Letter from the Editor

• Author: Erielle Davidson
• Position: Editor-in-Chief
• Pages: 1-2

Letter from the Editor

Dear Reader,

The Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy is proud to present the sec-

ond issue of Volume Nineteen. This issue contains both a selection of articles on

contemporary topics within constitutional law, as well as a series of articles pre-

sented at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution’s third annual Thomas M.

Cooley Book Prize and Symposium.

These articles are published in partnership with the Georgetown Center for the

Constitution, whose leader, Professor Randy Barnett, serves as a close friend and

mentor of our journal. The recipient of the third Thomas M. Cooley Book Prize is

Professor Keith E. Whittington of Princeton University for his book, Repugnant

Laws: Judicial Review of Acts of Congress from the Founding to the Present

(University Press of Kansas, 2019), a work that argues the Supreme Court is and

has been a largely political institution.

The 2020 symposium featured a series of written commentaries responding to

Whittington’s book that are now published here. The issue begins with a paper

by Whittington himself, followed by papers authored by Professors Adam

Carrington, Howard Gillman, and Nancy Maveety. Each commentary offers a

different lens through which to evaluate Repugnant Laws. Professor Carrington

assesses the manner in which Whittington’s contemporary portrayal of judicial

review both agrees and disagrees with historical understandings of the judici-

ary. Professor Howard Gillman highlights the degree to which Whittington’s

analysis of judicial review upends conventional wisdom; Gillman then adapts

Whittington’s argument to fit a more polarized political environment. Finally,

Professor Maveety underscores the way in which Whittington’s work chal-

lenges traditional conceptions of “judicial supremacy” and the democratic

implications of parroting “judicial restraint.”

In addition, this issue features scholarship from Paul Larkin, Jr. and Zack

Smith on the unconstitutionality of a controversial settlement practice that the

Biden Administration seeks to re-instate, a practice that would allow corporations

to settle claims by making “donations” to organizations favored by the

Administration. We are also delighted to publish a book review by Paul Larkin,

Jr.—in this instance, co-authored with GianCarlo Canaparo—assessing and com-

paring Professors Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule’s Law and Leviathan and

Professor Richard Epstein’s The Dubious Morality of Modern Administrative

Law.

Finally, we are pleased to publish a total of four student notes in this issue,

including a note by Brett Raffish discussing the hollowness of pre-indictment

Fourth Amendment protections following United States v. Calandra. Another

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