Laurence Tribe

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday revealed his plans for a "convention of the states," the first in more than 200 years, as part of a larger effort to reshape the U.S. Constitution and expand states' rights...In an email to CNN, Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School, expressed doubts over the viability of Abbott's plan. The process and protocol for gathering a "convention of the states" remains a mystery, he said, even to most experts. "Nobody knows exactly how we'd determine when a new convention must be called," or "whether distinct amendment calls could be combined to reach the requisite number of states," Tribe wrote, citing his own research. The role of the courts and Congress is also unclear and, as Tribe explained, despite arguments to the contrary, "there is no agreed-upon process for coming up with definitive answers to any of these unknowns," creating a sort of legal "black hole."

The legal and constitutional issues around qualification for the presidency on grounds of US citizenship are “murky and unsettled”, according to the scholar cited by Donald Trump in his recent attacks on Ted Cruz. Trump has sought to cast doubt on whether the senator, who was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father, is a “natural-born US citizen”. In doing so he has referred to the work and words of Laurence Tribe, perhaps the most respected liberal law professor in the country. Tribe taught both Cruz and Barack Obama at Harvard Law School. He also advised Al Gore in the 2000 Florida recount and has advised Obama’s campaign organisation. “Despite Sen[ator] Cruz’s repeated statements that the legal/constitutional issues around whether he’s a natural-born citizen are clear and settled,” he told the Guardian by email, “the truth is that they’re murky and unsettled.”

Donald Trump continues to raise questions about Ted Cruz's Constitutional eligibility to be president and even gave “advice” on how Cruz should address the issue. Lawrence asks Cruz's former Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe, if the issue really is "settled law."

An op-ed by Michael Dorf: This article was first published on the Supreme Court of the United States site. Dissenting in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Chief Justice William Rehnquist claimed that the controlling joint opinion of Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy and David Souter rejected two key features of Roe v. Wade: Abortion was no longer a “fundamental right” and abortion restrictions were no longer subject to strict scrutiny, the late chief justice said. ...Nonetheless, Laurence Tribe is almost certainly correct in reading Lawrence as protecting a fundamental right under a slightly different name. As he explained shortly after the decision, the Lawrence Court cited prior fundamental rights rulings and even “invoked the talismanic verbal formula of substantive due process but did so by putting the key words in one unusual sequence or another.”

Ted Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother. Does the Constitution bar him from the presidency? Donald Trump has raised the issue in their campaign for the GOP presidential nomination. ...  The U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled on the meaning of the phrase. But Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe is among many scholars who say the better view is that a “natural born citizen” is anyone who was a U.S. citizen at birth and doesn’t need to be naturalized. Former solicitors general Neal Katyal and Paul Clement agreed with Tribe’s view in a March 2015 article for Harvard Law Review Forum.

Donald Trump says questions about whether Ted Cruz is eligible to be President of the United States could become a “big problem” for the Canadian-born Republican candidate. But among legal scholars, there’s a consensus: He’s eligible to occupy the Oval Office...Laurence Tribe, a professor at Harvard Law School, told ABC News that Trump's alternative definition would mean that only citizens born in the United States would be eligible. “My own view as a constitutional scholar is that the better view -- the one most consistent with the entire Constitution -- is the broader definition, according to which Cruz would be eligible,” he said, including anyone who is a U.S. citizen at birth and doesn’t need to be naturalized.

The U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to consider whether California should do more to find the rightful owners of $8 billion in “unclaimed” bank, investment and retirement funds before seizing the accounts and pocketing the money. For 15 years, Sacramento attorney William W. Palmer has been fighting to force changes in California’s Unclaimed Property Law, which last year contributed nearly $450 million to state coffers. Palmer won several legal rounds early on, but in March, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed his latest challenge. With the help of Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, Palmer appealed to the high court, calling the California program “a recipe for abuse.”

An op-ed by Laurence Tribe. Earlier Tuesday, in a deeply moving speech that brought many, including the President himself, to tears, President Obama unveiled several executive actions intended to curtail the prevalence of gun violence in our nation. Beyond the concrete actions he described, he may have hoped to educate and persuade the public, quoting Martin Luther King Jr. about the "fierce urgency of now." Most Americans will recognize the common-sense steps announced today cannot prevent all gun abuse but will still welcome them as ways of reducing the continuing scourge of gun violence in this country. Most but not all...But if we take the time to examine exactly what President Obama is proposing, a crucial step that these critics seem to have skipped, we cannot avoid the conclusion that the measures he has outlined are well within his legal authority.

