Spring 2025
Professor(s):
David Froomkin (FACULTY)
Credits: 3
Course Areas: Constitutional and Criminal Law
Practice Skills - (Research and Writing)
Time: 1:00p-2:30p MW Location: 200
Course Outline: In this seminar on normative constitutional theory, topics will include bicameralism and presentment, congressional procedure, appointments and removals, electoral rules, oversight and impeachment, judicial review and judicial independence, and constitutional amendment. We will assess the U.S. Constitution’s rules as well as alternative or additional rules that it could have included. An overarching question will be the value of hard-wiring constitutional rules rather than permitting innovation and experimentation. We will also think about how normative arguments about constitutional design relate to interpretive arguments about constitutional law, and we will apply this analysis to some important cases on separation of powers and the law of democracy."
Course Syllabus: Syllabus
Course Notes: (Face-to-Face) The UH registration system instruction mode for this course is listed in parenthesis. For this instruction mode, instructors and students are expected to normally be physically present in the classroom. If the course has a final examination, it will be in a classroom requiring your physical presence. Other assessment, such as a mid term exam, may also be in a classroom. Whether this instructor will offer “remote presence” (starting a zoom meeting from the podium computer to enable student remote access on an occasional basis) for part or all of the semester is not known, but students should not rely on an expectation that remote presence will be available.
Quota=12
Prerequisites:
First Day Assignments:
Final Exam Schedule:
This course will have:
Exam:
Paper:
Satisfies Senior Upper Level Writing Requirement: Yes
Experiential Course Type: No
Bar Course: No
DistanceEd ABA: No
Pass-Fail Student Election: Unavailable (Instructor Preference)
Course Materials
No book required for this course
