Johanna Talcott

Bio: Johanna Talcott is an academic researcher from Florida International University College of Law. The author has contributed to research in topics: Spite. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 2 citations.

Does the Constitution Protect Economic Liberty

Abstract: The author defends the proposition that the Court in Lochner v. New York was right to protect the liberty of contract under the Fourteenth Amendment. He does not defend its use of the Due Process Clause to reach its result. As he explains, the Court should have been applying the Privileges or Immunities Clause. Nor does he contend that the Court was correct in its conclusion that the maximum hours law under consideration was an unconstitutional restriction on the liberty of contract. Although the statute may well have been unconstitutional, the author does not take the time to evaluate that claim. Instead, this article focuses on whether the Constitution of the United States protects economic liberty. To clarify the issue, the author begins by defining “economic liberty” as the right to acquire, use, and possess private property and the right to enter into private contracts of one’s choosing. If the Constitution protects these rights, then the Constitution does protect economic liberty. The evidence that the Constitution protects rights of private property and contract is overwhelming.

Judicial Abdication and the Rise of Special Interests

Abstract: Interest group politics is a problem that has plagued American government since the nation was founded. The Constitution itself was drafted and adopted in large part because of the intractable problems that interest group politics, or the problem of “faction” as James Madison described it, posed for the states under the Articles of Confederation. “Complaints are everywhere heard,” Madison stated in The Federalist Papers No. 10, “that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.” Madison’s comment could just as easily be applied to the state of our politics today. Washington, D.C. and the state capitols are filled with lawyers and lobbyists, who work tirelessly to ensure that the special interests they represent will benefit from the myriad new laws and regulations that are passed each year. In short, modern government has a lot to offer, and its constituents are increasingly all too eager to pursue it. As a result, as journalist