The US News rankings of university graduate programs is out. I've always disdained the US News university graduate school rankings, but it is now out there afresh and people are reading it, and I see our History Department of UT Austin at No. 11, so, as the holder of the M.A. as the result of my two years as a grad student there (before law school), I have to say:
Way to go, UT History Department!
https://lnkd.in/gv7P3BPV
Congratulations to the History Department of UT Austin for its graduate program ranking
"Zombie laws"
The springing back to life of the 1864 Arizona abortion statute currently in the news presently reminds me of the topic of "zombie laws."
Those are state statutes that are rendered unenforceable by a holding of federal unconstitutionality in a court case. The statutes are not removed from the state statute books by the entry of a federal court judgment holding the statute unconstitutional. And unless the state legislature goes ahead to void them, such statutes survive--as "zombie statutes"--and if and when the federal holding of unconstitutionality is overturned by an appropriate court, the state's zombie statute will spring back to life . . . a la the Arizona situation.
The best thing I have seen on this topic is this 2022 law review article: Howard M. Wasserman, "Zombie Laws," available free at: ssrn.com/abstract=3778122
Also the Fifth Circuit has spoken about zombie laws in Pool v. City of Houston, 978 F.3d 307 (5th Cir. 2020).
Here's a superb refutation of the SCOTUS decision in the Trump v. Colorado case: yes, sec. 3 of the 14th Amendment bars him due to participation in an insurrection as that term was understood at the time of ratification
...therefore, I heartily endorse and recommend this article by the veteran legal historian and political scientist, Mark Graber,
"Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment: Insurrection," forthcoming in the William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal,"
available here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4733059&dgcid=ejournal_htmlemail_legal%3Ahistory%3Aejournal_abstractlink
In commemoration of St. Patrick's Day 2024: a good history of Irish Coffee
https://thetakeout.com/what-is-irish-coffee-whiskey-cream-recipe-how-to-make-1851328057
It's Women's History Month: a quotation from Dame Rebecca West on feminism
“I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat, or a prostitute.”
Rebecca West, The Young Rebecca: Writings, 1911-1917.
"We have seen a widening of the gap between the rich and the rest of society. . . ." -- I agree with Professor Paul Kens
"Thanks to developments in American society, politics, and law, however, the history of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era has become ever more relevant in recent years. We have seen a widening of the gap between the rich and the rest of society. There has been a political movement against the federal government and government regulation of business in general. Increasingly, Supreme Court decisions seem to favor corporate interests and concentrated wealth. To non-lawyers and critics, at least, some of those decisions seem to be based on technical, unrealistic legal reasoning.1 Taken together, these developments have put us in an age that bears some striking similarities to the early Progressive Era. They have rekindled debates that dominated politics and law more than a century ago."
Paul Kens, "The Constitution and Business Regulation in the Progressive Era: Recent Developments and New Opportunities," American Journal of Legal History, 2016, 56, 97–103.
This is a well done history of the three prior Chapter 11 bankruptcies in which 45 was the principal of the debtor entities:
Trump Entertainment Resorts: Three Bankruptcies and the Failure to Make Atlantic City Great Again
by Ryan Gallagher
and Andrew Hale
University of Tennessee School of Law, Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Case Studies. 47.
https://ir.law.utk.edu/utk_studlawbankruptcy/47
The article at this link usefully includes access to the pleadings, notices, and orders of these bankruptcy cases.
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