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Constitutional Law

Constitutional Law Prof Blog

News, analysis, and commentary on constitutional law issues in the courts, the administration, Congress, and the states; and commentary and analysis on constitutional law scholarship.
By Steven D. Schwinn, Ruthann Robson, Nareissa L. Smith

Post Frequency: 3.1/day

Last Entry: November 04, 2020 at 10:04:25

Oklahoma's Ballot Questions

Posted on October 05, 2010
Oklahomans will vote on 11 ballot questions when they go to the polls on November 2. A good number of these have state and federal constitutional implications. Among the highlights: Voter ID. State Question Number 746 asks voters whether they...

Likely Presidents Divided on Bosnia and Herzegovina Unity

Posted on October 04, 2010
Voters in Bosnia and Herzegovina today appear to have elected three presidents with different ideas about country unity. With about three-quarters of votes counted, the likely Croat and Muslim presidents favor continued unity, while the likely Serb president has advocated...

Supreme Court Civil Rights Cases, Petition to Decision

Posted on October 04, 2010
Con Law Prof David Achtenberg (UMKC) created an exciting new website for anyone interested in the workings of the Supreme Court on cases brought under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The site, Petition to Decision, is a "comprehensive digital archive of all...

New Book on Morse v. Frederick (the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case)

Posted on October 04, 2010
This first Monday in October, the start of a new term of the United States Supreme Court, reminds us of all the other cases the Court has decided, including the many which have achieved iconic status. A relatively recent case...

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Justice Kagan's Investiture Ceremony and OT 2010 Previews

Posted on October 01, 2010
The Supreme Court today held the formal Investiture Ceremony for Associate Justice Elena Kagan, the 100th Associate Justice to join the Court. According to the Court's web-site: During this special sitting of the Supreme Court, Justice Kagan took the Judicial...

Retired Supreme Court Justices to "Unretire"? Leahy Bill to Allow Justices to Sit by Designation

Posted on September 30, 2010
As we previously discussed, the suggestion to "bring back" Supreme Court Justices who have retired - - - that would be O'Connor, Souter, and Stevens - - - seems a solution to the problem of Supreme Court Justice recusals. The...

Kosovo Con Court Rules Against President

Posted on September 30, 2010
The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Kosovo ruled last week in Naim Rrustemi and 31 Other Deputies of the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo v. His Excellency Fatmir Sejdiu that President Fatmir Sejdiu committed a "serious violation" of...

New Civil Gideon Resource

Posted on September 29, 2010
The Philadelphia Bar Association recently launched its Civil Gideon Corner, an on-line resource page for all things Civil Gideon (including activities of the Bar Association's Civil Gideon Task Force). According to the site, The term "civil Gideon" refers to a...

Court to Consider a More Ordinary State Secrets Privilege

Posted on September 29, 2010
The Supreme Court yesterday agreed to hear a government contractor's case against the Defense Department involving the Department's invocation of the state secrets privilege. But the case doesn't involve anything nearly so dramatic as what we've seen recently come out...

First Amendment Protects Michigan Assistant AG's "Political Campaign" Against University Student President?

Posted on September 29, 2010
The CNN report by Anderson Cooper is worth watching: The blog "Chris Armstrong Watch," by the Assistant AG is entirely devoted to Chris Armstrong, the student body president. The Michigan student newspaper has quoted the statement of Michigan AG Mike...

Can the NJ Chief Justice Fill a Vacancy on the State Supreme Court?

Posted on September 28, 2010
New Jersey Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner earlier this month assigned Judge Edwin H. Stern, head of the state Superior Court Appellate Division, to temporarily fill a vacant seat on the state high court. The temporary assignment comes in...

Regulatory Takings Conference at UC-Berkeley

Posted on September 28, 2010
Is the "takings revolution" over? This conference "explores the regulatory takings issue as it relates to land use and environmental regulation" and "brings together a diverse group of leading scholars and experienced practitioners to discuss cutting-edge issues raised by recent...

Updating the ECPA (Electronic Communications Privacy Act)

Posted on September 27, 2010
The constitutional protection of "privacy" in the internet age is a subject of ongoing debate. As the NYT reports, Congress is considering "sweeping new regulations for the Internet," to include email, "Facebook" and "Skype" messaging. Such revisions will, of course,...

Washington High Court Upholds State Internet Gambling Ban

Posted on September 27, 2010
The Washington Supreme Court last week unanimously upheld the state's ban on internet gambling against a Dormant Commerce Clause challenging, ruling that the ban was not "clearly excessive" in relation to legitimate state interests. The case, Rousso v...

