Congressional Enforcement of Civil Rights and John Bingham\u27s Theory of Citizenship

In the Twentieth Century, Congress’ power to enact civil rights legislation, and make it privately enforceable against states and private parties, became widely recognized as one of the most important functions of the federal government. Yet in recent years, the Supreme Court has greatly restricted this function with its rulings restricting Congress’ commerce power and its power to enforce the Equal Protection Clause under Section five of the Fourteenth Amendment. Cases such as United States v. Morrison, Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett and Kimel v. Florida Board of Regents have left Congress in a vacuum, without any clear source of power to enact civil rights legislation that is enforceable against the states or private parties. These rulings have many scholars wondering where Congress can turn when it wants to enact civil rights legislation in the future. Largely overlooked in this discussion is a possible solution to the problem. This solution is another clause of the Fourteenth Amendment—the Citizenship Clause—and the rights of federal citizenship, which its Framers intended to be a broad font of federal rights that would be enforceable by Congress

Popular Originalism? The Tea Party Movement and Constitutional Theory

The U.S. Constitution is currently the subject of a heated political debate. Tea Party activists have invoked the Constitution as the foundation of their conservative political philosophy. These activists are engaged in “popular originalism,” using popular constitutionalism—constitutional interpretation outside of the courts—to invoke originalism as interpretive method. The Tea Party movement thus provides an excellent heuristic to explore the relationship between originalism and popular constitutionalism, two prominent trends in constitutional theory. Both originalists and popular constitutionalists study legal history to illuminate constitutional meaning, but the two schools of thought draw diverging lessons from that history. Originalists look to history to determine the fixed “original” meaning of the Constitution, which they hold to be binding on contemporary interpreters, regardless of subsequent historical or political developments. Popular constitutionalists study the way in which constitutional interpretation has been influenced by historical developments and explore the use of constitutional theory to bolster constitutional arguments

Popular Originalism? The Tea Party Movement and Constitutional Theory

The U.S. Constitution is currently the subject of a heated political debate. Tea Party activists have invoked the Constitution as the foundation of their conservative political philosophy. These activists are engaged in “popular originalism,” using popular constitutionalism—constitutional interpretation outside of the courts—to invoke originalism as interpretive method. The Tea Party movement thus provides an excellent heuristic to explore the relationship between originalism and popular constitutionalism, two prominent trends in constitutional theory. Both originalists and popular constitutionalists study legal history to illuminate constitutional meaning, but the two schools of thought draw diverging lessons from that history. Originalists look to history to determine the fixed “original” meaning of the Constitution, which they hold to be binding on contemporary interpreters, regardless of subsequent historical or political developments. Popular constitutionalists study the way in which constitutional interpretation has been influenced by historical developments and explore the use of constitutional theory to bolster constitutional arguments