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Seth Barrett Tillman

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ISSUES IN AMERICAN AND COMMONWEALTH


LEGISLATIVE PRACTICE & PROCEDURE

COURSE AIMS

This course concerns legislative practice and procedure – how the legislature
should identify and organize its members, select its officers and employees, conduct its
internal business and affairs, carry out its legislative tasks, seek information, select which
instruments to employ to memorialize its measures, and communicate with the outside
world, including the other branches of the government. The student should exit the class
with a knowledge of how to advise a presiding officer in regard to the conduct of a
meeting under a legislative body’s standing orders, and coordinate statutory and
constitutional provisions – or, at the very least, knowledge of where to find persuasive
law and authority in regard to such questions. The course materials will concern U.S.
federal and state legislatures as well as the legislatures of Britain and the Commonwealth.
The course will also stress that Commonwealth and American legislative traditions
encompass considerable variation in regard to the basic policy choices discussed here.

COURSE OUTLINE

Week 1: The Enrolled Bill Rule and the Justiciability of Legislative Acts
United States v. Munoz-Flores, 495 U.S. 385 (1990)
Field v. Clark, 143 U.S. 649 (1892)
Public Citizen v. U.S. Dist. Court for Dist. of Columbia, 486 F.3d 1342
(D.C. Cir. 2007), aff’g 451 F. Supp. 2d 109 (D.D.C. 2006)
Attorney General for Western Australia v. Laurence Bernhard Marquet,
Clerk of the Parliament of Western Australia, [2003] HCA 67, 202
ALR 233 (High Court of Australia 2003)
Victoria v. Commonwealth, [1975] 134 CLR 81 (High Court of Australia)
Purushothaman v. Kerala, [1962] A.I.R. 694 (Sup. Ct. India)
Simpson v. Attorney General, [1955] N.Z.L.R. 271 (Sup. Ct. N.Z. 1954)
Jackson v. Her Majesty’s Attorney General, [2005] UKHL 56
Ittai Bar-Siman-Tov, Legislative Supremacy in the United States?
Rethinking the “Enrolled Bill” Doctrine, 97 GEO. L.J. 323 (2009)
Seth Barrett Tillman, Noncontemporaneous Lawmaking,
16 CORNELL J.L. & PUB. POL’Y 331 (2007)
Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl, Response, Against Mix-and-Match Lawmaking,
16 CORNELL J.L. & PUB. POL’Y 349 (2007)
Seth Barrett Tillman, Defending the (Not So) Indefensible: A Reply to
Professor Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl, 16 CORNELL J.L. & PUB. POL’Y
363 (2007)

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1707048


Seth Barrett Tillman
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Week 2: Judicial Review of Privilege -- Attendance, Speech, and Legislative


Materials
U.S. v. Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2113, 497 F.3d 654 (D.C.
Cir. 2007), rev’g 432 F. Supp. 2d 100 (D.D.C. 2006)
JOSH CHAFETZ, DEMOCRACY’S PRIVILEGED FEW: LEGISLATIVE PRIVILEGE
AND DEMOCRATIC NORMS IN THE BRITISH AND AMERICAN
CONSTITUTIONS (2007)
Evan Fox-Decent, Parliamentary Privilege and the Rule of Law, 20
CANADIAN J. OF ADMIN. L. & PRAC. 117 (2007)
See generally ODGERS’ AUSTRALIAN SENATE PRACTICE

Week 3: Statutes Regulating Behavior of Members and Executive Enforcement


Burton v. United States, 202 U. S. 344 (1906)
HAROLD BRUFF, BALANCE OF FORCES (2006)
Josh Chafetz, Executive Branch contempt of Congress, 76 U. CHI. L.
REV. 1083 (2009)

Weeks 4: Who Can Serve As a Member: Exclusivity of Constitutional


Qualifications
U.S. CONST. art. I, § 2, cl. 2; id. art. I, § 3, cl. 3
U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779 (1995)
Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486 (1969)
Sykes v. Cleary, [1992] 176 CLR 77 (High Court of Australia)
JOSH CHAFETZ, DEMOCRACY’S PRIVILEGED FEW: LEGISLATIVE PRIVILEGE
AND DEMOCRATIC NORMS IN THE BRITISH AND AMERICAN
CONSTITUTIONS (2007)
David P. Currie, The Constitution in Congress: The Second Congress,
1791-1793, 90 NW. U. L. REV. 606, 624-25 (1996)
See generally HINDS’ PRECEDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1707048


Seth Barrett Tillman
Version 4

Week 5: Statutized Rules and Entrenchment


Newton v. Comm’ns, 100 U.S. 548 (1879)
Bruce Ackerman et al., An Open Letter to Congressman Gingrich, 104
YALE L.J. 1539 (1995)
Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl, Using Statutes to Set Legislative Rules:
Entrenchment, Separation of Powers, and the Rules of Proceedings
Clause, 19 J. OF L. & POL. 345 (2003)
John O. McGinnis & Michael Rappaport, Symmetric Entrenchment, 89 VA.
L. REV. 385 (2003)
Eric Posner & Adrian Vermeule, Legislative Entrenchment, 111 YALE L.J.
1665 (2002)

