Constitutional Commentary was founded in 1984 and is one of the few faculty-edited law journals in the country. It enjoys a wide following among legal scholars, historians, political scientists and others interested in constitutional law and history. Part of its popularity is due to the editors’ preference for “shorter and less ponderous articles” as opposed to the more lengthy and heavily footnoted articles found in traditional law reviews.

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Submissions from 2010

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The Constitutional Interpretation/Construction Distinction: A Useful Fiction, Laura A. Cisneros

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"A New Era of Openness?": Disclosing Intelligence to Congress Under Obama, Kathleen Clark

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The Vanity of Dogmatizing, Marc O. DeGirolami

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Obama's Constitution: The Passive Virtues Writ Large, Richard A. Epstein

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Presidents, Preemption, and the States, Michele E. Gilman

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Preemption Choice in Context, Michael S. Greve

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What Good Is Habeas?, Aziz Z. Huq

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Bush, Obama and Beyond: Observations on the Prospect of Fact Checking Executive Department Threat Claims Before the Use of Force, Leslie Gielow Jacobs

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National Security and the Article Ii Shell Game, Heidi Kitrosser

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Why Jack Balkin Is Disgusting, Andrew Koppelman

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Specifying Constitutional Rights, John Oberdiek

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Race, Religion and Nationality in Immigration Selection: 120 Years After the Chinese Exclusion Case, Liav Orgad and Theodore Ruthizer

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President Obama's Progress in Government Ethics, Richard W. Painter

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Racheting Back: International Law as a Constraint on Executive Power, Deborah N. Pearlstein

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Taking Shari'a Seriously. Book Review Of: The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State. Noah Feldman, Asifa Quraishi

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The Obama Administration. Fundamental Institutional Change, and the Constitutional Lawmaking System, Michael B. Rappaport

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Bush and Obama Fight Terrorists Outside Justice Jackson's Twilight Zone, Afsheen John Rasdan

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Reply to Koppelman: Originalism and the (Merely) Human Constitution, Steven D. Smith

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The Interpretation-Construction Distinction, Lawrence B. Solum

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Obama's Equivocal Defense of Agency Independence, Kevin M. Stack

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The Supreme Court's Declining Plenary Docket: A Membership-Based Explanation, David R. Stras

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The Unreviewable Executive: Kiyemba, Maqaleh, and the Obama Administration, Stephen I. Vladeck

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An Almost Archeological Dig: Finding a Surprisingly Rich Early Understanding of Substantive Due Process, Louise Weinberg

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State Secrets and Executive Accountability, Christina E. Wells

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Constructing a New American Constitution, Keith E. Whittington

Submissions from 2009

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The Empirical Judiciary. Book Review Of: Constitutional Fictions: A Unified Theory of Constitutional Facts. by David L. Faigman, A. Christopher Bryant

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Publius for All of Us. Book Review Of: The Story of the Federalist: How Hamilton and Madison Reconceived America. by Dan T. Coenen, Brannon P. Denning

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Judicial Character (And Does It Matter). Book Review Of: Constitutional Conscience: The Moral Dimension of Judicial Decision. H. Jefferson Powell; How Judges Think. Richard A. Posner; Judgement Calls: Principle and Politics in Constitutional Law. Daniel A. Farber & Suzanna Sherry, Paul Horwitz

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Guantanamo, Boumediene, and Jurisdiction-Stripping: The Imperial President Meets the Imperial Court, Martin J. Katz

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Remarks by Chief Judge Kozinski, Alex Kozinski

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The Sometimes Unitary Executive: Presidential Practice Throughout History. Book Review Of: The Unitary Executive: Presidential Power from Washington to Bush. Steven G. Calabresi and Christopher S. Yoo, Harold J. Krent

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Originalism as Jujitsu. Book Review Of: Retained by the People: The "Silent" Ninth Amendment and the Constitutional Rights Americans Don't Know They Have. by Daniel A. Farber, Kurt T. Lash

