Connecticut bill

[Steven Jamar]

Well done, Doug et al.

While the signers of the letter disagree on a topic or two in the area  
of religious freedom and constitutional interpretation of the religion  
clauses, there is a huge breadth of space over which they and I  
suspect nearly all constitutional law experts agree.  This is clearly  
one of the easy ones.

Con Law books emphasize boundaries and hard cases.  I regularly try to  
draw my students back to thinking about just how much is in fact  
settled and how clearly constitutional most of the efforts of  
Congress, the Court, the Executive, and the states in fact are.  While  
the areas of dispute are oftentimes very important, we can sometimes  
(and maybe generally do) exaggerate their importance because they are  
the hot issues of the moment.  This bill, the response to it, and  
Doug's letter serve to remind us that we agree on much.

They also serve to remind us that even in settled, clear areas,  
people, whether well-meaning or otherwise, can act improperly and that  
indeed the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Wendell Phillips  
(1811–84) http://www.bartleby.com/73/1073.html (often attributed to  
Thomas Jefferson, though no one has found where he said or wrote it).

Thanks.

Steve

-- 
Prof. Steven D. Jamar                     vox:  202-806-8017
Associate Director, Institute of Intellectual Property and Social  
Justice http://iipsj.org
Howard University School of Law           fax:  202-806-8567
http://iipsj.com/SDJ/

"Nothing that is worth anything can be achieved in a lifetime;  
therefore we must be saved by hope."

Reinhold Neibuhr



On Mar 10, 2009, at 5:29 PM, Douglas Laycock wrote:

> Earlier today we discussed a bill in Connecticut to impose  
> Protestant forms of church governance on the Catholic Church.  The  
> bill has been pulled and tomorrow's hearing has been cancelled,  
> apparently due to a flood of calls to legislators.  Church leaders  
> in Connecticut are not convinced that the issue is fully dead.   
> Maybe they are right; maybe they are just being cautious.
>
> If the link below actually works, you can find there a copy of the  
> bill, and a copy of a letter that twelve of us sent to the Committee  
> Co-Chairs.  We cannot take credit for killing the bill; they  
> apparently pulled it before our letter was delivered.  I hope we can  
> take credit for a good explanation of why it is clearly  
> unconstitutional.
>
> http://www-personal.umich.edu/~laycockd/
>
> The breadth of agreement that this one was unconstitutional, which  
> extends far beyond the signers of this letter, is encouraging.
>
> Douglas Laycock
> Yale Kamisar Collegiate Professor of Law
> University of Michigan Law School
> 625 S. State St.
> Ann Arbor, MI  48109-1215
>   734-647-9713_______________________________________________
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