Standing at a Constitutional Divide: Redefining State and Federal Requirements for Initiatives After \u3cem\u3eHollingsworth v. Perry\u3c/em\u3e

In Hollingsworth v. Perry, the Supreme Court denied standing to proponents of the California initiative prohibiting same-sex marriage, who wished to appeal a federal district court judge’s decision declaring the initiative unconstitutional. As suggested by the dissent, Hollingsworth has severe consequences for the twenty-four states in which the people can bypass elected officials and legislate directly through the initiative. The Supreme Court has established a clear constitutional divide between state and federal standing requirements for initiatives. Whereas states provide generous standing to proponents so officials do not exclusively control the defense of the people’s initiative process, the Supreme Court has instead narrowed the defense of initiatives in federal court to state officials or state agents. As federal litigation is virtually certain on most important initiatives, the Hollingsworth approach to standing distorts the initiative process, allowing government officials to nullify initiatives by refusing to defend them in federal court. They may do so for political as well as legal reasons, raising significant concerns for initiative drafters across the political spectrum. The federal standing doctrine creates an uneven playing field in which, often, no one is entitled to defend an initiative in federal court if officials refuse. A decision invalidating a measure thus becomes unappealable. This Article analyzes state and federal approaches and proposes multiple methods to resolve the standing gap exposed by Hollingsworth. First, a special attorney could be appointed to represent the state if government officials decline to defend a measure. Second, states could deputize proponents as state agents and fill in the elements found missing in Hollingsworth. Third, states could set bounties for defending an initiative, analogous to a qui tam action. Fourth, proponents could be given a financial stake by assessing a filing fee, refundable if they successfully defend their initiatives. Finally, states could follow the strategy accepted in United States v. Windsor by compelling officials to take the ministerial actions necessary to appeal a measure’s invalidation even if they believed it unconstitutional

Brullé « L’ostrogoth » identifié

On connaissait jusqu’ici peu de choses sur l’encyclopédiste Brullé, sinon qu’il était l’auteur des articles IMPRIMERIE et PROTE, qu’il était contremaître dans l’imprimerie d’André-François Le Breton, l’éditeur de l’Encyclopédie, s’attirant par là l’inimitié de Diderot. Grâce à la découverte de deux documents aux Archives nationales, nous savons maintenant que son nom complet était Louis-Claude Brullé, qu’il avait reçu une formation d’imprimeur, qu’il n’était ni riche ni pauvre, et qu’il vivait modestement dans un appartement de la rive gauche où il mourut en 1772. Nous pouvons supposer en outre que s’il avait censuré l’Encyclopédie, c’était à cause de ses convictions royalistes et catholiques, ainsi que par loyauté envers Le Breton.Brullé “L’ostrogoth” identifiedLittle was know previously about the Encyclopedist Brullé except that he was the author of the articles IMPRIMERIE and PROTE, that he supervised the printing shop of André- François Le Breton, the publisher of the Encylopédie, and that he had helped his employer censor the Encyclopédie and thus earned the enmity of Diderot. Thanks to the discovery of two documents in the Archives Nationales, we now know that his full name was Louis- Claude Brullé, that he was trained as a printer, that he was neither rich nor poor, and that he lived modestly in an apartment on the Left Bank, where he died in 1772. Also we suspect that he was motivated to censor the Encyclopédie because he was a royalist and a sincere Catholic as well as a loyal employee of Le Breton

The Eye of a Constitutional Storm: Pre-Election Review by the State Judiciary of Initiative Amendments to State Constitutions

Article published in the Michigan State Law Review

Neck Rupture and Scission Neutrons in Nuclear Fission

Just before a nucleus fissions a neck is formed between the emerging fission fragments. It is widely accepted that this neck undergoes a rather violent rupture, despite no direct experimental evidence, and only a few contentious theoretical treatments of this fission stage were ever performed in the more than eight decades since nuclear fission was experimentally observed by Hahn and Strassmann and described by Meitner and Frisch in 1939. In the same year, Bohr and Wheeler conjectured that the fission of the nuclear liquid drop would likely be accompanied by the rapid formation of tiny droplets, later identified with either scission neutrons or other ternary fission fragments, a process which has not yet been discussed in a fully quantum many-body framework. The main difficulty in addressing both of these stages of nuclear fission is both are highly non-equilibrium processes. Here we will present the first fully microscopic characterization of the scission mechanism, along with the spectrum and the spatial distribution of scission neutrons, and some upper limit estimates for the emission of charged particles.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

