Preface.

• Author: Krompass, LeElle B.

The Journal is proud to publish several panels from this year's Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention. The Annual Rosenkranz Debate features Judges Guido Calabresi and Frank Easterbrook discussing whether the Constitution requires federal courts to interpret statutes as honest agents of the enacting congress. Professors Alan Brownstein, Ira Lupu, and Michael McConnell each present their views on religious liberties and the limits of government power. Finally, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey addresses several aspects of the Obama Administration's homeland security policy.

Drawing on the Constitution, The Federalist, and, in a novel move, the Official Rules of the NFL, Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain discusses the Article III limitations on the judicial power. Arguing that a federal judge should have no more discretion than a football referee, Judge O'Scannlain applies his analogy to several cases from the Ninth Circuit. Professor John Breen expounds the metaphysical foundations of Pope Benedict's recent encyclical addressing the economic crisis, Caritas in Veritate. Richard Re, an up-and-coming scholar, evaluates the possibility that a shifting democratic consensus may be able to overturn Kennedy v. Louisiana's reliance on indicia of popular opinion while striking down the death penalty for child rapists. Mr. Victor Schwartz and Mr. Christopher Appel embrace the new rational pleading standard for federal civil litigation as set forth in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, arguing that it provides a much needed filter of frivolous claims in an era of complex modern civil...