Search for: "Stephen E. Sachs"
Results 41 - 60
of 114
Sorted by Relevance
|
Sort by Date
9 Dec 2021, 6:16 pm
Smith comments at Ius & Iustitium on my prior post on originalism and positive law, comparing it to Stephen [read post]
9 Nov 2021, 8:40 am
[Two points in response to Ilya Somin.] Two quick points regarding Ilya Somin's kind response on principles and SB8. Ilya argues that courts can't permit a state to block "meaningful federal judicial review of laws that might violate constitutional rights." To that end, courts can depart from general procedural rules—about sovereign immunity, proper parties, and so on—to the point of hearing suits against "the clerk, the janitor, the bailiff, or whatever other… [read post]
24 Mar 2025, 8:12 am
[A response to Joel Alicea on whether originalism needs a moral defense.] Does originalism need a moral defense? In his newly published Vaughan Lecture, Joel Alicea argues that it does: Justifying a constitutional methodology requires arguing that judges ought to employ that methodology, which requires making a moral argument that the methodology is better than its competitors. And we can only know the comparative moral soundness of competing methodologies by reference to some standard of moral… [read post]
22 Jul 2024, 8:38 am
[Let voting parents cast ballots for their children.] Kids don't vote. That means nearly a quarter of American citizens don't have their interests defended at the polls. But parents can vote, and they could vote on behalf of their children. This bipartisan idea, with support ranging from Cornel West to J.D. Vance, would be the most significant expansion of the franchise since the Nineteenth Amendment—and it's something that any state legislature could do on its own,… [read post]
20 Nov 2023, 8:33 am
[What happens on the day after Erie is overturned?] Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins is a foundational case for American lawyers, and it's one of the Supreme Court's greatest mistakes. Rather than rejecting "federal common law," Erie and its progeny actually created the category, discarding along the way a crucial concept of "general law" foundational to our constitutional structure. I've argued at length that this was an intellectual and practical mistake,… [read post]
25 Sep 2014, 5:01 am
Stephen E. [read post]
20 May 2024, 4:00 am
School of Law Research Paper Forthcoming).Stephen E. [read post]
5 Nov 2021, 11:39 am
[Worrying about reasons, not slippery slopes.] Talking about the procedural niceties in the SB8 litigation (as here, or here, or here) may seem rather callous. The device SB8 invented could be used to target any rights one cares about, including First Amendment rights of speech or religion. It could impose enormous penalties, chilling conduct that's almost-certainly protected by the Constitution, whenever a small risk of liability would be too much to bear. And it could forestall in practice… [read post]
28 May 2024, 8:50 am
[How Americans ought to think about our founding principles.] Over the course of my own lifetime, there's been a massive cultural change in how Americans talk about the American Founding. For the last decade or so, it's fair to say that the Founders have come in for a good deal more moral scrutiny. How much of this is deserved, and how should we think about the Founding today? I'm pleased to announce that my attempt to answer these questions—"Good and Evil in the American… [read post]
11 Apr 2024, 6:05 am
[A look at personal jurisdiction after Mallory.] Personal jurisdiction aficionados have been buzzing about the Court's decision last summer in Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co. and what it might mean for jurisdiction over interstate corporations. In particular, Justice Alito's concurrence reintroduced some dormant-commerce questions that used to play a major role but have largely been forgotten since International Shoe. I've got a new paper, forthcoming in The Supreme… [read post]
17 Jan 2024, 8:52 am
[An address to the American Chemical Society.] On the subject of ChatGPT, per Eugene's post on AI libel: As an originalist delivering the keynote address to a Common Good Constitutionalism symposium, I mentioned that I felt "somewhat like a giraffe being asked to address a meeting of the American Chemical Society." I'm aware that giraffes sometimes have trouble composing such addresses on their own, so a few months back I asked ChatGPT for its suggestions, and I wasn't… [read post]
4 Dec 2023, 11:26 am
[More than you might think—and it’s getting better all the time.] At last month's Federalist Society National Lawyers' Convention, which had the theme of "Originalism on the Ground," I got to speak on a panel addressing the question "How Originalist Is the Supreme Court?" My answer was an optimistic one: "more than you might think—and it's getting better all the time." As I argued, Despite occasional denunciations from its perceived… [read post]
3 Nov 2025, 4:00 am
'Protected Belief': The Case of David Miller, (Forthcoming in Industrial Law Journal).Leo E. [read post]
15 Nov 2024, 9:30 pm
Yale Law School's notice of Keith E. [read post]
2 Oct 2023, 7:40 am
I, § 5, cl. 1., "[e]ach House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications [read post]
19 Jan 2022, 1:57 pm
[On government curation and government speech.] Reading the oral arguments in Shurtleff v. Boston raised a concern that I've had for a long time. When deciding what flags to put up on a city flagpole, what images to use on a state license plate, or what monuments to install in a public park, the government is often picking and choosing among private speakers. But when the government is exercising this kind of editorial discretion, we don't have a good doctrinal category to apply. For… [read post]
17 Mar 2025, 11:20 am
See generally Sachs, The Unlimited Jurisdiction of the Federal Courts, 106 Va. L. Rev. 1703 (2020). [read post]
17 Jan 2025, 9:15 am
Three days from the end of his term, President Biden just announced that he has "long believed" the Equal Rights Amendment to be valid law: I have supported the Equal Rights Amendment for more than 50 years, and I have long been clear that no one should be discriminated against based on their sex. We, as a nation, must affirm and protect women's full equality once and for all. On January 27, 2020, the Commonwealth of Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.… [read post]
2 Dec 2024, 8:52 am
President Biden has pardoned his son Hunter for all federal crimes committed from 2014 through yesterday. That's not just for the crimes for which Hunter has already been charged, but for anything he did (or may have done) during the last ten years. Granting this pardon was something the President had pledged not to do in June, while he was still a candidate for reelection ("I abide by the jury decision. I will do that and I will not pardon him."). But, as NBC reports, "it was… [read post]
10 Apr 2024, 7:04 am
My father Alan Sachs, HLS Class of 1970, was Prof. [read post]
