Download or read book Against Constitutional Originalism written by Jonathan Gienapp and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2024-09-03 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A detailed and compelling examination of how the legal theory of originalism ignores and distorts the very constitutional history from which it derives interpretive authority “What are the chances that, in 2024, a new book could fundamentally reorient how we understand America’s founding? Jonathan Gienapp . . . has written such a book. . . . You read it, and you get vertigo. . . . Gienapp’s book comes as a thunderclap.”—Cass Sunstein, Washington Post Constitutional originalism stakes law to history. The theory’s core tenet—that the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted according to its original meaning—has us decide questions of modern constitutional law by consulting the distant constitutional past. Yet originalist engagement with history is often deeply problematic. And now that a majority of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court champion originalism, the task of scrutinizing originalists’ use and abuse of history has never been more urgent. In this comprehensive and novel critique of originalism, Jonathan Gienapp targets originalists’ unspoken assumptions about the Constitution and its history. Originalists are committed to recovering the Constitution laid down at the American Founding, yet they often assume that the Constitution is fundamentally modern. Rather than recovering the original Constitution, they project their own understandings onto it, assuming that eighteenth-century constitutional thinking was no different than their own. They take for granted what it meant to write a constitution down, what law was, how it worked, and where it came from, and how a constitution’s meaning was fixed. In the process, they erase the Constitution that eighteenth-century Americans in fact created. By understanding how originalism fails, we can better understand the Constitution that we have.

Download or read book A Great Power of Attorney written by Gary Lawson and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2017-05-05 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What kind of document is the United States Constitution and how does that characterization affect its meaning? Those questions are seemingly foundational for the entire enterprise of constitutional theory, but they are strangely under-examined. Legal scholars Gary Lawson and Guy Seidman propose that the Constitution, for purposes of interpretation, is a kind of fiduciary, or agency, instrument. The founding generation often spoke of the Constitution as a fiduciary document—or as a “great power of attorney,” in the words of founding-era legal giant James Iredell. Viewed against the background of fiduciary legal and political theory, which would have been familiar to the founding generation from both its education and its experience, the Constitution is best read as granting limited powers to the national government, as an agent, to manage some portion of the affairs of “We the People” and its “posterity.” What follows from this particular conception of the Constitution—and is of greater importance—is the question of whether, and how much and in what ways, the discretion of governmental agents in exercising those constitutionally granted powers is also limited by background norms of fiduciary obligation. Those norms, the authors remind us, include duties of loyalty, care, impartiality, and personal exercise. In the context of the Constitution, this has implications for everything from non-delegation to equal protection to so-called substantive due process, as well as for the scope of any implied powers claimed by the national government. In mapping out what these imperatives might mean—such as limited discretionary power, limited implied powers, a need to engage in fair dealing with all parties, and an obligation to serve at all times the interests of the Constitution’s beneficiaries—Lawson and Seidman offer a clearer picture of the original design for a limited government.

Download or read book The Rise of the Working Class Shareholder written by David Webber and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-02 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Riveting . . . contributes wonderfully to a new and ongoing conversation about inequality, dark money, and populism in the electorate.” —Mehrsa Baradaran, author of The Color of Money When Steven Burd, CEO of the supermarket chain Safeway, cut wages and benefits, starting a five-month strike by 59,000 unionized workers, he was confident he would win. But where traditional labor action failed, a new approach was more successful. With the aid of the California Public Employees' Retirement System, a $300 billion pension fund, workers led a shareholder revolt that unseated three of Burd’s boardroom allies. In The Rise of the Working-Class Shareholder: Labor’s Last Best Weapon, David Webber uses cases such as Safeway’s to shine a light on labor’s most potent remaining weapon: its multitrillion-dollar pension funds. Outmaneuvered at the bargaining table and under constant assault in Washington, statehouses, and the courts, worker organizations are beginning to exercise muscle through markets. Shareholder activism has been used to divest from anti-labor companies, gun makers, and tobacco; diversify corporate boards; support Occupy Wall Street; force global warming onto the corporate agenda; create jobs; and challenge outlandish CEO pay. Webber argues that workers have found in labor’s capital a potent strategy against their exploiters. He explains the tactic’s surmountable difficulties even as he cautions that corporate interests are already working to deny labor’s access to this powerful and underused tool. The Rise of the Working-Class Shareholder is a rare good-news story for American workers, an opportunity hiding in plain sight. Combining legal rigor with inspiring narratives of labor victory, Webber shows how workers can wield their own capital to reclaim their strength. “Weaves narratives of activist campaigns (pension fund administrators, union staffers, and government comptrollers are the book’s unlikely heroes) with fine-grained analysis of the relevant legal and financial concepts in accessible prose.” —Publishers Weekly

