Academic Round-Up

With all of the exciting action and commentary that is sure to ensue when the Court decides the school cases on Thursday, I thought I would post the academic round-up a bit earlier than usual this week.

Ethan Yale (Georgetown University Law Center) and Brian Galle (Florida State University College of Law) have a new paper that analyzes the Court’s United Haulers opinion, and its implications for the recently granted case of Davis v. Kentucky, which will examine the constitutionality of the practice by states of giving preferential tax treatment to in-state municipal bonds, see here.

The Northwestern University Law Review Colloquy will soon be running a response to the piece by Amy Wildermuth and Kathryn Watts on the Court’s decision in Massachusetts v. EPA that I have highlighted in the last couple of academic round-ups. In the response, Professor Jonathan Adler (Case Western Reserve University School of Law) contends that Professors Watts and Wildermuth underestimate the impact of the Court’s decision in the case, arguing that it virtually ensures federal regulation of Greenhouse gases from motor vehicles and other emission sources, see here.

In light of my earlier coverage of the Hein opinion, see here and here, I would like to note that Professor Debra Lowman (St. John’s University School of Law) has posted an article on SSRN entitled “A Call for Judicial Restraint: Federal Taxpayer Grievances Challenging Executive Action,” see here. Her paper analyzes the Seventh Circuit’s decision in the Hein case, and ultimately concludes that taxpayer standing to challenge executive action in the Establishment Clause context is inconsistent with the Court’s standing doctrine, an approach very similar to the plurality opinion.

Professor Edward Foley (Ohio State University College of Law) recently posted a piece entitled “The Future of Bush v. Gore,” see here, which analyzes in detail perhaps the Rehnquist Court’s most infamous precedent. In the Article, Professor Foley asks and attempts to answer three related questions: (1) to what extent will the Equal Protection holding in the case generate a new domain of meritorious Equal Protection challenges to voting procedures?; (2) to what extent will the Court’s willingness to intervene in the Florida recount result in greater judicial intervention in voting procedures already underway?; and (3) to what extent will the intense media scrutiny and academic criticism affect the Court’s role in constitutional cases generally?