Letter from the Editor

• Author: Luke Bunting
• Position: Editor-in-Chief
• Pages: 1-2

Letter from the Editor

Dear Reader,

The Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy is proud to present the first

issue of Volume Twenty. This issue contains both a selection of articles on many

topics dominating the national discourse and a series of articles presented at the

Georgetown Center for the Constitution’s Seventh Annual Salmon P. Chase

Distinguished Lecture & Faculty Colloquium.

The Salmon P. Chase Lecture series is published in partnership with the

Georgetown Center for the Constitution. The Center and its Director, Randy

Barnett, remain close friends of our journal. The 2020 lecture and colloquium,

published here, commemorate the 100th anniversary of the adoption of the

Nineteenth Amendment, which finally extended the right to vote to women. The

colloquium articles included in this volume discuss both the historical landscape

surrounding the Amendment’s adoption and how Americans can ensure its poten-

tial is fully realized.

The issue begins with an introductory lecture by Professor Martha S. Jones,

followed by articles from Professors Reva B. Siegel, Ellen D. Katz, Paula A.

Monopoli, and David E. Bernstein. Each piece examines the fight for women’s

suffrage through a unique lens, whether it be the concept of “constitutional mem-

ory” or the juxtaposition of important judicial precedents. Given the recent focus

on voting laws and practices, the symposium articles provide a welcome over-

view of the history of the franchise in America and analysis of one of the

Constitution’s most prominent guarantees of it.

In addition, this issue features scholarship from a distinguished group of

authors on an array of timely topics. Josh Blackman and Seth Barrett Tillman

examine the threshold issues at play in the Emoluments Clause litigation brought

against President Donald Trump, providing a framework for categorizing actions

by presidents and analyzing when and how such suits can be brought. The

Honorable Timothy Tymkovich of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth

Circuit and Hayley Stillwell put forth a theory of malicious prosecution based not

in the Fourth Amendment, but rather in the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection

of due process. Eric R. Claeys identifies the holdings and dicta of both Roe v.

Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey in

response to Chief Justice Roberts’s characterization of each during oral argu-

ments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Sherif Girgis argues

against recent suggestions that the Supreme Court uphold the Mississippi statute

at issue in Dobbs under Casey’s undue-burden test, finding such suggestions to be

based on enduring misreadings of Casey, and that such an outcome would run

counter to the case’s actual logic. Paul Larkin, Jr., offers two pieces related to the

federal government’s response to COVID-19. The first considers the political,

practical, and constitutional questions at play when the federal government

decides between persuading and coercing Americans into receiving a vaccine.

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