Constitutional Law - everyone's least favorite class

[stateofbeasley]

I'm glad I'm on spring break. I can finally catch up with all the reading I didn't do while I was finishing up my term paper.

RANT: Conlaw sucks. Our professor is obsessed with the Commerce Clause and nobody knows what is going on. Half the class is terrified of being called on, and even those who carefully read the cases are scared.

And why is it that everyone drinks so friggin much? The two staples of Law School culture seem to be alcohol and alcohol. Well maybe three if we throw cigarettes in.

 

[nick1985]

you're an idiot

 

[DrPizza]

Hey, since you're in constitutional law, is it illegal to tax interstate commerce??
Thanks.

 

[TuxDave]

What is the commerce clause anyways?... in a nutshell.

 

[stateofbeasley]

Originally posted by: nick1985
your an idiot

 

[stateofbeasley]

The States cannot enact taxes or other trade barriers to goods and services flowing through them. The Framers of the Constitution gave the Legislature exclusive authority to regulate interstate commerce in order to prevent the individual states from engaging in trade wars that were hurting the economy of the country as a whole.

Originally posted by: DrPizza
Hey, since you're in constitutional law, is it illegal to tax interstate commerce??
Thanks.

DaveTux - The Commerce Clause is located in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. It says that Congress has the power to "regulate Commerce with foreign nations, and among the Several States, and with the Indian Tribes".

U.S. Courts have interpreted this to mean that Congress, and Congress alone has those powers.

 

[nick1985]

Originally posted by: TuxDave

Originally posted by: nick1985
your an idiot

You're

What is the commerce clause anyways?... in a nutshell.

*edited*

 

[TuxDave]

Originally posted by: stateofbeasley
The States cannot enact taxes or other trade barriers to goods and services flowing through them. The Framers of the Constitution gave the Legislature exclusive authority to regulate interstate commerce in order to prevent the individual states from engaging in trade wars that were hurting the economy of the country as a whole.

Originally posted by: DrPizza
Hey, since you're in constitutional law, is it illegal to tax interstate commerce??
Thanks.

DaveTux - The Commerce Clause is located in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. It says that Congress has the power to "regulate Commerce with foreign nations, and among the Several States, and with the Indian Tribes".

U.S. Courts have interpreted this to mean that Congress, and Congress alone has those powers.

o_0 Really? No more of that checks and balances thing?

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: stateofbeasley
I'm glad I'm on spring break. I can finally catch up with all the reading I didn't do while I was finishing up my term paper.

RANT: Conlaw sucks. Our professor is obsessed with the Commerce Clause and nobody knows what is going on. Half the class is terrified of being called on, and even those who carefully read the cases are scared.

mine is obsessed with sodomy laws

And why is it that everyone drinks so friggin much? The two staples of Law School culture seem to be alcohol and alcohol. Well maybe three if we throw cigarettes in.

ya got that right

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: TuxDave

Originally posted by: stateofbeasley
The States cannot enact taxes or other trade barriers to goods and services flowing through them. The Framers of the Constitution gave the Legislature exclusive authority to regulate interstate commerce in order to prevent the individual states from engaging in trade wars that were hurting the economy of the country as a whole.

Originally posted by: DrPizza
Hey, since you're in constitutional law, is it illegal to tax interstate commerce??
Thanks.

DaveTux - The Commerce Clause is located in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. It says that Congress has the power to "regulate Commerce with foreign nations, and among the Several States, and with the Indian Tribes".

U.S. Courts have interpreted this to mean that Congress, and Congress alone has those powers.

o_0 Really? No more of that checks and balances thing?

It has nothing to do with checks and balances. The president can still veto any law they pass, and the courts can still find them unconstitutional. What he meant is that congress, not the states, regulate commerce.

nick1985, what's your problem?

 

[DigDug]

The Commerce Clause is the one way that the Feds can regulate behavior. The reason you have things called federal crimes are because (1) they pertain to something which the federal courts of "original jurisdiciton" which means they CAN'T be heard at the State level (copyright, etc). and (2) legislation has been enacted to deal withi it pursuant to the commerce clause.

In short, anytime a behavior involves crossing state lines, the Commerce Clause is the trump card by which the goverment can regulate. The big controversy is that the COmmerce clause has been read SOOOOO broadly, and according to many scholars, way more broadly than it was intended. Like with federal drug crimes - how are they able to catch a drug dealer who only deals in-state, and assuming he doesn't import the drugs himself (which would also trigger commerce clause power)? By saying that the phone calls he made to his drug cohort in another state cross state lines! It's really insane, actually, and a classic example about how the constitution has been twisted and extended to keep up with modern times. Yeah, sure, in the 1800s when there really wasn't much "globalization" within America, States could satisfactorily govern things. But now that we buy milk inour local supermarket from Kansas, our Oranges from California, and the like, we are much more integrated as a country and there has to be a federal ability to regulate. That's one side of the argument. Of course, like above, the other side is that the Feds are robbing the states of their rights.

See, after all, our country is based on Federalism, which has by definition to layers of competing rights - the rights of the federal government to govern, and then the rights of each individual state to do so.