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Judicial Review and Judicial Duty: The Original Understanding. Book Review Of: Law and Judicial Duty. by Philip Hamburger, Nelson Lund

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Is Law? Constitutional Crisis and Existential Anxiety, Alice Ristroph

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Putting the Law Back in Constitutional Law, Suzanna Sherry

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Originalism's Misplaced Fidelity: "Original" Meaning Is Not Objective, Tara Smith

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When and How U.S. Courts Should Cite Foreign Law, Stephen Yeazell

Submissions from 2008

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Kent Greenawalt and the Difficulty (Impossibility?) of Religion Clause Theory, Larry Alexander

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Religious Reasons and the Liberty of Citizens: The Integration of the Religious and the Secular in Kent Greenawalt's Religion and the Constitution, Robert Audi

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Establishment and Judicial Administrability, Anthony J. Bellia Jr.

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The Wisdom of Soft Judicial Power: Mr. Justice Powell, Concurring, Samuel Estreicher and Tristan Pelham-Webb

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Discrimination Between Religions: Some Thoughts on Reading Greenawalt's Religion and the Constitution: Establishment and Fairness, John Finnis

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Judicial Enforcement of the Establishment Clause, Richard W. Garnett

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Indeterminacy and the Establishment Clause, Frederick Mark Gedicks

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A Better Path for Constitutional Tort Law, John M. Greabe

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What Would Justice Powell Do?: The 'Alien Children' Case and the Meaning of Equal Protection, Linda Greenhouse

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The Philosopher's Brief, Paul Horwitz

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Really Cool Stuff: Digital Searches into the Constitutional Period, Calvin H. Johnson

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Religious Establishment and Autonomy, Andrew Koppelman

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Why Tolerate Religion?, Brian Leiter

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Judging Facts Like Law, John O. McGinnis and Charles W. Mulaney

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Was Bush V. Gore a Human Rights Case?, Gerald L. Neuman and Nicholas Hatzis

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Terror Conflated? Book Review Of: Terror in the Balance: Security, Liberty, and the Courts. by Eric A. Posner & Adrian Vermeule, Fionnuala Nií Aolaíin

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Christendom Without Establishment: A Brief Look at History, Robert E. Rodes Jr.

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The Indivisible Constitution. Book Review Of: The Invisible Constitution. by Laurence H. Tribe, Kermit III Roosevelt

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Democracy Uncaged. Book Review Of: Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (And How We the People Can Correct It). by Sanford Levinson, Suzanna Sherry

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Kent Greenawalt's Elusive Constitution, Steven D. Smith

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Requiem for the Establishment Clause, Winnifred Fallers Sullivan

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Eclecticism, Nelson Tebbe

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Sovereignty as Discourse. Book Review Of: The Language of Liberal Constitutionalism. by Howard Schweber, Robert L. Tsai

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The Obama Presidency and the Roberts Court: Some Hints from Political Science. Book Review Of: Political Foundations of Judicial Supremacy: The Presidency, the Supreme Court and Constitutional Leadership in U.S. History. by Keith E. Whittington, Mark Tushner

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Expounding Constitutional Scholarship. Book Review Of: Expounding the Constitution: Essays in Constitutional Theory. Grant Huscroft, Ed., Greígoire C. N. Webber

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Belonging and Empowerment: A New ''Civil Rights" Paradigm Based on Lessons of the Past. Book Review Of: The Lost Promise of Civil Rights. by Risa L. Goluboff, Rebecca E. Zietlow

Submissions from 2007

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Abortion and Original Meaning, Jack M. Balkin

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Original Meaning and Constitutional Redemption, Jack M. Balkin

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Underlying Principles, Randy E. Barnett

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Originalism and Its Discontents (Plus a Thought or Two About Abortion), Mitchell N. Berman

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Middle Ground? Book Review Of: Same Sex Different States: When Same-Sex Marriages Cross State Lines. by Andrew Koppelman, Patrick J. Borchers

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Between the Domestic and the Foreign: Centering the Nation's Edges. Book Review Of: Legal Borderlands: Law and the Construction of American Boarders. Mary L. Dudziak and Leti Volpp, Eds., Linda Bosniak