...Coal needs all the friends it can get. The industry is under siege from federal regulation, most recently Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which went into effect on Oct. 23 and seeks to reduce carbon emissions by 32 percent by 2030. Consumers and activists, meanwhile, are persuading utilities to close aging coal-fired power plants. With funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign has helped shut down more than 220 coal facilities over the past five years...Whitfield’s star witness was the well-known law professor Laurence Tribe of Harvard, who’s been retained by Peabody Energy, the nation’s largest coal company, to advocate against the EPA proposal. Arguing that the Obama administration was infringing on state authority, Tribe compared the Clean Power Plan to “burning the Constitution.” “If I thought the case was a close one, I wouldn’t have taken it on,” Tribe says. “If I’m proven right on the law, then lots of time, money, and jobs will have been lost pursuing an important goal in an unlawful way.”

Donald Trump's call to ban Muslims from entering the United States has been widely derided as discriminatory, hateful and unworkable - never mind illegal. Many legal experts have said it's almost certainly unconstitutional. According to several scholars surveyed by MSNBC, while foreign citizens do enjoy fewer rights than Americans, it is still illegal for the government to use a religious test on foreigners. The Constitution's "bar against declaring an official religion" would apply to discrimination against non-citizens, argues Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe.

During a speech to a conservative crowd in Iowa this month, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz leveled a heavy charge against his colleagues across the aisle in the U.S. Senate. Democrats, he said, attempted to eliminate Americans’ right to free speech with a proposed constitutional amendment last fall...“I have read the amendment carefully. It’s about raising and spending money in political campaigns — nothing more,” Harvard Law School constitutional law professor Laurence H. Tribe told us in an email. “It has no effect at all on freedom of the press, freedom of assembly or peaceful protest. It does not allow the government to punish people for speaking their minds.” Tribe also noted that he had Cruz, a Harvard Law graduate, in class. “Ted Cruz earned an A in my constitutional law course at Harvard, and I am a tough grader!” Tribe said. “I’m confident Ted knows his statement is false. No lawyer or student who can read English believes what Ted Cruz claimed to believe.”

Boston-area universities are closely watching a Supreme Court case that could derail the use of race in admissions, a practice that several universities, including Harvard and MIT, say is fundamental to creating a diverse student body....a strong ruling one way or the other would create a “powerful atmospheric and cultural impact” on private schools, said Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Tribe. “Then the impact on privates would be indirect but massive,” Tribe said, but he explained that a ruling striking down race-based affirmative action is unlikely. Another legal analyst said a ruling against affirmative action would be a “body blow” to the many recent efforts to increase diversity. “The events of the past two or three years have made it clear that we have to be proactive about addressing equal opportunity and addressing racial attitudes,” said Nancy Gertner, a retired federal judge and senior lecturer at Harvard Law School.

An op-ed by Albert W. Alschuler and Laurence H. Tribe (corrected version). Federal law bars billionaire Robert Mercer from giving as much as $6,000 to Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign. Thirty-nine years ago, in Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court upheld limits on contributions to candidates. But federal law did not block Mercer from giving $11 million to a super PAC whose mission is to urge voters to support Cruz. A federal statute formerly limited contributions to super PACs to $5,000, but in 2010 a federal court held this statute unconstitutional.

With the semester coming to a close, some Harvard Law School students are continuing their push for changes they say will improve the school’s treatment of minority students, about a month after a high-profile racially charged incident shook campus...On Friday, more than a dozen students hosted a “teach-in” in the lobby of the office of Law School Dean Martha L. Minow, on whom students have called to do more to address their concerns. For roughly an hour, students sat in the office and discussed the possibility of creating a critical race theory program at the school, according to Alexander J. Clayborne, one of the students organizing the protests. Clayborne said they spoke with Minow...In an emailed statement, Minow wrote that she has been meeting with students and faculty members to “ensure inclusive and fair consideration of any ideas for change,” adding that she met with students for several hours last week and again Monday. Law School Dean of Students Marcia L. Sells, too, wrote in a statement that she and Minow have been working closely with students to discuss “what processes can work to achieve change at HLS.”...Law School professor Laurence H. Tribe argued in an email that changing the seal of a school is very different from changing a title. “Renaming the position of ‘House Master’ to something less problematic like ‘Dean of the House’ is a lot easier than changing the school’s seal, which isn’t within the control of any dean or even the university president,” Tribe wrote.

