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Author: Ronald Collins

By on Mar 12, 2014 at 12:51 pm
The following is an excerpt from a forthcoming ebook titled When Money Speaks: The McCutcheon Decision, Campaign Finance Laws & The First Amendment (Top Five Books) by Ronald Collins and David Skover. It is the first in the SCOTUS Books-in-Brief series. The ebook will be available shortly after the Supreme Court issues its ruling in McCutcheon v. FEC. In 2013 the American Civil Liberties Union did not file an amicus brief in McCutcheon v. FEC, the First Amendment campaign finance case now awaiting a decision in the Supreme Court. But the group had not always been silent on the issue. Quite the contrary; it had once been quite vocal in its First Amendment opposition to many campaign finance laws.

By on Feb 14, 2014 at 12:35 pm
The following is a series of questions posed by Ronald Collins to David M. O’Brien on the occasion of the publication of Storm Center: The Supreme Court in American Politics (W.W. Norton, 10th ed., 2014). Welcome, David. Thank you for taking the time to participate in this Question and Answer exchange for our readers. And congratulations on the publication of the tenth edition of your book on the Supreme Court. Question:  Perhaps I am mistaken, but I assume that in the academy constitutional law is today seen largely as the domain of law professors. Of course, even if true, it was not always so. You first studied under a noted political science professor who wrote in the area of constitutional law and then early in your teaching career you were a colleague to yet another political scientist who was also a giant in that same field.  Can you identify them and say a few words about them?

By on Jan 31, 2014 at 11:44 am
The following is a series of questions posed by Ronald Collins on the occasion of the publication of The Progeny: Justice William Brennan’s Fight to Save New York Times v. Sullivan (American Bar Association, 2014). Welcome, Lee and Stephen. Thank you for taking the time to participate in this Question and Answer exchange for our readers. And congratulations on the publication of your latest book.

By on Jan 30, 2014 at 10:21 am
Two days after the 2012 challenges to the Affordable Care Act were argued and three months before they were decided by the Supreme Court, Adam Teicholz wrote this in The Atlantic: “Blogs – particularly a blog of big legal ideas called Volokh Conspiracy – have been central to shifting the conversation about the mandate challenges.” Paul Clement, the lead attorney who contested the law, agrees: “[I]f ever a legal blog and a constitutional moment were meant for each other, it was the Volokh Conspiracy and the challenge to the Affordable Care Act.” As Clement adds in his foreword to A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Affordable Care Act  (Palgrave-MacMillan, 2014), edited by Trevor Burrus, he is friends with Eugene Volokh, “who clerked for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor the same year [he] clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia.”

By on Oct 25, 2013 at 11:01 am
With the advent of a new Term, it is time to return to thinking about the business of the Supreme Court, past, present and to come. In that regard, the line-up of seventeen new or forthcoming books should be of considerable interest to SCOTUSblog readers.  The list includes everything from books on the Supreme Court and the practice of medicine and disability law to works on the Roberts Court and the history of Roe v. Wade.

By on Aug 22, 2013 at 10:28 am
If one goes to the “Frequently Asked Questions” page of the Supreme Court website, there is this question: “Where can I find the papers of the Justices?” Indeed. And here is the answer tendered: “The Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, maintained by the Federal Judicial Center, provides location information for the Justices’ papers. Search by the name of the Justice and then click on the link to ‘Research Collections’ to see where the papers are available. Many collections of papers are located at the Library of Congress and at academic and research institutions throughout the country. Depending upon the institution, some material may be available online.” [caption id="attachment_168793" align="aligncenter" width="454"]454px-Miranda_justice_brennan From Justice Brennan's papers.[/caption]

By on Aug 9, 2013 at 12:21 pm
On October 8, the Court will hear arguments in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission. At issue is the constitutionality of the aggregate contribution limits of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. A three-judge district court, in an opinion by Judge Janice Rogers Brown, upheld the law over a First Amendment challenge. Among other things, the appellants (Shaun McCutcheon and the Republican National Committee) invite the Justices to reconsider the applicability and constitutionality of the contribution-versus-expenditure dichotomy first formulated in Buckley v. Valeo (1976) and followed since. Next week SCOTUSblog will host an online symposium in which contributors will explore the history of the general controversy and the various paths the Court might take to resolve the case.  A list of contributors follows below the jump.

By on Jul 9, 2013 at 11:34 am
It is a fact:  Chief Justice John Roberts has authored twice as many First Amendment freedom of expression opinions for the Court than any of his colleagues.  His recent majority opinion in Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, Inc. (2013) brought the number of these opinions to ten.  The Chief Justice has already surpassed the number of such opinions authored by his predecessors Chief Justices Earl Warren (six opinions) and Fred Vinson (five opinions). And a mere eight years into his term, the fifty-eight-year-old jurist might equal or better the record of Chief Justice Warren Burger (eighteen opinions in seventeen years).  But the record of his former boss, Chief Justice William Rehnquist (thirty opinions in nineteen years) will be a difficult one to top. (So, too, for Rehnquist’s record in denying such claims – eighty percent of all such cases he participated in during his entire tenure on the Court.

By on Jul 8, 2013 at 2:11 pm
Liptak bookBrevity is one mark of a good writer; accuracy is another.  By that measure, Adam Liptak’s To Have and Uphold: The Supreme Court and the Battle for Same-Sex Marriage (Byliner Inc., July 9, 2013) is a work worthy of a good writer – in this case, the Supreme Court correspondent for The New York Times. This engaging little e-book (available on Amazon, iBookstore and Kobobooks) comes on the heels of our own online symposium, though its main drift leans toward a popular audience. Even so, Adam Liptak has crafted a little gem that one could read in less time than it took to argue this Term’s two same-sex marriage cases. The e-book is so accessible and informative that after reading it one could converse on the topic in erudite circles. Public speakers take note!

By on Jun 5, 2013 at 11:26 am
Perhaps the construction of such a genetic panopticon is wise. Those are Justice Antonin Scalia’s words, taken from Monday’s eye-opening dissent in Maryland v. King. The Court, by a vote of five to four, upheld a Maryland law that authorizes the collection of DNA from individuals arrested for “serious” offenses.  In his dissent, Justice Scalia (joined by Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan) took strong exception to the majority’s approval of a suspicionless search without any justifying motive. But what of the word “panopticon”?  Pano what?  Well, let us start with how to say the word – pan•op•ti•con.  All right, that helps. Now, what of its etymology?