Response: Just Following Orders
posted by University of Pennsylvania Law Review
PENNumbra’s featured works of October are now available at www.pennumbra.com.
The latest featured October Response on PENNumbra is Just Following Orders, by Roderick M. Hills, Jr. It is an analysis of Norman R. Williams’s 2006 article, Executive Review in the Fragmented Executive: State Constitutionalism and Same-Sex Marriage. Professor Hills praises Professor Williams for recognizing that “whatever the merits of [the departmentalist and judicial supremacist] positions as interpretations of the U.S. Constitution, both are hopelessly unpersuasive when applied to state constitutions.” He then examines Professor Williams’s defense of “a third method—‘the legislative model’—for determining when agencies should just follow orders from the legislature.” However, he ultimately concludes that “Professor Williams’s theory ignores the facts about democratic accountability and expertise that most of us would regard as critical,” and argues that “this gap suggests a problem with his theory”—a gap that Professor Hills hopes Professor Williams fills in his next examination of executive review.
As always, please click on the PENNumbra link to read previous Responses and Debates, or to check out pdfs of the Penn Law Review’s print edition articles.
October 31, 2007 at 9:47 am
Posted in: Law Rev (Penn), Law Rev Forum
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