The Roundtable
Welcome to the Roundtable, JLPP’s online blog featuring student commentary on current cases and legal developments!
If you are interested in becoming a Staff Writer or Contributing Writer for the Roundtable, e-mail Notes Editors Kyle Reynolds (mreynolds@jd18.law.harvard.edu) or Chadwick Harper (charper@jd19.law.harvard.edu).
Public Unions and the Constitutional Order – Julia D. Mahoney
Download PDF Public Unions and the Constitutional Order Julia D. Mahoney* In Not Accountable: Rethinking the Constitutionality of Public Employee Unions, [1] Philip K. Howard sounds the alarm about the power and influence of public employee unions. In his view, American democracy “no longer works because public unions have turned the constitutional hierarchy upside down,” with government officials now answering not to voters but to public employees.[2] The results? Howard does not hold back: “Bad schools, unaccountable police, and other...
read moreNot So Fast Philip – Donald Elliott
Download PDF Not So Fast Philip Donald Elliott* Philip K. Howard has written another provocative, iconoclastic book. In Not Accountable, he extends his critique of our legal system that began in The Death of Common Sense in 1994, and continued through four books, including my personal favorites, Life Without Lawyers and The Rule of Nobody. Howard’s overarching vision is that our society has become rule-bound. According to Howard, we need to return to a bygone golden age — which he never quite identifies — in which he imagines that managers...
read moreConstitutional Administration and Collective Bargaining: A Symposium on Philip Howard’s Not Accountable – Adam J. White
Download PDF Constitutional Administration and Collective Bargaining: A Symposium on Philip Howard’s Not Accountable Adam J. White* Some constitutional powers are also constitutional duties. Perhaps the most famous is the president’s responsibility to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”[1] The Constitution assigns this duty to the president, and the president alone. “But the President alone and unaided could not execute the laws,” Chief Justice Taft wrote for the Court in Myers v. United States.[2] “He must execute them by the...
read moreThe Bar’s Role in Responding to Attacks on the Court – Benjamin M. Flowers
Download PDF The Bar’s Role in Responding to Attacks on the Court Benjamin M. Flowers* Recent stories portraying the Court as a corrupt institution are false. More concerning, they threaten our constitutional system. In this little essay, I hope to persuade more lawyers to say so. We are fallen creatures. Ever since Eve grabbed hold of that fruit, people have exhibited an unfortunate tendency to exceed their authority. Americans have long understood this. That is why their experiment with self-governance has flourished. The Founders, rather...
read moreThe Dual-Track Independent State Legislature Doctrine – Jack Foley
Download PDF The Dual-Track Independent State Legislature Doctrine Jack Foley* What’s in a word—especially when that word is of Constitutional import? In the pending case of Moore v. Harper,[1] the word at issue is “legislature,” and the question is how broadly it can be defined. Moore represents the Supreme Court’s attempt to determine the Constitutional merit of the so-called “independent state legislature doctrine” (ISLD),[2] which posits, in its broadest form, that state legislatures have plenary and exclusive power to set the rules for...
read moreThe Rising Importance of State Courts – Justice Gregory C. Cook
Download PDF The Rising Importance of State Courts Hon. Gregory C. Cook* The following is a lightly edited version of a speech by Justice Cook at Harvard Law School on April 1, 2023, at the Harvard Federalist Society’s annual Alumni Symposium. Justice Cook delivered these remarks while moderating a panel titled “The Rising Importance of State Courts” which also featured Judge John K. Bush of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and Boies Schiller Flexner LLP partner Jesse Panuccio. I am honored to be here today to talk...
read moreA Federal Judge Pays Respect to State Supreme Courts – Hon. John K. Bush
Download PDF A Federal Judge Pays Respect to State Supreme Courts Hon. John K. Bush* The following is a lightly edited version of a speech by Judge Bush at Harvard Law School on April 1, 2023, at the Harvard Federalist Society’s annual Alumni Symposium. Judge Bush delivered these remarks while speaking on a panel titled “The Rising Importance of State Courts,” which also featured Boies Schiller Flexner LLP partner Jesse Panuccio, and was moderated by Justice Gregory C. Cook of the Supreme Court of Alabama. Thank you to the Harvard...
read moreThe Jurisprudence of Justice Samuel Alito: A Symposium
JLPP: Per Curiam is proud to present The Jurisprudence of Justice Samuel Alito: A Symposium. The essays in this symposium, authored by prominent federal judges and renowned academics, focus in-depth on Justice Alito’s approaches to a wide variety of areas of law. Versions of most of these essays were presented as addresses at a March 2022 symposium convened by Professor Robert P. George and Yuval Levin, co-hosted by the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University and the American Enterprise...
read moreThe Elevation of Reality over Restraint in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization – Kevin C. Walsh
Download PDF The Elevation of Reality over Restraint in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Kevin C. Walsh* In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization,[1] the Supreme Court buried the constitutional right to abortion that it brought forth in Roe v. Wade[2] and breathed new life into in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.[3] Justice Alito’s opinion for the Court completely overruling Roe and Casey is an outstanding jurisprudential achievement. Alito not only completely dismantled Roe and Casey before burying...
read moreJustice Alito’s Free Speech Jurisprudence – Keith E. Whittington
Download PDF Justice Alito’s Free Speech Jurisprudence Keith E. Whittington* When President George W. Bush nominated Samuel Alito to fill a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States in the fall of 2005, the right was amid a libertarian turn on freedom of speech and the First Amendment. An earlier generation of postwar conservatives had a distinctly ambivalent view about the First Amendment. While the core idea that freedom of speech is an important value and should be protected was broadly shared in the mid-twentieth century,...
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