Governance and Power

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What's the Harm? The Future of the First Amendment
Preserving a Democratic Shield: First Amendment Challenges to Michigan's Independent Redistricting Commission
Michael Ortega
B.S., University of Miami, Class of 2018; J.D. candidate, University of Chicago Law School, Class of 2021.

Thank you to Gerry Hebert and Paul Smith for some preliminary musings on the subject, and to Nicholas Stephanopoulos and the Legal Forum for invaluable feedback throughout the writing process. This Comment is dedicated to the memory of my grandfather, who was robbed of his native Cuba and his dreams of practicing law, and yet dedicated his life to securing the dreams of his family.

The First Amendment protects speech from the street corner to the ballot box. With a pervasive fear of governmental suppression and a commitment to strong public discourse, courts have forged the modern First Amendment into a democratic shield.

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What's the Harm? The Future of the First Amendment
Is There an Anti-Discrimination Principle Post-Janis v. AFSCME First Amendment?
Charlotte Garden
Co-Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development and Associate Professor of Law, Seattle University School of Law.

For feedback and suggestions on this article, I am grateful to Ronald J. Krotoszynski, Jessica Rutter, and the participants in the University of Chicago Legal Forum symposium, What’s the Harm?: The Future of the First Amendment. I am also grateful to the Chicago Legal Forum editors for their careful work on this Article.

This Article explores the current wave of First Amendment challenges to the exclusive representation system and other aspects of public sector labor relations, arguing that these systems are constitutional as a matter of both law and of logic.

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Law for the Next Pandemic
Scrambling the New Sanitationist Synthesis: Civil Liberties and Public Health in the Age of COVID-19
John Fabian Witt
Duffy Professor of Law & History; Head of Davenport College, Yale; john.witt@yale.edu.

Many thanks to Greg Schwartz for extraordinary research assistance.

Beginning in the 1980s, leading figures in the law of public health began to argue that protecting individual and human rights would promote public health, not interfere with it. Today, however, threats to this new synthesis view abound, and for good reason.

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Law for the Next Pandemic
Lochner Under Lockdown
Eugene Kontorovich
Professor of Law, George Mason University Scalia Law School.

At a time when state police power has imposed unprecedented limitations on individuals’ ability to provide for themselves in dignity, Lochner should be brought out of lockdown.