It is a crappy course, although it appears to be the most interesting, I'm sure, to you all. The reason it sucks is that you say how disingenuous and how politicized our "laws" are, with judges writing diatribes that would make Dickens proud, but that really stand on nothing more than their view of how government should progress. The trick of judges is to disguise their own beliefs in supposed rock-solid logic...Read Gore v. Bush for a shining exampe.

 

[gopunk]

Originally posted by: BlipBlop
It is a crappy course, although it appears to be the most interesting, I'm sure, to you all. The reason it sucks is that you say how disingenuous and how politicized our "laws" are, with judges writing diatribes that would make Dickens proud, but that really stand on nothing more than their view of how government should progress. The trick of judges is to disguise their own beliefs in supposed rock-solid logic...Read Gore v. Bush for a shining exampe.

interesting, my prof (stanford law alum) said he didn't get interested in conlaw until he took it in law school.

 

[tnitsuj]

I loved both of my constitutional law classes.

 

[DigDug]

I'm in my third year of law school, and it doesn't get any better. However, I must say that I'm the minority, most people in law school like this kind of flower fluff. I think its because many of them - at least the liberal arts ones - reminisce to their college days when school consisted of masturbating around this kind of fluffy policy discussion with a regurgitation paper at the end. And that's why I dislike it so much.

I mean, how does "regulating commerce" have anything to do with narcotics sales, or any illicit activity without a legitimate side to it? If it wasn't for Scalia, the Violence Against Women Act would have made domestic abuse a federal crime, by some tenuous connection to interstate lines. The logic is so tenuous its pathetic.

 

[astroview]

You remind me of all the kids who complain about any 101 in College. Remember how annoying they were? Just suck it up and buy a commercial outline. Why haven't you bought Constitutional Law: Principles and Policies by Chemerinsky? I told you about this book in other threads. It teaches you the class. You don't have to even read the cases.

Stop being a whiner.

 

And why is it that everyone drinks so friggin much? The two staples of Law School culture seem to be alcohol and alcohol. Well maybe three if we throw cigarettes in.

Drinking is the staple of society.

 

[Orsorum]

Actually, this is a question I've been wanting to post for a while: if I think I'm interested in Constitutional Law as an area of study and maybe an area of practice, are there any particular books I should read or become familiar with to determine whether I'd truly find it worthwhile?

 

[stateofbeasley]

Hmm... I must not have seen your posts. There was a period of about a week where I did not check any of my old threads. I will take a look at that book. I have noted that many of my classmates bring commercial outlines to class, but that these don't seem to help them at all in answering random questions on seemingly pointless nuances of the language in a case

And, no, I will not stop complaining - just telling it like it is.

Originally posted by: astroview
You remind me of all the kids who complain about any 101 in College. Remember how annoying they were? Just suck it up and buy a commercial outline. Why haven't you bought Constitutional Law: Principles and Policies by Chemerinsky? I told you about this book in other threads. It teaches you the class. You don't have to even read the cases.

Stop being a whiner.

 

[astroview]

Originally posted by: Orsorum
Actually, this is a question I've been wanting to post for a while: if I think I'm interested in Constitutional Law as an area of study and maybe an area of practice, are there any particular books I should read or become familiar with to determine whether I'd truly find it worthwhile?

The number of lawyers who exclusively work in Constitutional Law is extremely small. It just doesn't really happen much. Most cases are contracts breached and torts committed in the real world. Brown v. Board of Education is not a normal occurrence. Most people would probably want to do Con Law all the time, but its not often an option. Thats what the law really is about when practicing, its not the big issues.


Hey stateofbeasley, sorry I was so rough with that last post. Guess I wasn't feeling too charitable. Remember, what you say in class is irrelevant, its the final that counts. I sound like an idiot when I answer most of the time too. I think socratic is more a method to get people to keep up with the reading, instead of teaching us.

 

[astroview]

DP

 

[astroview]

DP

 

[astroview]

DP

 

[DigDug]

Astroview is right. Constitutional Law is like philosophy, nothing really new happens, and when it does, only the established bigshots' opinions are given any credence anyway.

I wouldn't jump onto canned outlines too quickly. For a class like constitutional law, EVERYONE will understand what's going on, but only a few will really graps the nuances of a case, and be able to articulate it on the final. This is a class where writing style really does count for the final grade, and one's ability to write a tight, powerful answer really shines here.

 

[Orsorum]

Originally posted by: astroview

Originally posted by: Orsorum
Actually, this is a question I've been wanting to post for a while: if I think I'm interested in Constitutional Law as an area of study and maybe an area of practice, are there any particular books I should read or become familiar with to determine whether I'd truly find it worthwhile?

The number of lawyers who exclusively work in Constitutional Law is extremely small. It just doesn't really happen much. Most cases are contracts breached and torts committed in the real world. Brown v. Board of Education is not a normal occurrence. Most people would probably want to do Con Law all the time, but its not often an option. Thats what the law really is about when practicing, its not the big issues.


Hey stateofbeasley, sorry I was so rough with that last post. Guess I wasn't feeling too charitable. Remember, what you say in class is irrelevant, its the final that counts. I sound like an idiot when I answer most of the time too. I think socratic is more a method to get people to keep up with the reading, instead of teaching us.

Darnit! Back to tax and estate law. :\