could be a significant political force this November. Whereas most libertarians have tended to vote for Republican candidates, the war and profligate spending (among other things) have caused […]