John McGinnis, Jr. v. Social Security Administration

USDC for the Eastern District of Pennsylvani

Originalist Theory and Precedent: A Public Meaning Approach

Much ink has already been spilled on the relationship of constitutional originalism to precedent (or, more specifically, the doctrine of stare decisis). The debate includes contributions from Randy Barnett, Steven Calabresi, Kurt Lash, Gary Lawson, John McGinnis with Michael Rappaport, Michael Paulsen, and Lee Strang, not to mention Justice Antonin Scalia—all representing originalism in some form. Living constitutionalism has also been represented both implicitly and explicitly, with important contributions from Phillip Bobbitt, Ronald Dworkin, Michael Gerhardt, Randy Kozel, and David Strauss. Some writers are more difficult to classify; Akhil Amar comes to mind. And there are many other contributions to the debate. Opinions range from the view that precedent should invariably prevail over the original public meaning of the constitutional text to the polar opposite view, that precedent must give way to original meaning in almost every case. Here is the roadmap. Part I provides a brief introduction to contemporary originalism. Part II describes the problem of precedent for originalism, emphasizing that the nature of the problem depends in part on our understanding of precedent. Part III offers some reflections on the question as to the constitutional status of the doctrine of horizontal stare decisis in the United States Supreme Court

Rights of Passage: Majority Rule in Congress

The United States government is a government not of rigorously separated powers, but of overlapping and concurrent powers: a government of checked and balanced powers. What strikes the balance? A few spare words of the Constitution. This is why the efforts of one body of government to alter the long-established understanding of those words are taken so seriously. In a complex structure, small changes in one body\u27s movements can result in systemic shifts. A case in point involves House Rule XXI(5)(c), adopted by the House of Representatives in January 1995. Under this rule, no bill proposing to raise federal income taxes shall be considered as passed by the House without a three-fifths approving vote. This three-fifths rule marks the first time in history that the House has purported to alter the number of votes required to make a bill law. Last year, seventeen law professors published an Open Letter (of which I was a signatory, but not an author) opining that the three-fifths rule is unconstitutional. A recent essay by Professors John McGinnis and Michael Rappaport criticizes the Open Letter. This Essay is not so much a response to their criticisms (some of which are well taken) as an attempt to move the debate beyond its current position. The three-fifths rule, narrowly tailored though it may seem, raises profound constitutional issues that the commentary so far has not grasped

Foreword

The demand for air conditioning keeps rising, especially in developing countries where the standard of living has improved. This results in an increased consumption of electricity and puts further pressure on the power grid. In Cuba, electricity is a scarce commodity and the electricity production relies heavily on fossil fuels, which causes high emissions. An alternative technology for producing cooling is thermally driven cooling where the installment of an absorption chiller could utilize waste heat from existing industries to provide cooling to buildings. Therefore, there are possibilities of lowering the amount of electricity needed for air conditioning. In this thesis, the potential of using waste heat from sugar mills in Cuba was investigated. The sugar industry is high water consuming and often produces large amounts of heated waste water that is rarely utilized. To collect the data needed for the investigation, a study visit was conducted at the sugar mill Carlos Baliño in Villa Clara, Cuba. Since the factory did not track water mass flows, calculations based on sugar concentrations and energy balances were used to determine the different water outlets. The identified excess water has a mass flow of 10 kg/s and a temperature of 96 °C, which is enough to supply the factory with cooling. The result of the investigation also showed that the mill could invest in thermally driven cooling with a payback time of between three to six seasons depending on the cost of the selected equipment. The energy savings per crushing season would be nearly 140 000 kWh which equals to financial savings of above 40 000 dollar per season. If the sugar mill Carlos Baliño would invest in an absorption chiller, the cooling supply would be unreliable because of the high number of production shutdowns. Before any possible implementation, the causes for the stops in production need to be further examined. The supply of cooling would otherwise have to rely on thermal energy storage of chilled water, which in such large quantities would be costly. The factory only produces waste heat during the crushing season, which lasts from December throughout April, but there is a cooling demand during the whole year, which means that alternative cooling methods for an off-season cooling supply would have to be investigated. The study concludes that thermally driven cooling would be very suitable for similar industries that also produce large amounts of heated excess water, but are operating all year around and have a more even production rate, both on a daily and seasonal basis.Efterfrågan på luftkonditionering fortsätter att öka, speciellt i utvecklingsländer där levnadsstandarden har förbättrats. En ökad efterfrågan på luftkonditionering resulterar i en ökad användning av elektricitet, vilket i sin tur leder till en ökad belastning på elnätet. På Kuba är elektricitet en bristvara och elproduktionen är starkt beroende av fossila bränslen vilket leder till stora utsläpp. En alternativ teknologi för att producera kyla är värmedriven kyla där en absorptionkylmaskin kan utnyttja spillvärme från redan existerande industrier för att leverera kyla till byggnader. Därav finns det möjlighet att minska användandet av den elektricitet som behövs för att driva luftkonditioneringsapparater. I denna uppsats undersöks potentialen för att använda spillvärme från sockerfabriker på Kuba. Sockerindustrin konsumerar stora mängder vatten och producerar ofta betydande kvantiteter av uppvärmt eller förångat spillvatten som sällan utnyttjas. För att samla in de data som krävs för undersökningen genomfördes studiebesök på fabriken Carlos Baliño i Villa Clara, Kuba. Eftersom vattenflöden inte mättes i fabriken baserades beräkningarna på sockerkoncentrationer och energibalanser för att fastställa utloppsflöden av vatten. Det identifierade spillvattnet har ett massflöde på 10 kg/s och en temperatur på 96 °C, vilket är tillräckligt för att förse fabriken med kyla. Resultatet av undersökningen visade också att fabriken skulle kunna investera i värmedriven kyla med en återbetalningstid på mellan tre till sex säsonger beroende på kostnaden för vald utrustning. Energibesparingarna per produktionssäsong skulle bli närmare 140 000 kWh vilket motsvaras av en ekonomisk besparing på drygt 40 000 dollar per säsong. Om en absorptionskylmaskin skulle implementeras på Carlos Baliño skulle leveransen av kyla vara osäker på grund av det höga antalet produktionsstopp i fabriken. Före en eventuell implementation måste orsakerna till stoppen undersökas, annars skulle kylningsmöjligheterna bero starkt på termiska energilager av kallt vatten vilket i stora volymer kan bli kostsamt. Fabriken producerar endast spillvärme under produktionssäsong vilket pågår från december till och med april men kylbehovet existerar under hela året. Det betyder att alternativa kylmetoder behöver undersökas för att kylbehovet ska kunna tillgodoses året runt. Slutsatsen av studien är att värmedriven kyla är en ytterst passande lösning för liknande industrier som också ger upphov till stora mängder av varmt spillvatten men som producerar hela året och har en jämnare produktion, både på daglig basis och säsongsbasis

