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Sunday, November 14, 2004

Law - State constitutions v. the federal constitution

Here is the Table of Contents for the upcoming Volume 46, Issue 4 (February 2005) of the William & Mary Law Review:

James A. Gardner, Whose Constitution Is It? Why Federalism and Constitutional Positivism Don't Mix

Hans A. Linde, The State and The Federal Courts In Governance: Vive La Différence!

Robert J. Pushaw, Jr., Bridging the Enforcement Gap In Constitutional Law: A Critique of The Supreme Court's Theory That Self-Restraint Promotes Federalism

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, Remarks at the National Center for State Courts Conference on State Constitutionalism

Jim Rossi, Dual Constitutions and Constitutional Duels: Separation of Powers and State Implementation of Federally-Inspired Regulatory Programs and Standards

Lawrence G. Sager, Cool Federalism and The Life-Cycle of Moral Progress

Robert A. Schapiro, Interjurisdictional Enforcement of Rights in A Post-Erie World

Randall T. Shepard, In a Federal Case, Is the State Constitution Something Important or Just Another Piece of Paper?

Michael E. Solimine, The Future of Parity

Robert F. Williams, State Courts Adopting Federal Constitutional Doctrine: Case-By-Case Adoptionism or Prospective Lockstepping?

Below is an abstract to the article serving an an introduction to the issue, titled "The New Frontier of State Constitutional Law." The article itself is available via a download link on the SSRN abstract page:
In the past decade, a new frontier of constitutional discourse has begun to emerge, adding a fresh perspective to state constitutional law. Instead of treating states as jurisdictional islands in a sea under reign of the federal government, this new approach sees states as co-equals among themselves and between them and the federal government in a collective enterprise of democratic self-governance. This Symposium, organized around the theme of Dual Enforcement of Constitutional Norms, provides the occasion for leading scholars on state constitutional law to take a fresh look at their subject by adopting a vantage point outside of the individualized jurisdictional context. Instead, the Symposium invited participants to consider directly whether state and federal constitutional law are separate and distinct systems of law, each with its own doctrines, traditions, and dominant norms, or whether state and federal constitutional law may profitably be understood as complementary features of a shared project of elaborating and enforcing shared constitutional norms. The Articles in this issue lie along what we hope will prove to be a new frontier that moves courts and scholars closer to a sustainable interpretive theory of state constitutions, shedding important light on the role of state courts, while also addressing the federal judicial role in a system of dual enforcement.
[More] See this column today in the Washington Post on "How the Court Is Stifling Innovation at the State Level."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 14, 2004 03:57 PM
Posted to General Law Related