La vie agitée de l’abbé De Gua de Malves et sa direction de l’Encyclopédie

Cet article présente la vie de Jean-Paul de Gua De Malves et les rapports de celui-ci avec l’Encyclopédie. Savant et mathématicien, De Gua devint membre de l’Académie royale des sciences et professeur au Collège royal de France peu après la trentaine, mais impulsif, querelleur et dépourvu d’esprit pratique, il démissionna bientôt des deux institutions. Aujourd’hui il est mieux connu comme premier directeur de l’Encyclopédie, fonction qu’il occupa pendant quelque treize mois en 1746 et 1747. Selon nous, son influence sur l’Encyclopédie ne fut pas grande et la suggestion de Condorcet, selon laquelle De Gua aurait conçu les grandes lignes de l’Encyclopédie sans pouvoir participer à son « exécution », ne peut être retenue. On peut certes reconnaître l’influence possible de deux idées de De Gua sur l’Encyclopédie, à savoir celle d’une encyclopédie écrite par des « spécialistes » et celle d’une encyclopédie faisant la part belle sur les arts mécaniques, mais ces idées ne lui étaient pas propres et leur réalisation pratique dans l’Encyclopédie, loin d’être engagée en 1747 ou même en 1751, fut l’un des accomplissements majeurs de Diderot, de D’Alembert et de leurs collaborateursThe Busy Life of abbé De Gua De Malves and his Direction of the EncyclopédieThis article deals with the life of Jean-Paul De Gua De Malves and his relationship with the Encyclopédie. Du Gua, who was a scholar and a mathematician, became in his earlythirties a member of the Académie royale des sciences and professor at the Collègeroyal de France, but as he was impulsive, quarrelsome and completely unpractical, hesoon resigned from both institutions. Today he is better known as the first director of theEncyclopédie, for thirteen months from 1746 to 1747. In our opinion, his influence on theEncyclopédie was not very great and Condorcet’s suggestion that De Gua laid down themain principles of the work without being able to take part in their application is notcredible. We can see a possible influence of two of De Gua’s ideas, namely that of anencyclopaedia written by “specialists” and emphasizing mechanical arts. But these ideas were not specifically his, and their application, far from being underway by 1747, or even 1751, was one of the major achievements of Diderot, D’Alembert and their collaborator

André-François Le Breton, initiateur et libraire en chef de l’Encyclopédie

Dans cet article, nous proposons en premier lieu une actualisation de l’article sur Le Breton publié par l’un de nous, Frank Kafker, dans Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture en 1976. En même temps, tout en nous concentrant sur l’engagement de Le Breton dans l’Encyclopédie, nous situons ses réalisations dans un contexte plus large. En particulier, nous le comparons aux autres libraires associés de l’Encyclopédie et aux autres libraires de son époque afin de faire ressortir sa spécificité en tant qu’homme d’affaires.The aim of this article is first of all to update the article on Le Breton published by one of the authors (Frank Kafker) in Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture in 1976. At the same time, while concentrating on Le Breton’s involvement in the Encyclopédie, we situate his activity in a wider context. We compare him in particular to the other booksellers associated with the Encyclopédie and with other contemporary booksellers in order to bring out what made him different as a businessman

Diderot et Laurent Durand, son éditeur principal

Quoique peu connu, Laurent Durand (1712-1763) fut l’un des libraires français les plus importants du dix-huitième siècle. Il fut en outre l’éditeur principal de Diderot, responsable de la publication de plusieurs des ouvrages clandestins les plus notoires de celui-ci. Les rapports professionnels compliqués entre les deux hommes constituent l’objet de cet article. Entre autres choses, nous essayons d’expliquer le brusque affaiblissement de leurs relations commerciales après 1749 et de préciser l’engagement de Durand – mytérieusement tiède par rapport à celui de ses trois associés Briasson, David, et Le Breton - dans la publication de l’Encyclopédie.Diderot and his main publisher Laurent DurandAlthough little known, Laurent Durand (1712-1763) was one of the most important book-sellers of eighteenth-century France. He was also Diderot’s primary publisher, responsible for the publication of several of the latter’s most notorious clandestine works. The complex professional ties between the two men constitute the focus of this article. Among other things, we attempt to explain why their commercial relationship abruptly declined after 1749 and to clarify Durand’s involvement in the publication of the Encyclopédie, which was curiously weak compared with that of his three co-publishers Briasson, David, and Le Breton