Cato Supreme Court Review 2008-2009: Introduction
Cato Supreme Court Review, 2009
8 Pages Posted: 30 Nov 2009
Date Written: September 17, 2009
Abstract
This is the eighth volume of the Cato Supreme Court Review, the nation’s first in-depth critique of the Supreme Court term just ended. We release this journal every year on September 17, Constitution Day, about two and a half months after the previous term concludes and two weeks before the next one begins (though this year we will already have had the Citizens United campaign finance case reargument in early September). We are proud of the speed with which we publish this tome — authors of articles about the lastdecided cases have little more than a month to provide us full drafts — and of its accessibility, at least insofar as the Court’s opinions allow for that. This is not a typical law review, after all, whose prolix submissions use more space for obscure footnotes than for article text. Instead, this is a book about law intended for everyone from lawyers and judges to educated laymen and interested citizens. And we are happy to confess our biases: We approach our subject matter from a classical Madisonian perspective, with a focus on individual liberty, property rights, and federalism, and a vision of a government of delegated, enumerated, and thus limited powers. We also try to maintain a strict separation of politics (or policy) and law; just because something is good policy doesn’t mean it’s legal, and vice versa. Similarly, certain decisions must necessarily be left to the political process: We aim to be governed by laws, not lawyers, so just as a good lawyer will present all plausibly legal options to his client, a good public official will recognize that the ultimate buck stops with him.
Keywords: Supreme Court, Cato, introduction, constitutional law, Madison
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