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Responses Category

Committing to Agency Independence

Jul. 17, 2023—Nicholas Almendares | 76 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 1 Response to Aaron L. Nielson & Christopher J. Walker, Congress’s Anti-Removal Power, 76 VAND. L. REV 1 (2023). EXCERPT: Nielson and Walker argue persuasively that Congress flexing its anti-removal power muscles is constitutional. They point to the Senate’s clear role in appointments enshrined in Article...

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Democracy and Disenchantment

May. 17, 2022—Ashraf Ahmed | 75 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 223 (2022) | This piece is a response to Ryan D. Doerfler & Samuel Moyn, The Ghost of John Hart Ely, 75 VAND. L. REV 769 (2022). The Ghost of John Hart Ely is Doerfler and Moyn’s latest salvo against American judicial review. This time, however, their...

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Hunting for Nondelegation Doctrine’s Snark

May. 17, 2022—Roderick M. Hills, Jr. | 75 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 215 (2022) | This piece is a response to Ben Silver, Nondelegation in the States, 75 VAND. L. REV. 1211, 1221 (2022). There is much to like about Silver’s article: it is analytically sharp, doctrinally comprehensive, and written with clarity and grace. Moreover, on...

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Can Better Juries Fix American Criminal Justice?

May. 17, 2022—Darryl K. Brown | 75 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 205 (2022) | This piece is a response to Daniel Epps & William Ortman, The Informed Jury, 75 VAND. L. REV. 823 (2022). Professors Daniel Epps and William Ortman argue that it could. In their Article The Informed Jury, Epps and Ortman propose that trial...

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Radicalism and Democracy in Monetary System Reform

Feb. 1, 2022—John Crawford | 75 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 55 (2022) | The People’s Ledger is meant to offer “a blueprint for reform that would radically democratize access to money and control over financial flows in the nation’s economy.” Admitting that radical reform of the current system demands consideration, and that democratizing money is desirable,...

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Reimagining Energy

Sep. 21, 2021—Monika U. Ehrman | 74 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 489 (2021) | This Response suggests that energy laws should support the advancement of carbon-neutral technologies and other infrastructure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This support requires a reimagining of our energy system, involving the entire energy lifecycle—from production to consumption, through abandonment and reuse....

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The Distributive Impacts of Nudnik-based Activism

Sep. 10, 2021—Meirav Furth-Matzkin | 74 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 469 (2021) | In Theory of the Nudnik: The Future of Consumer Activism and What We Can Do to Stop It, Professors Yonathan Arbel and Roy Shapira propose that nudnik customers should be lauded for acting as engines of market discipline. According to Arbel and Shapira,...

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Remaking Carceral Policy: A Response to Littman

Sep. 10, 2021—Keramet Reiter | 74 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 457 (2021) | Aaron Littman’s Jails, Sheriffs, and Carceral Policymaking marshals an immense amount of empirical data, drawn from a dizzying array of legal and policy sources, to reframe our thinking about what is and should be possible in criminal justice reform at the local level....

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The Price of Free Elections

Aug. 26, 2021—G. Michael Parsons | 74 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 335 (2021) | How much does an election cost? For a democracy as old as ours, the answer is surprisingly unclear . . . . Among the many contributions of Democracy on a Shoestring, then, is to spur more concrete thinking about the costs and...

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Federalizing the Voting Rights Act

Aug. 22, 2021—Travis Crum | 74 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 323 (2021) | In Presidential Control of Elections, Professor Lisa Marshall Manheim masterfully canvasses how “a president can affect the rules of elections that purport to hold him accountable” and thereby “undermine the democratic will and delegitimize the executive branch.” Bringing together insights from administrative law...

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The Use of Cultural Authority in Constitutional Argument

Jul. 30, 2021—Andrew Jensen Kerr | 74 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 215 (2021) | In this paper I reconcile the need for legal validity with the aspirations of popular constitutionalism, that is that the American people should be a source of authority as to the meaning of our Constitution. The Supreme Court has long relied on...

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Separation of Powers Versus Checks and Balances in the Criminal Justice System: A Response to Professor Epps

Jul. 19, 2021—Carissa Byrne Hessick | 74 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 159 (2021) | Separating powers between the three different branches of government serves an important role in the criminal justice system: It helps to protect individual liberty. Separation of powers provides that protection because it requires multiple and diverse actors to agree that a person...

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Trading Pharma Goods The WTO Legal Framework

Jul. 6, 2021—Neeraj Rajan Sabitha & Petros C. Mavroidis | 74 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 145 (2021) | In their thoughtful piece, Thomas Bollyky and Aaron Kesselheim advance an argument aimed to solve the persistent shortages in generic drugs in the United States.1 We want to take one step back and provide a complementary argument regarding...

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Our Imperial Federal Courts

Jun. 20, 2021—Matthew Steilen | 74 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 125 (2021) | “The article is significant for the archival work alone. It is useful, as well, for the impressive synthesis of the existing secondary literature, collected in the footnotes, which makes a convenient reading list for us mere mortals. The argument of the article is ambitious....

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The SG’s Indefensible Advantage: A Comment on The Loudest Voice at the Supreme Court

May. 4, 2021—Lincoln Caplan | 74 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 97 (2021) | It is time for a fundamental reconsideration of the SG’s role—by outstanding scholars like Richard Lazarus, Michael McConnell, Joshua Schwartz, David Strauss, and others who have practiced law in the SG’s office and have studied and written about the role; by other scholars...

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Our Trade Law System

Jun. 5, 2020—Kathleen Claussen | 73 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 195 (2020) | In Misaligned Lawmaking, Timothy Meyer identifies a major problem in U.S. trade law design. Professor Meyer argues that there is a misalignment between trade liberalization laws—laws that enable the executive branch to lower trade barriers with other countries—and trade adjustment assistance laws—laws that...

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