Disintegrating Customary International Law: Reactions to Withdrawing from International Custom

Withdrawing from International Custom, a recent article by Curtis Bradley and Mitu Gulati, has sparked interest and debate. Bradley and Gulati’s article, develops with significant nuance and detail that, naturally, can be best understood by a careful reading of their work. In essence, it proposes a modification in customary international law (CIL) doctrine – a change that would permit states to unilaterally exit from existing customary international law. This Essay will act as a brief reflection on that article. In Part I, it will explore the analogies Withdrawing makes between CIL and contract and will argue, first that CIL and contract are not analogous and, second, that even to the extent that contract demonstrates how other doctrinal areas order exits from legal relationships, contract illustrates the point that unilateral exit is a recognized abdication of the exiting party’s obligations and that exit gives rise to legal liability. In Part II, it explores the analogies Withdrawing makes between governments and agents in order to unpack some of the theoretical political theory constructs on which Withdrawing relies, and to explore the limitations Withdrawing sets on the proposal for unilateral exit. Part III of this Essay will make an affirmative argument for symmetry between CIL formation doctrine and CIL disintegration doctrine. The current proposal anticipates that CIL formation would remain unchanged, but exit for any given state would be far more expeditious than is contemplated by current CIL exit formulations. This Part will illustrate that this proposal violates a strong presumption in favor of symmetrical entrenchment

Originalism All the Way Down?

In their new book, Originalism and the Good Constitution, John McGinnis and Michael Rappaport attempt to vanquish what they call constructionist originalism with an approach that I call methodist originalism. Unlike constructionist theories, which allow for non-originalist construction of underdetermined texts, methodist originalism proposes filling in the historical gaps with what McGinnis and Rappaport claim were the originally accepted methods of interpretation. This is originalism all the way down. It’s a creative effort, and one that appropriately rejects some of the more latitudinous originalist theories currently in play. Unfortunately, the same history McGinnis and Rappaport rely upon fatally undermines their effort to associate every constitutional text with its own originally accepted method of interpretation. The Founding was a time of methodological dispute as legal theorists struggled to reconcile the content of common law with the commitments of popular sovereignty and American-style federalism. Although McGinnis and Rappaport have introduced an important consideration in determining the original meaning of constitutional texts, gaps remain in both our understanding of both original textual meaning and original interpretive methodology. The dragon of construction is not yet vanquished

Construction and Constraint: Discussion of Living Originalism

Jack Balkin\u27s Living Originalism raises many important questions about contemporary constitutional theory. Can and should liberals and progressives embrace originalism? Can the New Deal expansion of national legislative power be given originalist foundations? Is there a plausible originalist case for a right to reproductive autonomy and hence for the Court\u27s decision in Roe v. Wade? Is the fact of theoretical disagreement among originalists evidence for the thesis that the originalist project is in disarray