Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2011
Abstract
As our colleagues have often remarked, Professor John Manning's and my views have moved much closer to each other since I wrote the piece he graciously uses as the stalking horse for unmitigated functionalism, and he more recently established himself as the scholarly spokesperson for Scalian textualism and formalism.
I greatly admire the moderate and exquisitely informed voice of Separation of Powers as Ordinary Interpretation, which deserves the important influence it will doubtless have. The brief thoughts that follow are to suggest only that (as scholars often enough do) he somewhat exaggerates the characteristics of the schools that he presents as the poles of his persuasive middle ground (functionalism especially); and that, a little strangely, he does not go as far as he might in observing the influence that the details of the Constitution's text respecting government structures might have on the interpretation, especially, of the President's Article II authority.
Disciplines
Constitutional Law | Law
Recommended Citation
Peter L. Strauss,
A Softer Formalism,
124
Harv. L. Rev. F.
55
(2011).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/419