Week 6: Filibusters, Cloture, and the Motion to Vote on the Previous Question
United States Senate Rules
SARAH A. BINDER & STEVEN S. SMITH, POLITICS OR PRINCIPLE?
FILIBUSTERING IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE (1997)
SENATOR HENRY CABOT LODGE, SR., Parliamentary Obstruction in the
United States, in HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL ESSAYS 169
(Cambridge 1892)
SENATOR HENRY CABOT LODGE, SR., Parliamentary Minorities, in
HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL ESSAYS 180 (Cambridge 1892)
GREGORY J. WAWRO & ERIC SCHICKLER, FILIBUSTER: OBSTRUCTION AND
LAWMAKING IN THE U.S. SENATE (2006)
Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl, Burying the "Continuing Body" Theory of the
Senate, 95 IOWA L. REV. 1401 (2010)
Catherine Fisk & Erwin Chemerinski, The Filibuster, 49 STAN. L. REV.
181 (1997), and responses thereto
See generally MASON’S MANUAL OF [STATE] LEGISLATIVE PROCEDURE
(United States)

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Week 7: Quorums
United States House and Senate Rules, and related statutes
Annals of Congress & Journal of the House reporting quorum votes and
determinations in the First Federal Congress and during the Civil
War
THOMAS JEFFERSON, MANUAL OF PARLIAMENTARY PRACTICE (1812)
THOMAS JEFFERSON, NOTES ON THE STATE OF VIRGINIA (1781)
ERSKINE MAY PARLIAMENTARY PRACTICE (William McKay et al., eds.,
23d ed. 2004)
MASON’S MANUAL OF [STATE] LEGISLATIVE PROCEDURE
(United States)
ODGERS’ AUSTRALIAN SENATE PRACTICE
John Bryan Williams, How to Survive a Terrorist Attack: The
Constitution’s Majority Quorum Requirement and the Continuity of
Congress, 48 WM. & MARY L. REV. 1025 (2006)
See generally ADRIAN VERMEULE, MECHANISMS OF DEMOCRACY (2007)

Week 8: Majority Rule


JAMES M. BUCHANAN & GORDON TULLOCK, THE CALCULUS OF
CONSENT (1962)
MASON’S MANUAL OF [STATE] LEGISLATIVE PROCEDURE
(reporting state cases relating to vote counting in a legislative body,
particularly Alabama and New Hampshire)
ADRIAN VERMEULE, MECHANISMS OF DEMOCRACY (2007)
Saul Levmore, Parliamentary Law, Majority Decision Making, and the
Voting Paradox, 75 VA. L. REV. 971 (1989)
John O. McGinnis & Michael B. Rappaport, The Constitutionality of
Legislative Supermajority Requirements: A Defense, 105 YALE L.J.,
483 (1995)
John O. McGinnis & Michael B. Rappaport, The Rights of Legislators and
the Wrongs of Interpretation: A Further Defense of the
Constitutionality of Legislative Supermajority Rules, 47 DUKE L.J.
327 (1997)
Iain McLean & Arnold B. UrkenSource, Did Jefferson or Madison
Understand Condorcet’s Theory of Social Choice?, 73 PUBLIC
CHOICE 445 (1992)
Sir Karl Popper, Popper on Democracy: The Open Society and its Enemies
Revisited, THE ECONOMIST (April 23, 1988)
Jed Rubenfeld, Rights of Passage: Majority Rule in Congress, 46 DUKE
L.J. 73 (1996)

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Week 9: Legislative Power to Subpoena Information and Compel Witnesses


McGrain v. Daugherty, , 273 U.S. 135 (1927)
In re Chapman, 166 U.S. 661 (1897)
Anderson v. Dunn, 19 U.S. 204 (1821)
Kielley v. Carson (1842) 13 E.R. 225, 4 Moo. P.C. 63 (Nfld. P.C.)
J.M. KELLY, THE IRISH CONSTITUTION (Dr. Gerard Hogan & Gerry Whyte,
eds., 4th ed. 2003)
Josh Chafetz, Executive Branch contempt of Congress, 76 U. CHI. L.
REV. 1083 (2009)
James M. Landis, Constitutional Limits on the Congressional Power of
Investigation, 40 HARV. L. REV. 153 (1926)
Gary Lawson, Burning Down the House (and Senate), 83 TEXAS L. REV.
1379 (2005)
Michael B. Rappaport, Replacing Independent Counsels with
Congressional Investigations, 148 U. PA. L. REV. 1595 (2000)
See genearlly DEREK LEE, LL.B., M.P., THE POWER OF PARLIAMENTARY
HOUSES TO SEND FOR PERSONS, PAPERS AND RECORDS: A
SOURCEBOOK ON THE LAW AND PRECEDENT OF PARLIAMENTARY
SUBPOENA POWERS FOR CANADIAN AND OTHER HOUSES (1999)

