After going back and forth for a year I ended up being somewhat more pessimistic than a lot of liberal observers before the argument, so I perhaps wasn't as shaken as they were. (I agree with Jon Cohn did the oral argument did not at...
constitutional interpretation
The culmination of nearly a decade's worth of research, Dale Carpenter's Flagrant Conduct tells the story of Lawrence v. Texas, the landmark 2003 case holding that bans on "sodomy" violated.
One of the plaintiffs challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act doesn't the government has the authority to compel her to purchase health insurance. Rather, she would prefer that.
I'm still waiting for my copy of Dale Carpenter's book, but Dahlia Lithwick's review is a beautifully written and important piece in its own right. Lithwick's piece focuses on a central irony of the case. Kennedy's opinion famously focused on the importance of relationships and...
I have a piece for the Prospect that, among other things, argues that making "immutability" a major factor in whether a classification should be subject to heightened scrutiny is anachronistic:.
I would like to buck the conventional wisdom, but I agree with everybody that the grant of cert in Fisher v. UT Austin is almost certainly the end of affirmative.
Irin Carmon's column on Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the potentially pioneering brief Nixon's Solicitor General Erwin "why should a mere woman get a law school space that properly belongs to a man?" Griswold prevented her from presenting to the Court is very much worth reading....
Stop it, you're killing me: The federal courts are being reshaped by the Obama presidency, thanks to the disinclination of senate Republicans to block appointees. If by "disinclination" you mean.
With respect to how Kennedy is likely to rule on the Prop 8 case, a few additional points. First, in response to Murc here, I should make it clear what.
A couple people in comments endorsed Jason Mazzone's critique of the Ninth Circuit panel's narrow opinion ruling Prop 8 unconstitutional and asked for my reaction. To paraphrase Byron White, I agree with Mazzone that the best outcome would be for the Supreme Court to declare...
Like a majority -- although not all -- commentators, I think that Reinhardt's narrow opinion striking down Prop 8 was probably represented the right way to proceed: Still, Reinhardt's decision.
I have some follow-up thoughts to the GPS surveillance decision handed down by the Supreme Court earlier this week. The first major takeaway from the case is that Sonia Sotomayor.