October 17, 2012

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today. Wednesday 10/17, we finished discussing the last two cases in Chapter 1 of the text, Smith and Suggs. For the Smith discussion, I also went over two Supreme Court cases, Wisconsin v. Constantineau and Paul v. Davis, and how those case were followed and distinguished, respectively. On Friday 10/19, we'll have Exam #1, open book and open note (but only your own).

POS 359 FEDERALISM
In class today, Wednesday 10/17, I distributed one handout, about one case that the U.S. Supreme Court accepted this week (the rights of states to create requirements additional to federal requirements regarding proof of citizenship when registering to vote) and one case that the Supreme Court did not accept (the right of Ohio to cut back on early voting). We discussed these cases in terms of the line between federal power and state power. We then returned to the Commerce Clause, finishing up our discussion of Gibbons v. Ogden and proceeding to U.S. v. Knight, where we got up to the Harlan dissenting opinion. We will pick up there on Friday. The additional reading for Friday 10/19 is to read through p. 295 of the text.

POS 359 THE CURRENT SUPREME COURT TERM
In class today, wednesday 10/17, we finished going over the Petitioner's Brief, and then went through the summary of the Respondent's brief. We will discuss a few points of the Respondent's Brief in more detail on Friday. The assignment for Friday 10/19 is to read the Petitioner's Reply Brief.