Week 10: Legislative Power to Compel Information from the Executive


Assertion of Executive Privilege Regarding White House Counsel’s Office
Documents, 20 OP. OFFICE OF LEGAL COUNSEL 2 (1996) (Reno,
A.G.)
John Conyers, Jr., Resolution Recommending that the House of
Representatives Find Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolten, Chief of
Staff, White House, in Contempt of Congress for Refusal to Comply
with Subpoenas Duly Issued by the Committee on the Judiciary,
H.R. Rep. No. 110-423, at 3-7 (2007)
HAROLD BRUFF, BALANCE OF FORCES (2006)
Mashaw, Recovering American Administrative Law: Federalist
Foundations 1787-1801, 115 YALE L.J. 1256 (2006)

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Week 11: Nonstatutory Instruments: Constitutional Amendments, Treaties, and


Legislative Orders
Coleman v. Miller, 307 U.S. 433 (1939)
United States v. Smith, 286 U.S. 6 (1932)
Hollingsworth v. Virginia, 3 U.S. 378 (1798)
Congressional Communications with the States:
United States – Eighteenth Century and Civil War Precedents
Resolutions approving the Twenty-Seventh Amendment:
H.R. Cong. Res. 320, 102d Cong., 2d Sess., in 138 Cong. Rec. H.
3505-06 (May 18, 1992)
S. Cong. Res. 120, 102d Cong., 2d Sess., in 138 Cong. Rec.
56948-57001 (May 20, 1992)
Michael Paulsen, A General Theory of Article V, 103 YALE L.J. 677 (1993)
Grover Rees III, Throwing Away the Key: The Unconstitutionality of the
Equal Rights Amendment Extension, 58 TEX. L. REV. 875 (1980)
Seth Barrett Tillman, A Textualist Defense, 83 TEX. L. REV. 1265 (2005)

Week 12: New Governments, and Territories Which Become Nations, States, and
Provinces
The Insular Cases, United States Supreme Court
U.S. federal cases discussing appellate jurisdiction where trial court
decision arose in a territorial courts, but on appeal after statehood
American and Commonwealth organic acts granting self-government
within a federal system and/or granting outright independence, and
cases discussing such grants
Gary Lawson & Guy Seidman, When Did the Constitution Become Law?,
77 NOTRE DAME L. REV. 1 (2001)
Vasan Kesavan, Response, When Did the Articles of Confederation Cease
to Be Law?, 78 NOTRE DAME L. REV. 35 (2002)
Gary Lawson & Guy Seidman, Reply, The First “Establishment” Clause:
Article VII and the Post-Constitutional Confederation, 78 NOTRE
DAME L. REV. 83 (2002)

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Week 13: Procedural Issues Arising in Impeachment and Legislative Trials


RAOUL BERGER, IMPEACHMENT: THE CONSTITUTIONAL PROBLEMS (1973)
MICHAEL J. GERHARDT, THE FEDERAL IMPEACHMENT PROCESS: A
CONSTITUTIONAL AND HISTORICAL ANALYSIS 60-61 (2d ed. 2000)
BRIAN C. KALT, CONSTITUTIONAL CLIFFHANGERS (forthcoming
circa 2011) (unpublished draft manuscript) (on file with author)
Josh Chafetz, Impeachment and Assassination, 95 MINN. L. REV. 347
(2010), with Seth Barrett Tillman, The Originalist Who Came In
From The Cold: A “New” View of the Incompatibility Clause, the
Removal & Disqualification Clause, and the Religious Test Clause --
A Response to Professor Josh Chafetz’s Impeachment &
Assassination 1-68 (Oct. 11, 2010) (unpublished manuscript) (on file
with author), available at
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1622441.

Other sources, yet to be determined based on remaining time

SOME SUGGESTED BACKGROUND MATERIAL


HOUSE OF COMMONS PROCEDURE AND PRACTICE (Audrey O’Brien & Marc Bosc, eds.,
2d ed. 2009)

JOSEPH MAINGOT, PARLIAMENTARY PRIVILEGE IN CANADA (2d ed. 1997)

ERSKINE MAY PARLIAMENTARY PRACTICE (William McKay et al., eds., 23d ed. 2004)

WILLIAM MCKAY & CHARLES W. JOHNSON, PARLIAMENT & CONGRESS:


REPRESENTATION & SCRUTINY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 515 n.43 (2010)

GREGORY TARDI, THE LAW OF DEMOCRATIC GOVERNING – PRINCIPLES AND THE LAW OF
DEMOCRATIC GOVERNING – JURISPRUDENCE (2004)

GRADE
Grade will be based on a paper between 15 and 30 pages long, including footnotes, and
on in-class participation (including a formal presentation)

CITATION
Seth Barrett Tillman, Course Syllabus: Issues in American and Commonwealth
Legislative Practice & Procedure (Nov. 2010), available at
http://works.bepress.com/seth_barrett_tillman/210/, also available at
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1707048. Contact: sbarrettillman@yahoo.com.

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