Download or read book Repugnant Laws written by Keith E. Whittington and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2020-05-18 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the Supreme Court strikes down favored legislation, politicians cry judicial activism. When the law is one politicians oppose, the court is heroically righting a wrong. In our polarized moment of partisan fervor, the Supreme Court’s routine work of judicial review is increasingly viewed through a political lens, decried by one side or the other as judicial overreach, or “legislating from the bench.” But is this really the case? Keith E. Whittington asks in Repugnant Laws, a first-of-its-kind history of judicial review. A thorough examination of the record of judicial review requires first a comprehensive inventory of relevant cases. To this end, Whittington revises the extant catalog of cases in which the court has struck down a federal statute and adds to this, for the first time, a complete catalog of cases upholding laws of Congress against constitutional challenges. With reference to this inventory, Whittington is then able to offer a reassessment of the prevalence of judicial review, an account of how the power of judicial review has evolved over time, and a persuasive challenge to the idea of an antidemocratic, heroic court. In this analysis, it becomes apparent that that the court is political and often partisan, operating as a political ally to dominant political coalitions; vulnerable and largely unable to sustain consistent opposition to the policy priorities of empowered political majorities; and quasi-independent, actively exercising the power of judicial review to pursue the justices’ own priorities within bounds of what is politically tolerable. The court, Repugnant Laws suggests, is a political institution operating in a political environment to advance controversial principles, often with the aid of political leaders who sometimes encourage and generally tolerate the judicial nullification of federal laws because it serves their own interests to do so. In the midst of heated battles over partisan and activist Supreme Court justices, Keith Whittington’s work reminds us that, for better or for worse, the court reflects the politics of its time.

Download or read book How to Run a Corporation written by A. J. Daggs and published by . This book was released on 1905 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Second Creation written by Jonathan Gienapp and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-09 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stunning revision of our founding document’s evolving history that forces us to confront anew the question that animated the founders so long ago: What is our Constitution? Americans widely believe that the United States Constitution was created when it was drafted in 1787 and ratified in 1788. But in a shrewd rereading of the Founding era, Jonathan Gienapp upends this long-held assumption, recovering the unknown story of American constitutional creation in the decade after its adoption—a story with explosive implications for current debates over constitutional originalism and interpretation. When the Constitution first appeared, it was shrouded in uncertainty. Not only was its meaning unclear, but so too was its essential nature. Was the American Constitution a written text, or something else? Was it a legal text? Was it finished or unfinished? What rules would guide its interpretation? Who would adjudicate competing readings? As political leaders put the Constitution to work, none of these questions had answers. Through vigorous debates they confronted the document’s uncertainty, and—over time—how these leaders imagined the Constitution radically changed. They had begun trying to fix, or resolve, an imperfect document, but they ended up fixing, or cementing, a very particular notion of the Constitution as a distinctively textual and historical artifact circumscribed in space and time. This means that some of the Constitution’s most definitive characteristics, ones which are often treated as innate, were only added later and were thus contingent and optional.

Download or read book We the Corporations How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights written by Adam Winkler and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2018-02-27 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: National Book Award for Nonfiction Finalist National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction Finalist A New York Times Notable Book of the Year A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year A PBS “Now Read This” Book Club Selection Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Economist and the Boston Globe A landmark exposé and “deeply engaging legal history” of one of the most successful, yet least known, civil rights movements in American history (Washington Post). In a revelatory work praised as “excellent and timely” (New York Times Book Review, front page), Adam Winkler, author of Gunfight, once again makes sense of our fraught constitutional history in this incisive portrait of how American businesses seized political power, won “equal rights,” and transformed the Constitution to serve big business. Uncovering the deep roots of Citizens United, he repositions that controversial 2010 Supreme Court decision as the capstone of a centuries-old battle for corporate personhood. “Tackling a topic that ought to be at the heart of political debate” (Economist), Winkler surveys more than four hundred years of diverse cases—and the contributions of such legendary legal figures as Daniel Webster, Roger Taney, Lewis Powell, and even Thurgood Marshall—to reveal that “the history of corporate rights is replete with ironies” (Wall Street Journal). We the Corporations is an uncompromising work of history to be read for years to come.

