Issue Archives
Until the Supreme Court put an end to it in Shelby County v. Holder, section 5 of the Voting Rights Act was widely regarded as an effective, low-cost tool for blocking potentially discriminatory changes to election laws and administrative practices. The provision the Supreme Court left standing, section 2, is generally seen as expensive, cumbersome, and almost wholly ineffective at blocking changes before they take effect. This Article...
In 1970, Congress enacted the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) to address concerns that inadequate safeguards existed to protect consumers in their interactions with credit reporting agencies. Government regulation of credit reporting is critical because the structure of the credit reporting industry does not adequately incentivize credit reporting agencies to maintain accuracy in consumers’ credit reports. Since the enactment of the FCRA, the...
With Congress divided over comprehensive immigration reform, federal and subfederal actors have stepped into the breach. In 2012 and 2014, in an effort to counter congressional paralysis, President Barack Obama extended deferred action to millions of undocumented noncitizen children and their parents. In doing so, he reignited debates about the constitutional boundaries of executive power. Among other things, these debates have highlighted the...
International comity is one of the principal foundations of U.S. foreign relations law. The doctrines of American law that mediate the relationship between the U.S. legal system and those of other nations are nearly all manifestations of international comity—from the conflict of laws to the presumption against extraterritoriality; from the recognition of foreign judgments to the doctrines limiting adjudicative jurisdiction in international cases;...
This Essay provides a new framework for criticizing originalism or its alternatives—the framework of positive law.
Existing debates are either conceptual or normative: They focus either on the nature of interpretation and authority, or on originalism’s ability to serve other values, like predictability, democracy, or general welfare. Both sets of debates are stalled. Instead, we ought to ask: Is originalism our law? If not, what...
Response to: Jon D. Michaels, An Enduring, Evolving Separation of Powers, 115 Colum. L. Rev. 515 (2015).
Constitutional standing doctrine requires that a private party seeking to defend the validity of a state statute must possess a “particularized” interest in the statute’s validity. When California officials refused to defend the constitutionality of Proposition 8, no one, not even the initiative’s official ballot sponsors, could demonstrate standing in order...
Peter L. Strauss, Betts Professor of Law Versions of the following Essays were presented at a Symposium in Honor of Peter L. Strauss on April 24, 2015. Professor Strauss is the Betts Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1971. In addition to his duties on the faculty, Professor Strauss has contributed greatly […]
Political polarization has become a major focus in contemporary discussions on congressional activity and governance. The tone of these discussions has grown increasingly grim, as many political scientists argue that a constitutional system of divided and shared powers hardens current levels of partisan warfare into legislative gridlock. Proposals for reform abound. Scholars and political commentators have called for modifications to the electoral...