Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Academic Blogs -> Legal Theory Blog

Academic

: Legal Theory Blog

Robinson on Constitutional Change & a Possible "Obama Court"

By Lawrence Solum

Rob R. Robinson (University of Alabama at Birmingham) has posted 'Still Chastened': Assessing the Scope of Constitutional Change Under an 'Obama Court' on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

For the first time since 1968, the election of Barack Obama raises the possibility of creating a liberal majority on the Supreme Court. In this article, I assess whether such an ?Obama Court? would lead to significant constitutional change. Drawing on research regarding both the internal dynamics of the Supreme Court and the effect of the Court?s external environmental, I develop four benchmarks that historically correlate with more rapid and significant constitutional development. Taking each benchmark in turn, I argue that an ?Obama Court? would lack the coherence, the desire, and the power to fundamentally reshape the constitutional status quo. Instead, the Obama Court would be a mirror image of the later Rehnquist years, drifting to the left on the resolution of some constitutional problems, but in essence remaining a ?chastened? institution capable of only incremental change.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on May 19, 2010 (boomark / email).