Download or read book An Analysis of the Constitution of the East India Company and of the Laws Passed by Parliament for the Government of Their Affairs at Home and Abroad written by Peter Auber and published by . This book was released on 1826 with total page 1110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Law and Legitimacy in the Supreme Court written by Richard H. Fallon and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2018-02-19 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Legitimacy and judicial authority -- Constitutional meaning : original public meaning -- Constitutional meaning : varieties of history that matter -- Law in the Supreme Court : jurisprudential foundations -- Constitutional constraints -- Constitutional theory and its relation to constitutional practice -- Sociological, legal, and moral legitimacy : today and tomorrow

Download or read book Michigan Law Review written by and published by . This book was released on 1937 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Fiduciary Law written by Tamar Frankel and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Fiduciary Law, Tamar Frankel examines the structure, principles, themes, and objectives of fiduciary law. Fiduciaries, which include corporate managers, money managers, lawyers, and physicians among others, are entrusted with money or power. Frankel explains how fiduciary law is designed to offer protection from abuse of this method of safekeeping. She deals with fiduciaries in general, and identifies situations in which fiduciary law falls short of offering protection. Frankel analyzes fiduciary debates, and argues that greater preventive measures are required. She offers guidelines for determining the boundaries and substance of fiduciary law, and discusses how failure to enforce fiduciary law can contribute to failing financial and economic systems. Frankel offers ideas and explanations for the courts, regulators, and legislatures, as well as the fiduciaries and entrustors. She argues for strong legal protection against abuse of entrustment as a means of encouraging fiduciary services in society. Fiduciary Law can help lawyers and policy makers designing the future law and the systems that it protects.

Download or read book A Treatise on the Constitutional Limitations which Rest Upon the Legislative Power of the States of the American Union written by Thomas McIntyre Cooley and published by . This book was released on 1903 with total page 1172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Federal Register written by and published by . This book was released on 1977-08 with total page 1632 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Keeping Faith with the Constitution written by Goodwin Liu and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-08-05 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chief Justice John Marshall argued that a constitution "requires that only its great outlines should be marked [and] its important objects designated." Ours is "intended to endure for ages to come, and consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs." In recent years, Marshall's great truths have been challenged by proponents of originalism and strict construction. Such legal thinkers as Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia argue that the Constitution must be construed and applied as it was when the Framers wrote it. In Keeping Faith with the Constitution, three legal authorities make the case for Marshall's vision. They describe their approach as "constitutional fidelity"--not to how the Framers would have applied the Constitution, but to the text and principles of the Constitution itself. The original understanding of the text is one source of interpretation, but not the only one; to preserve the meaning and authority of the document, to keep it vital, applications of the Constitution must be shaped by precedent, historical experience, practical consequence, and societal change. The authors range across the history of constitutional interpretation to show how this approach has been the source of our greatest advances, from Brown v. Board of Education to the New Deal, from the Miranda decision to the expansion of women's rights. They delve into the complexities of voting rights, the malapportionment of legislative districts, speech freedoms, civil liberties and the War on Terror, and the evolution of checks and balances. The Constitution's framers could never have imagined DNA, global warming, or even women's equality. Yet these and many more realities shape our lives and outlook. Our Constitution will remain vital into our changing future, the authors write, if judges remain true to this rich tradition of adaptation and fidelity.

Download or read book Fidelity Constraint written by Lawrence Lessig and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-03 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fundamental fact about our Constitution is that it is old -- the oldest written constitution in the world. The fundamental challenge for interpreters of the Constitution is how to read that old document over time. In Fidelity & Constraint, legal scholar Lawrence Lessig explains that one of the most basic approaches to interpreting the constitution is the process of translation. Indeed, some of the most significant shifts in constitutional doctrine are products of the evolution of the translation process over time. In every new era, judges understand their translations as instances of "interpretive fidelity," framed within each new temporal context. Yet, as Lessig also argues, there is a repeatedly occurring countermove that upends the process of translation. Throughout American history, there has been a second fidelity in addition to interpretive fidelity: what Lessig calls "fidelity to role." In each of the cycles of translation that he describes, the role of the judge -- the ultimate translator -- has evolved too. Old ways of interpreting the text now become illegitimate because they do not match up with the judge's perceived role. And when that conflict occurs, the practice of judges within our tradition has been to follow the guidance of a fidelity to role. Ultimately, Lessig not only shows us how important the concept of translation is to constitutional interpretation, but also exposes the institutional limits on this practice. The first work of both constitutional and foundational theory by one of America's leading legal minds, Fidelity & Constraint maps strategies that both help judges understand the fundamental conflict at the heart of interpretation whenever it arises and work around the limits it inevitably creates.

Download or read book Tribal Business Structure Handbook written by Karen J. Atkinson and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive resource on the formation of tribal business entities. Hailed in Indian Country Today as offering "one-stop knowledge on business structuring," the Handbook reviews each type of tribal business entity from the perspective of sovereign immunity and legal liability, corporate formation and governance, federal tax consequences and eligibility for special financing. Covers governmental entities and common forms of business structures.

Download or read book Digest of the American Law Register written by Benjamin H. Haines and published by . This book was released on 1877 with total page 1088 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: