News Muncher - category originalism

5 months ago

The Supreme Court Can’t Outrun Clarence Thomas’ Terrible Guns Opinion

Slate

In the late 1960s, when conservatives felt that the Warren court was tilting too far to the left, magicking up in their opinions a Constitution that did not exist, Robert Bork, the patriarch of originalism, took a revelatory position: The Constitution should be interpreted in the ways intended by the people who wrote it. But in Rahimi, five conservative justices …

Supreme Court Constitution Court Test Conservative Guns Right

5 months, 1 week ago

White supremacy with a law degree: How do we escape "The Originalism Trap"?

Salon

In her new book, “The Originalism Trap: How Extremists Stole the Constitution and How We the People Can Take It Back,” Madiba K. Dennie critiques the legal doctrine known as "originalism," calling it a movement born out of opposition to the school desegregation mandated by the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision. Dennie, deputy editor at the legal …

Law Reproductive Rights Constitution Court Rights Congress Reconstruction

5 months, 3 weeks ago

The Supreme Court Is Separating American Families With Phony Originalism

Slate

The Supreme Court issued an important and disturbing decision substantially curtailing the rights of immigrant families on Friday in Department of State v. Muñoz. The Supreme Court considered several constitutional immigrants’ rights cases when Justice Anthony Kennedy was at the court’s center, and it was generally not willing to reaffirm the most draconian immigration law precedents from the Chinese Exclusion …

Law Immigration Supreme Court Court Rights Immigration Law Biden

5 months, 4 weeks ago

The Supreme Court just opened the door to new Second Amendment chaos.

Slate

This is part of Opinionpalooza, Slate’s coverage of the major decisions from the Supreme Court this June. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for a very fractured majority of eight, upheld a federal law that disarms domestic abusers, deeming it sufficiently rooted in “history and tradition.” Roberts painstakingly explained that while the court’s conservative justices are still very much gun nuts, …

Justice Court Courts Gun Second Amendment Barrett

6 months ago

Amy Coney Barrett Sounds Fed Up with Clarence Thomas’ Sloppy Originalism

Slate

This is part of Opinionpalooza, Slate’s coverage of the major decisions from the Supreme Court this June. What’s remarkable is who seized on this squabble over intellectual property to launch a scathing salvo against the conservative majority’s “laser-like focus” on “supposed history and tradition”: Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative who presented as a true believer in originalism when joining …

History Opinion Historical Court Trademark Constitutional Courts

7 months, 1 week ago

A State Supreme Court Justice Decries the “Horrors and Treachery” Coming From SCOTUS

Slate

This is part of How Originalism Ate the Law, a Slate series about the legal theory that ruined everything. Perhaps no lower court judge has condemned the U.S. Supreme Court’s reliance on bogus history and racist values as sharply as Hawaii Supreme Court Justice Todd Eddins. So I thought, Hey, here’s an opportunity to take down the dishonest U.S. Supreme …

Law History Justice Supreme Court Constitution Court State

7 months, 1 week ago

From voting rights to guns to abortion, the Supreme Court originalist majority has caused chaos.

Slate

Get your tickets for Amicus Live in Washington DC here. This week they’re trying to understand the mechanisms of what Professor Saul Cornell calls “the originalism industrial complex” and how those mechanisms plug into the highest court in the land. They’re also asking how and why liberals failed to find an effective answer to originalism, even as the various “originalist” …

Supreme Court Slate Plus Dahlia Originalism Amicus

7 months, 2 weeks ago

How to fix the law in the United States: Form your own opinion about the Constitution.

Slate

This is part of How Originalism Ate the Law, a Slate series about the legal theory that ruined everything. Perhaps the most consistent features of originalist decisions are their density and verbosity: To determine whether a purported right is sufficiently “deeply rooted” in “history and tradition,” justices and judges conduct meandering surveys of English common law, quote the dusty treatises …

Law History Opinion Supreme Court Constitution Judges Court

7 months, 2 weeks ago

The alternative to originalism we ought to pursue is inclusive constitutionalism.

