Hello everyone. Welcome to Property II. You can view the course homepage here. The syllabus is here.
The first assignment for class on 8/17/15 is:
See you in class.
I have created playlists of the lectures from previous years.
Here is the playlist from Fall 2014.
Here is the playlist for all of the videos for this semester.
Welcome to Constitutional Law. This class will cover a wide range of topics in constitutional law, including our constitutional structure, the scope of federal powers, the separation of powers, the 14th Amendment’s Due Process and Equal Protection clauses, individual liberty, federalism, the First Amendment speech and religion clauses, the Supreme Court, and many other topics. We will be using “The Constitution of the United States” by Paulsen, Calabresi, McConnell, Bray (Second Edition, Foundation Press, 2013).
You can find the syllabus here. Your assignment for the first day of class on 8/17/15:
Note: Read these documents in their entirety. They’re not long. And no one should graduate law school without reading them at least once.
You can also view all the class videos by subscribing to the YouTube channel. I have created playlists of the lectures from previous years.
Here is the playlist for the lectures from Spring 2015.
The lectures for this semester will appear on this playlist.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada Russ Brown. Brown was previously a law professor, who blogged on the University of Alberta’s Faculty Blog from 2007-12. The Globe and Mail went through his blog posts, and found that he was an outspoken conservative, was very critical of the uber-liberal Canadian Supreme Court (of which he is now a member) and its Chief Justice (now his colleague), and criticizes the uber-liberal Canadian Bar Association (which no doubt opposes him). Unlike in the United States, there is no confirmation hearing, and no opportunity for anyone to ask Justice Brown any questions in advance.
Justice Brown has not given media interviews. And there is no longer any forum in which he can be asked about his views on the law. The government appears to have given up on the parliamentary hearings at which MPs publicly grilled the Supreme Court’s newest appointee. The Globe and Mail asked an official at the Supreme Court to contact him to ask if he would discuss the content of his blogs. Justice Brown declined to do so.
While I know very little about Canadian law, this appointment offers an insight into the judicial nomination process. Then-Professor Brown did not trim his sails. He was outspoken about his views, and was publicly critical of the legal system he worked in. It is not hard to see why the Prime Minister would appoint someone who has developed his views on the law and the court. Also, unlike in the United States, there is no bruising confirmation hearing where Justice Brown’s previous views could come back to haunt him.
So would/could this ever happen in the United States? Following up on a post I wrote two weeks ago about timidity among prospective judges, I think it should. To use an example I wrote about previously, consider Eugene Volokh. I doubt any other law professor has written more blog posts about more topics in the last decade-plus. I’m sure some newspaper could troll through every single blog post, and pick out statements made by Volokh that reflect critically on the Court or the government. And to that, I say, so what. Writing–blogging in particular–offers a unique insight into how a person thinks, writes, and approaches the world. While judicial independence is indispensable, the Executive should be able to get a sense of what a judge believes before a life-time appointment is made. Maybe soon Article III will get its first blogging judge.
Shameless plug: I am proudly on the blog roll of the University of Alberta’s Faculty Blog, and have been linked from there a number of times by my fellow GMUSL alum Moin Yahya–never by Justice Brown.
In his weekly address commemorating the 50th anniversary of Medicaid and Medicare, President Obama celebrated the Affordable Care Act, which is “finishing the job” started by President Johnson five decades earlier.
But as Americans, we declared that our citizens deserve a basic measure of security and dignity. And today, the poverty rate for seniors is less than half of what it was fifty years ago. Every American over 65 has access to affordable health care. And today, we’re finally finishing the job — since I signed the Affordable Care Act into law, the uninsured rate for all Americans has fallen by about one-third.
These promises we made as a nation have saved millions of our own people from poverty and hardship, allowing us new freedom, new independence, and the chance to live longer, better lives. That’s something to be proud of. It’s heroic. These endeavors — these American endeavors — they didn’t just make us a better country. They reaffirmed that we are a great country.
And, in a not-too-subtle knock on ACA detractors, the President explains that this law will create “the freedom to live our lives as we want.”
Today, these programs are so fundamental to our way of life that it’s easy to forget how hard people fought against them at the time. When FDR created Social Security, critics called it socialism. When JFK and LBJ worked to create Medicare, the cynics said it would take away our freedom. But ultimately, we came to see these programs for what they truly are — a promise that if we work hard, and play by the rules, we’ll be rewarded with a basic measure of dignity, security, and the freedom to live our lives as we want.
It’s a promise that previous generations made to us, and a promise that our generation has to keep.
This speech will go somewhere in my book.