Related Citations

  • Alexander Tsesis, Enforcement of the Reconstruction Amendments, 78 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 849 (2021).

    Analyzing the balance of power in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments between Congress and the other branches. Arguing that the judiciary should defer to the legislature in matters of racial equality, dignitary justice, and access to the ballot box. Arguing that legislative encroachments on any of these issues should receive heightened scrutiny, however.

  • Edward Cantu, Normative History and Congress’s Enforcement Power Under the Reconstruction Amendments, 21 Tex. Rev. L. & Pol. 119 (2016).

    Arguing that the “settled consensus” that the Framers intended Congress to have broad enforcement power of the reconstruction amendments is not as simple as it seems. Examining the same original sources as scholars who have found broad enforcement powers and arguing that there should be more intellectual empathy with judges citing federalism concerns about the enforcement of these amendments.

  • Kaiya M. A. Arroyo, Originalism and Constitutional Construction: A Shelby County Case Study, 18 U. Pa. J. Const. L. Online 1 (2015).

    Discussing the Voting Rights Act and Section 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment. Analyzing Section 2 by looking to contemporary dictionaries at the time of the Amendment’s Framing and the syntax of the phrase. Looking also to the context in which “appropriate legislation” was drafted and statements by legislators about the section. Concluding that no consensus existed about the parameters of Section 2 such that a constraining principle could be discerned.

  • Jeremy Amar-Dolan, The Voting Rights Act and the Fifteenth Amendment Standard of Review, 16 U Pa. J. Const. L. 1477 (2013).

    Arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment’s “congruence and proportionality” standard should not be applied to the Fifteenth Amendment’s Enforcement Clause. Claiming that legislation passed pursuant to the Fifteenth Amendment should receive more deferential treatment because the subject matter contemplated by the Amendment is so much narrower.

  • Calvin Massey, The Effect of Shelby County on Enforcement of the Reconstruction Amendments, 29 J.L. & Pol. 397 (2013).

    Assessing whether Congress’s enforcement power under the Fifteenth Amendment is identical to its power under the Fourteenth Amendment and concluding it is not. Pointing out the historical and structural reasons for the differences in the two amendments and arguing for a unified test.

  • Michael Kent Curtis, The Klan, the Congress, and the Court: Congressional Enforcement of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments & the State Action Syllogism, A Brief Historical Overview, 11 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 1381 (2009).

    Arguing that the Court has largely ignored the historical context of the Fifteenth Amendment when assessing Congress’s enforcement power. Citing the Klu Klux Klan Enforcement Act as an important historical contextual point underlying the purpose behind the Fifteenth Amendment’s Enforcement Clause, as well as the Enforcement Act of 1870.