Slate

This is part of How Originalism Ate the Law, a Slate series about the legal theory that ruined everything. Yet the Supreme Court expressly rejected that very idea in May 1954 when it decided Brown v. Board of Education and recognized racially segregated schools as unconstitutional: “We cannot turn the clock back to 1868,” the court wrote with reference to …

Court Reconstruction Meaning Inclusive Supreme Amendments Originalism

7 months, 2 weeks ago

Why Ketanji Brown Jackson’s attempt to save originalism isn’t working.

Slate

This is part of How Originalism Ate the Law, a Slate series about the legal theory that ruined everything. Kagan, however, came to regret that quip after watching her conservative colleagues implement a series of GOP policy preferences in the name of applying the Constitution’s “original” meaning, which is what originalism claims to be. In both, she delivered: The justice …

Women Constitution Court Rights Congress Conservative Amendment

7 months, 2 weeks ago

Guns, SCOTUS, and Rahimi: Originalism is one reason America has such a huge problem with guns.

Slate

This is part of How Originalism Ate the Law, a Slate series about the legal theory that ruined everything. To take a step back, the Second Amendment itself reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” As historian and author …

Historical Supreme Court Legal English Constitution Court Rights

7 months, 2 weeks ago

A.J. Jacobs, of the Year of Living Constitutionally, shares what the experience taught him about originalism.

Slate

This is part of How Originalism Ate the Law, a Slate series about the legal theory that ruined everything. As another example, hardcore originalist Justice Clarence Thomas says that the Constitution’s “equal protection” does not apply to gay marriage. For instance, former Justice Antonin Scalia famously said that the 14th Amendment’s original meaning doesn’t apply to “discrimination on the basis …

Supreme Court Constitution Rights Constitutional Meaning Right Amendment

7 months, 2 weeks ago

Dahlia Lithwick explains how originalism took over the courts and dictates the law on guns, abortion, and more.

Slate

This is part of How Originalism Ate the Law, a Slate series about the legal theory that ruined everything. And that’s because the whole nation is currently lashed to a small, stupid, perpetually changing theory of legal interpretation variously known as “originalism,” or “textualism,” or “original public meaning,” or “history and tradition.” A theory that is—unless you were born in …

Law History Supreme Court Judges Court Trump Constitutional

7 months, 2 weeks ago

The U.S. Supreme Court’s dangerous myth-making: The origins of originalism.

Slate

In this, the first part of a special series on Amicus and at Slate.com, we are lifting the lid on an old-timey sounding method of constitutional interpretation that has unleashed a revolution in our courts, and an assault on our rights. But originalism’s origins are much more recent than you suppose, and its effects much more widespread than the constitutional …

Originalism

8 months, 2 weeks ago

Amicus Live: How Originalism Captured The Court

Slate

Date: May 14, 2024 7:00 PM EDT Location: Sixth & I, 600 I St NW, Washington, DC Tickets: $15-$80 JUST ANNOUNCED: We are thrilled to announce the addition of Congressman Jamie Raskin to tomorrow’s event. At this live taping, Dahlia Lithwick, Mark Joseph Stern, and special guests civil rights lawyer and scholar Sherrilyn Ifill, Hawaii Supreme Court Justice Todd Eddins, …

Supreme Court Event Location Sixth

8 months, 3 weeks ago

A Supreme Court Justice Sounds a Warning

Politico

If the court continues to deploy their methods of interpretation, Breyer told me, “We will have a Constitution that no one wants.” It’s a remarkable statement from a former Supreme Court justice. Good point.” And then he would say that this method — what I think of as traditional, I think involves purposes, consequences, values and sometimes much more — …

Law Human Rights Justice Supreme Court Words Constitution Court

11 months ago

Phony Originalism Could Cost Florida Women Their Abortion Rights

Slate

A challenge to Florida’s stringent abortion regime is currently before the conservative Supreme Court of Florida. Sounding a similar note, there is an article from the Sept. 23 edition of the Sun-Sentinel, also in south Florida, reporting : “Kunst said the amendment will give backing to court challenges of issues such as prostitution, gun control, abortion rights and others when …

Abortion Privacy Court Rights Privacy Rights Miami Right

1 year, 6 months ago

Clarence Thomas Went After My Work. His Criticisms Reveal a Disturbing Fact About Originalism.

