Preface.

AuthorWest, Kyle

If nothing else, the last five years in the United States have been characterized by increasing federal involvement in everyday life. From building on your own land to choosing replacement light bulbs, the federal government seems to influence, in some way, nearly every decision one might make on a given day. Although many trees have been lost to discussion of the limits of federal power, it now seems of greater practical import simply to ask whether there is any aspect of modern life to which federal power does not extend. This Issue includes eleven Essays from scholars who addressed this question at the Thirty-Second Annual Federalist Society National Student Symposium.

Additionally, we are thrilled to be publishing five Essays from a recent conference on "Intellectual Diversity and the Legal Academy," hosted by the Harvard Federalist Society.

This Issue also includes three Articles about which our staff is particularly excited. Professor Robert G. Natelson offers the first analysis of the Recess Appointments Clause to rely exclusively on pre-1789 sources, with important results for the Supreme Court's pending case on the matter. Mr. Paul J. Larkin, Jr., addresses the Sixth Circuit's recent opinion in United States v. Blewett, and presents a novel argument as to why Congress cannot violate the Equal Protection Clause through inaction. Finally, Mr. Charles J. Cooper and Mr. Howard C. Nielson, Jr., argue that the text and original understanding of Article III require that federal courts be open, in some fashion, to cases in which even minimal diversity of citizenship exists.

Lastly, one of our student authors considers the place of third-party doctrine in Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence, while two others address developments from the Court's recent terms.

I would like to thank several of the many people whose hard work made this Issue of the Journal possible. First, Deputy Editor-in-Chief Carol Szurkowski. Her willingness to take on whatever work needs to be done and her ability to...

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