Government Moves to Dismiss Targeted Killing Case

Posted on September 26, 2010
The government on Friday filed its legal arguments in support of its motion to dismiss Nasser Al-Aulaqi's case against it for allegedly designating his son Anwar Al-Aulaqi, a U.S. citizen living in Yemen and allegedly supporting al Qaeda in the...

Miranda and Television: Anthony Franze, Justice Sotomayor, and the Roberts Court

Posted on September 26, 2010
Miranda warnings are a staple of "TV cop shows," and have become so ubiquitous that persons arrested in Canada, Australia, the U.K., and presumably other nations, reportedly protest when they do not receive their "Miranda warnings." The warnings are, of...

"Banned Books Week"

Posted on September 25, 2010
The last week in September is the American Library Association's "Banned Books Week": "an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment," which "highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while...

Don't Ask, Don't Tell: Unconstitutional as Applied to Major Margaret Witt

Posted on September 24, 2010
In an opinion today, Judge Ronald Leighton of the Western District of Washington, concluded: The application of ?Don't Ask Don?t Tell? to Major Margaret Witt does not significantly further the government?s interest in promoting military readiness, unit morale and cohesion...

Ninth Circuit Rejects Standing Based on Informational Injury

Posted on September 22, 2010
A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit today ruled in The Wilderness Society v. Rey that The Wilderness Society's claim for "informational injury" was insufficient to support Article III standing under the Supreme Court's 2009 ruling Summers v. Earth Island...

Florida appellate court: homosexual adoption ban unconstitutional

Posted on September 22, 2010
A Florida appellate court has declared Florida's ban of adoption of children by "homosexuals" unconstitutional. The 42 page opinion by the Third District Court of Appeal, affirms the finding of a trial court in late 2008, which we discussed here....

Inspector General Reviews FBI Investigations of Advocacy Groups

Posted on September 21, 2010
The Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General released a report today concluding that the FBI did not target five domestic advocacy groups and one individual on the basis of their protected First Amendment activities between January 2001 and...

Marijuana Legalization as a Civil Rights Issue

Posted on September 18, 2010
Editorializing about the "war on drugs" as a war not on the "drug lords and violent cartels" but a war " that disproportionately impacts young men and women and is the latest tool for imposing Jim Crow on poor African...

Constitution Day

Posted on September 17, 2010
September 17 is Constitution Day - - - or Constitution and Citizenship Day - - - as declared by Congress. The day commemorates the signing of the Constitution in 1787. However, this is no mere resolution. The law, codified at...

Facial Challenge to VRA to be Decided on Summary Judgment

Posted on September 16, 2010
Judge Bates of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia today ruled that a facial challenge to the Voting Rights Act may be decided on the pleadings and ordered the government to respond to the plaintiff's motion for...

Civin and Adegbile Analyze Twombly and Iqbal

Posted on September 15, 2010
Joshua Civin and Debo Adegbile of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund just published Restoring Access to Justice: The Impact of Iqbal and Twombly on Federal Civil Rights Litigation, an American Constitution Society Issue Brief on Bell Atlantic Corp...

Justice Breyer Promotes His New Book

Posted on September 14, 2010
Justice Stephen Breyer is interviewed by Terry Gross on "Fresh Air." The 30 minute or so audio is here and a transcript is here. Much of the discussion seems to be lifted directly from Breyer's new book, Making Our Democracy...

Con Law Chair at JMLS

Posted on September 14, 2010
The John Marshall Law School (Chicago) is soliciting applications for a new visiting chair in Constitutional Law. The Chair honors Edward T. Lee and his son, Noble W. Lee, for their many years of service to the law school, their...

Turkish Voters Approve Constitutional Amendments

Posted on September 13, 2010
Turkish voters yesterday approved a series of constitutional amendments by a 58-42 margin, with 78% voter turnout. The amendments, widely seen as a vote of confidence in Premier Erdogan, will help put the Turkish Constitution in line with requirements for...

Fritz on an Overlooked American Constitutionalism

Posted on September 11, 2010
Christian Fritz (U. NM Law) this week posted Foreword: Out From Under the Shadow of the Federal Constitution: An Overlooked American Constitutionalism on ssrn. The piece, an adaptation of Fritz's 2010 State Constitutional Lecture at the Rutgers-Camden Center for State...

South African Court Bans Bible Burning

Posted on September 11, 2010
Judge Sita Kolbe of the South Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) issued an interdict on Friday against a planned Bible burning by businessman and law student Mohammed Vawda. Vawda said his plan had nothing to do with Christianity; instead, he said...

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