Slate

This is part of Opinionpalooza, Slate’s coverage of the major decisions from the Supreme Court this June. I can’t claim to be an impartial observer here, since Gorsuch relied on my work and amicus brief—as well as the work of other important scholars like Matthew Fletcher, Wenona Singel, Michalyn Steele, Robert Clinton, Christopher Green, and a historians’ amicus brief authored …

Historical Supreme Court Constitution Court Indian Work Thomas

2 years, 1 month ago

A Federal Judge Calls Clarence Thomas’ Bluff on Gun Rights and Originalism

Slate

Federal judges are not historians, but they are increasingly obligated to play them on the bench. In his Bruen decision last June, Justice Clarence Thomas ordered courts to assess the constitutionality of modern-day gun restrictions by searching for “historical analogues” from 1791, when the Second Amendment was ratified. Judges based their decisions on those scraps without further research, following Thomas’ …

Law Historical Judges Judge Gun Rights Reeves Thomas

2 years, 3 months ago

Op-Ed: How the scourge of originalism is taking over the Supreme Court

LA Times

In 1987, the Senate resoundingly rejected the nomination of Judge Robert Bork for the Supreme Court because it found his originalist views unacceptable. In expanding the scope of the 2nd Amendment and striking down New York’s law limiting having concealed weapons in public, the court said, “Only if a firearm regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition may a …

Law Supreme Court School Court Congress Constitutional Right

4 years, 2 months ago

Op-Ed: Judge Barrett is an originalist. Should we be afraid?

LA Times

Amy Coney Barrett, at her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing Tuesday, has said that she shares the originalism philosophy of her mentor, the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Originalism, the judicial philosophy of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, and her mentor, the late Justice Antonin Scalia, is once again the subject of intense interest and public debate. Had the court …

Law Supreme Court Court Congress Constitutional Text Barrett

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Articles for Originalism

The Supreme Court Can’t Outrun Clarence Thomas’ Terrible Guns Opinion

White supremacy with a law degree: How do we escape "The Originalism Trap"?

The Supreme Court Is Separating American Families With Phony Originalism

The Supreme Court just opened the door to new Second Amendment chaos.

Amy Coney Barrett Sounds Fed Up with Clarence Thomas’ Sloppy Originalism

A State Supreme Court Justice Decries the “Horrors and Treachery” Coming From SCOTUS

From voting rights to guns to abortion, the Supreme Court originalist majority has caused chaos.

How to fix the law in the United States: Form your own opinion about the Constitution.

The alternative to originalism we ought to pursue is inclusive constitutionalism.

Why Ketanji Brown Jackson’s attempt to save originalism isn’t working.

Guns, SCOTUS, and Rahimi: Originalism is one reason America has such a huge problem with guns.

A.J. Jacobs, of the Year of Living Constitutionally, shares what the experience taught him about originalism.

Dahlia Lithwick explains how originalism took over the courts and dictates the law on guns, abortion, and more.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s dangerous myth-making: The origins of originalism.

Amicus Live: How Originalism Captured The Court

A Supreme Court Justice Sounds a Warning

Phony Originalism Could Cost Florida Women Their Abortion Rights

Clarence Thomas Went After My Work. His Criticisms Reveal a Disturbing Fact About Originalism.

A Federal Judge Calls Clarence Thomas’ Bluff on Gun Rights and Originalism

Op-Ed: How the scourge of originalism is taking over the Supreme Court

Op-Ed: Judge Barrett is an originalist. Should we be afraid?