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Impeachment Can Be Based on Non-Criminal Misconduct: Corpus-Linguistic and Historical Evidence
No full textWhether the power of impeachment extends to non-criminal misconduct has been a perennial question in American constitutional history. As Laurence Tribe observed in a recent co-authored book on presidential impeachment: Few terms in constitutional law have been so fiercely contested as \u27high crimes and misdemeanors. Although most legal scholars agree with Tribe\u27s conclusion that this phrase does not limit impeachment to criminal conduct, reconciling this conclusion with the constitutional text has been a challenge. As one of the legal academy\u27s leading experts on impeachment, Frank Bowman, concedes: [taken at face value, the words [high crimes and misdemeanors] seem to say that impeachable conduct is limited to \u27crimes\u27-- offenses defined by criminal statutes and punishable in criminal courts.
In this Article, co-authored by a law professor and a linguistics professor, we offer what we believe is a new and persuasive approach that arises directly from the constitutional text itself for extending the scope of impeachment to non-criminal conduct. We reach this conclusion by applying the science of linguistics to a computer-assisted review of digitized texts written around the period when the Constitution was drafted and ratified. The result of this empirical research is the proposal that other high crimes and misdemeanors in the constitutional text should be interpreted as other high crimes and other high misdemeanors. Our linguistic analysis further establishes that high misdemeanor was a phrase used during the Founding Era to refer to non-criminal misconduct that requires removal from office. We corroborate this analysis with historical research showing that for more than 130 years following the Founding Era, the U.S. House of Representatives recurrently enacted articles of impeachment using the term high misdemeanor to refer to non-criminal misconduct affecting governance
SB 36 - Georgia Religious Freedom Restoration Act
No full textThe Act supplements the protection of religious exercise by requiring government actions that could burden religious practices to meet a “compelling interest” test, mirroring a federal counterpart bill from 1993. The Act creates a cause of action against the state government for substantially burdening a person’s free exercise of religion without a compelling interest. The government must now clear this high legal standard before it may legally enforce laws or actions that substantially burden someone’s religious beliefs
Elections - Elections and Primaries
Full text linkThe Act allows third-party candidates with ballot access in at least twenty other states to appear on the presidential general election ballot in Georgia. For homeless voters without a permanent mailing address, their mailing address for elections defaults to the address of the registrar’s office in their county of residence. Additionally, proof of owning or renting a post office box or private mailbox service in a specific jurisdiction is no longer sufficient proof of residency for voting. Vote challenges have updated conditions, but any challenge made within forty-five days of a primary, election, or run-off will be postponed until after the election concludes. On Election Day, all absentee ballots must now be tabulated before either 8:00 p.m. or one hour before the polls close, whichever is later. Finally, votes must be tabulated by reading the text on the ballot that clearly shows the voter’s choice, not by the QR code on the ballot that stores the voter’s choice
Penal Institutions - Criminal Procedure
Full text linkThe Act authorizes state law enforcement to verify suspects’ immigration statuses, requires that local government agencies cooperate with federal immigration authorities, and mandates detailed, consistent reporting on non-citizen inmates. It aims to promote public safety, enhance state immigration laws such that they align with federal immigration laws, and ensure that state law enforcement and government agencies adhere to immigration enforcement protocols
White Rabbit Bankruptcy Appeals: The (Unconstitutional) Jurisdictional Significance of Being Late
Full text linkUnlike ordinary civil litigation, which usually allows thirty days to appeal, appeals from bankruptcy court usually allow only fourteen. Adding to that difference, bankruptcy cases can have many appealable final decisions instead of just one. But what happens if an appeal is filed late? In ordinary civil litigation, that usually means dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. As for bankruptcy appeals, it depends on the circuit because, although most agree that it must be dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, others disagree—meaning that an appellee might forfeit the right to seek dismissal of an untimely appeal if the appellee doesn’t act. Why the disagreement? Well, unlike the civil appeal statute, which expressly prescribes a thirty-day time limit, the bankruptcy appeal statute doesn’t specify the fourteen-day limit itself—it points to a bankruptcy rule. And, in the twenty-first century, there has been a lot of Supreme Court precedent putting a wedge between those time limits that are jurisdictional and those that are claims-processing rules. Here, I posit that the bankruptcy appeal deadline is jurisdictional. But because of its pointing to a rule for the exact time limit, I also posit that the statute is an unconstitutional delegation by Congress. The consequences, however, may not be so earth-shattering. To learn more, follow the white rabbit
Using Public Nuisance Litigation to Address Industrywide Misconduct: Common-Law Statutes, Nondelegation Doctrine, and Regulation by Litigation
No full textIn this Article, we assert that broad, open-ended public nuisance statutes offer a legitimate legal tool to curb public health harms caused by the unreasonable design, marketing, and distribution practices of product manufacturers. We argue that these statutes are “common-law statutes” by which legislatures authorize courts to apply the concept of public nuisance to new situations using common-law-style reasoning. We demonstrate that this understanding of public nuisance statutes is consistent with well-established interpretive traditions regarding the codification of common law. Statutory delegation of broad interpretive discretion to courts concerning the application of public nuisance law constitutes a legislative choice to regulate through litigation. We contend that the delegation to courts to elaborate on public nuisance law is no less justified than delegation to administrative agencies to exercise policy discretion through adjudication and rulemaking