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Warren Court Precedents in the Rehnquist Court, Frank B. Cross, Thomas A. Smith, and Antonio Tomarchio

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An Empirical Analysis of the Confirmation Hearings of the Justices of the Rehnquist Natural Court, Jason J. Czarnezki, William K. Ford, and Lori A. Ringhand

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Reconstruction and the Police: Two Ships Passing in the Night? Book Review Of: Reconstructing the Fourth Amendment: A History of Search and Seizure, 1789-1868. by Andrew E. Taslitz, Donald A. Dripps

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The Most Dangerous Justice Rides into the Sunset, Paul H. Edelman and Jim Chen

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When the Court Has a Party, How Many "Friends" Show Up? a Note on the Statistical Distribution of Amicus Brief Filings, Daniel A. Farber

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The Aggregate Harmony Metric and a Statistical and Visual Contextualization of the Rehnquist Court: 50 Years of Data, Peter A. Hook

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The Progressive Political Power of Balkin's "Original Meaning", Dawn Johnsen

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"He'll Take His Stand" Book Review Of: Dred Scott and the Problem of Constitutional Evil. by Mark A. Graber, Ken I. Kersch

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The Second Convention Movement, 1787-1789, Richard Labunski

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The Perpetual Anxiety of Living Constitutionalism, Ethan J. Leib

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The Rhetoric of Restraint and the Ideology of Activism, Stefanie A. Lindquist, Joseph L. Smith, and Frank B. Cross

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Original Interpretive Principles as the Core of Originalism, John O. McGinnis and Michael Rappaport

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Common Law, Civil Law, and the Administrative State: from Coke to Lochner, Noga Morag-Levine

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Scalia's Poker: Puzzles and Mysteries in Constitutional Interpretation, Timothy P. O'Neill

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Judicial Activism: An Empirical Examination of Voting Behavior on the Rehnquist Natural Court, Lori A. Ringhand

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Constitution Day Is Unconstitutional, Alain L. Sanders

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Umpires at Bat: on Integration and Legitimation, Neil S. Siegel

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The Tensions of Constitutional Democracy. Book Review Of: Constitutional Democracy: Creating and Maintaining a Just Political Order. by Walter F. Murphy, George Thomas

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Overcoming Dred: A Counterfactual Analysis, Louise Weinberg

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''Fairer Still the Woodlands" Mapping the Free Exercise Forest. Book Review Of: Religion and the Constitution: Free Exercise and Fairness. by Kent Greenawalt., John Jr. Witte

Submissions from 2006

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Compelled Speech, Larry Alexander

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Mixed Motives: Regarding Race and Racial Fortuity. Book Review Of: Silent Covenants: Brown V. Board of Education and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform. by Derrick Bell, Kathleen A. Bergin

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Presidential Signing Statements and Executive Power, Curtis A. Bradley and Eric A. Posner

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Justice Iredell, Choice of Law, and the Constitution-A Neglected Encounter, Michael G. Collins

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Brother, Can You Paradigm? Book Review Of: Revolution by Judiciary: The Structure of American Constitutional Law. by Jed Rubenfeld, Brannon P. Denning

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Hamdan's Limits and the Military Commissions Act, Samuel Estreicher and Diarmuid O'Scannlain

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"Modest Expectations"?: Civic Unity, Religious Pluralism, and Conscience. Book Review Of: Divided by God: America's Church-State Problem - and What We Should Do About It. by Noah Feldman; the Right to Be Wrong: Ending the Culture War Over Religion in America. by Kevin Seamus Hasson, Richard W. Garnett

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Judicial Interpretive Finality and the Constitutional Text, John Harrison

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Hamdan V. Rumsfeld: The Functional Case for Foreign Affairs Deference to the Executive Branch, Julian Ku and John Yoo

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Originalism as a Legal Enterprise, Gary Lawson and Guy Seidman

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The Constitution and the Annexation of Texas, Earl M. Maltz