Things to Read This Week (6/9)
More on the Fed, The Supreme Court Review, and many many book reviews
A ton of stuff this week, just in time for school to get out:
Many more articles on the Constitution and the Fed, including two already-published ones I missed: The Constitutional Money Problem, by Brian Galle and Aziz Huq, and The Independence of Central Bank Supervision, by Christina Parajon Skinner. Plus two new responses on SSRN: Benjamin Dinovelli, The Federal Reserve Exception, and Lev Menand, The Federal Reserve Board and the FOMC are Government Regulators Not Banks: A Reply to Baude, Bamzai, and Nielson. (For previous posts see here and here.)
Precedent and Jurisdiction, by William Marra — on the toxic relationship between stare decisis and discretionary jurisdiction. (In line with, though much more rigorous than, my own thoughts in Precedent and Discretion.)
Bureaucracy’s Boundaries, by Anne Joseph O’Connell at Lawfare — lots of useful stuff about the current fights over presidential control of the bureaucracy, including some things I didn’t appreciate about the Inter-American Foundation and the Register of Copyrights.
The new volume of the Supreme Court Review is out. Includes Jack Goldsmith on Trump v. US, Michael McConnell on Trump v. Anderson, Kate Shaw on Abortion and the Shadow Docket, Jack Balkin on Moody v. NetChoice, me on Rahimi, Risa Goluboff and Rich Schragger on Grants Pass, Adrian Vermeule on Loper Bright, Adam Davidson on “The Society Cases,” Dan Hemel on Moore, and Casey & Macey on Purdue Pharma.
And the Michigan Law Review book review issue is out too. There’s lots of great stuff in here, but I’m especially excited to read Marin Levy, The Invention of the Judicial Administrative State (reviewing Post’s Holmes Devise volume), Monica Hakimi’s Exorcising Hobbes’s Ghost (reviewing Levinson’s Law and Leviathan — featured on the podcast!) and Matthew Fletcher’s Nanaboozhoo Died For Your Sins, reviewing Custer Died for Your Sins, published in 1969).
And speaking of book reviews. . . I recently mentioned one of Michael Stokes Paulsen’s great book reviews on our podcast episode with Rachel Barkow — the review is called Dirty Harry and the Real Constitution, and it reviews Akhil Amar’s The Constitution and Criminal Procedure — and the review got some appreciation on social media. This reminded me that there are probably people who haven’t yet had the pleasure of reading Paulsen’s book reviews, one of the great genres of academic publishing. Others include:
Paulsen, The Civil War as Constitutional Interpretation (reviewing Farber, Lincoln’s Constitution). From the first footnote:
Both [Farber’s] book and this Review grew out of our co-taught seminar on "Lincoln and the Constitution" at the University of Minnesota Law School and the wonderful debates and discussions we enjoyed with each other and our students during those years. Dan got his book written first; I graded the seminar papers. (Shows you who's the smarter one.) As this goes to press, Dan is leaving Minnesota for someplace warmer. I thank him for his years as a great colleague, friend, mentor, and sounding board. And I repay him with this withering attack on his book.
Paulsen, Straightening Out The Confirmation Mess (reviewing Carter, The Confirmation Mess):
“I argue that the confirmation mess is not caused, as Carter supposes, by some sort of national hypersensitivity to irrelevancies. Confirmation is ugly because power is at stake and because ideology matters to the exercise of that power.”
Paulsen, How To Interpret the Constitution (and How Not To) (reviewing both Amar’s America’s Constitution: A Biography (“the second best book ever written about the U.S. Constitution”) and Rubenfeld’s Revolution by Judiciary (“How could such an obviously smart guy write such a terribly messed-up book about constitutional interpretation?”)) — all part of a spicy exchange in Volume 115 of the Yale Law Journal.
Paulsen, The Text, the Whole Text, and Nothing but the Text, So Help Me God: Un-Writing Amar’s Unwritten Constitution (“I have reviewed two of Akhil’s other books highly favorably. . . I hope he will forgive me this unfavorable — but still cheerful — review, which I offer in the same spirit as our dorm-room screaming matches thirty years ago. (You told me I could let you have it, if I thought you deserved it, Akhil. Well, here it is!)”).
And finally, Paulsen, To End A (Republican) Presidency (reviewing Tribe & Matz, To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment); but see also Tribe & Matz, To (Pretend To) Review Our Book.
