Cleaning Up for Congress: Why Courts Should Reject the Presumption of Severability in the Face of Intentionally Unconstitutional Legislation
C. Vered Jona · April 2008 76 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 698 (2008) Congress passing a law regulating abortion is not surprising. Nor is it surprising that President Bush signed the statute into law. Even less surprising, perhaps, is that the law was immediately challenged in three federal courts as unconstitutional under the Supreme Court’s... Read More
Severability as Judicial Lawmaking
David H. Gans · April 2008 76 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 639 (2008) Severability doctrine has been with us since the beginnings of judicial review, yet it remains shrouded in mystery. The doctrine is simple enough to state: it allows a court to excise any unconstitutional clauses or applications from a statute, leaving the remainder... Read More
Bellwether Trials
Alexandra D. Lahav · April 2008 76 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 576 (2008) This Article presents a third argument for collective justice based on democratic participation values. It urges that we re-envision the tort trial as a democratic enterprise rather than only an individual’s day in court. This argument draws an analogy to the theory... Read More
Interpreting the Americans With Disabilities Act: Why the Supreme Court Rewrote the Statute, and Why Congress Did Not Care
Michael Selmi · April 2008 76 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 522 (2008) Within the academic literature, a consensus has emerged that the ADA has been the subject of a judicial backlash against the disabled, either because the Supreme Court is unsympathetic to their plight or as a means of restricting the statute’s potential costs. Professor... Read More
Products Liability Preemption: An Institutional Approach
Catherine M. Sharkey · April 2008 76 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 449 (2008) Products liability is a realm in which Congress typically either says everything—coupling broad preemption provisions that would seem to wipe out competing state tort claims with broad “savings clauses” that would seem to preserve those same actions—or nothing at all. Moreover, Congress... Read More
Experimenting With the Experimental-Use Exception: Proposals for a Tax Alternative
R. Andrew Schwentker · February 2008 76 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 426 (2008) Over the past several decades, universities have increasingly engaged in significant scientific research and technological development and have become owners of a substantial number of patents. Between 1969 and 1991, universities owned only 1.55% of U.S. utility patents not owned by the... Read More
A Passive Approach to Regulation of Virtual Worlds
Jacob Rogers · February 2008 76 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 405 (2008) Imagine waking up one morning to find that your neighbor had erected a nude statue of himself and pointed it toward your window. Even worse, the moment you leave for work, a group of surly strangers makes your house its home. To top... Read More
Is This Your Bedroom?: Reconsidering Third-Party Consent Searches Under Modern Living Arrangements
Russell M. Gold · February 2008 76 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 375 (2008) Americans live in countless different types of housing arrangements. Whether for convenience, financial necessity, companionship, or other reasons, nearly ten percent of American households include at least one nonrelative. This variety of living arrangements has increased significantly in recent years. The Supreme... Read More
Too Clever By Half: The Unconstitutionality of Partial Representation of the District of Columbia in Congress
Jonathan Turley · February 2008 76 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 305 (2008) When the Democratic majority took control of the 110th Congress, one of the first matters on the agenda was one of its the oldest controversies: the representational status of the District of Columbia in Congress. In a bipartisan effort, sponsors proposed giving the... Read More
The Silicon Bullet: Will the Internet Kill the NLRA?
Jeffrey M. Hirsch · February 2008 76 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 262 (2008) The National Labor Relations Act’s (“Act”) increasing obsolescence in the modern workplace is well documented. Nowhere is this problem more apparent than where unions and employees use the Internet and other electronic communications to further employees’ collective interests. Electronic communications pose significant... Read More