In the wake of the shooting in San Bernardino, California, prominent conservative politicians have again squashed momentum to step up gun regulation, using the Second Amendment to make their case for maintaining the status quo....Mic spoke with several top constitutional lawyers who reject outright the notion that the Second Amendment prohibits increased limitations on access to guns. Instead, they argue that the Constitution actually allows for a number of gun regulations which have been proposed in Congress, including universal background checks and bans on assault weapons..."The right to bear arms was thought to ensure well-regulated state militias," Harvard constitutional law professor Richard J. Fallon told Mic. "Regulation of firearms was permissible as long as it did not interfere with state militias."...Other constitutional lawyers go even further, saying that although conservatives may not want to admit it, Heller actually paved the way for more gun control restrictions. "I believe 'assault weapons' are indeed what the court had in mind when it wrote in Heller about 'dangerous and unusual weapons," Harvard Law professor and renowned legal scholar Laurence Tribe told Mic. "I believe military-style assault weapons will never be protected by the court in the name of the Second Amendment."

An op-ed by Albert W. Alschuler and Laurence H. Tribe. Federal law bars billionaire Robert Mercer from giving as much as $6,000 to Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign. Thirty-nine years ago, in Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court upheld limits on contributions to candidates. But federal law did not block Mercer from giving $11 million to a super PAC whose mission is to urge voters to support Cruz. A federal statute formerly limited contributions to super PACs to $5,000, but in 2010 a federal court held this statute unconstitutional...No sane legislator would vote in favor of our regime of campaign financing, and no legislator ever has. The United States has this topsy-turvy regime because the federal courts have held that the First Amendment requires it.

...The Food and Drug Administration sees lab-developed tests as the Wild West of medicine, citing examples of inaccurate tests it claims put patients at risk. The agency is trying to toughen its supervision next year after largely leaving the business alone for decades and focusing most of its oversight on traditional testing methods. Lab-developed test providers are fighting back. They say their tests are accurate and even lifesaving. Industry officials say heightened regulation could stifle innovation...Also on the industry’s side are Laurence H. Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard University, and Paul D. Clement, a former U.S. Solicitor General who now is in private practice and a lecturer at Georgetown University Law Center. They say the FDA “lacks the statutory authority to regulate laboratory-developed testing services,” according to a report earlier this year paid for by the trade group.

Donald Trump has faced a torrent of criticism after releasing a policy proposal that would ban all Muslims from entering the United States.  His fellow Republicans haven't held back: Marco Rubio called it "offensive," and Jeb Bush called it "unhinged." A number of others — politicians, pundits, experts and regular folks — have called it unconstitutional. ..Laurence H. Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard University, says he's certain that Trump's proposal would violate the Constitution. Yes, he says, some court decisions have found that the some parts of the protective mantle of the Constitution don't extend to foreigners. But according to Tribe's interpretation, some of the most well-known protections — such as theFirst Amendment's guarantee of religious freedom and the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of due process — are not limited by nationality or geography. "The [Fifth Amendment] applies to U.S. conduct with regard to any 'person,' wherever located and of whatever citizenship," Tribe writes in an email. "And [the First Amendment] is a flat prohibition on actions that the U.S. government may take, including those actions that respect 'an establishment of religion' or prohibit 'the free exercise thereof.' "

Since Republican front-runner Donald Trump called Monday for a “complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” he has been met with widespread criticism from politicians, policymakers and experts. Rivals slammed the discriminatory proposal as “reprehensible,” “unhinged,” and even “fascist” — while legal scholars noted it is almost certainly unconstitutional. While a blanket plan for religious discrimination violates several general provisions of the U.S. Constitution, Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe stresses that Trump’s attempts to justify his plan’s legality Monday actually further revealed its shortcomings. The legal scholar had the following exchange with MSNBC chief legal correspondent Ari Melber.

It is widely regarded as one of the most shameful episodes in America's history. But the internment of Japanese citizens during WWII would be Donald Trump's best hope of passing his ban on Muslims entering the US. Constitutional experts said that internment was the closest precedent that Trump could turn to were he to try and implement his policy - even though it would be 'constitutionally dead on arrival'...Laurence H. Tribe, the Carl M. Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard University, said that the attempt to use the 'shameful and now universally reviled' internment of Japanese-Americans showed 'just how desperate Trump's supporters are to find some precedent for his wild idea'. He said: 'The court of history has long since condemned both that decision and Justice Black's pretense that the removal of Japanese Americans from their homes on the West Coast was truly a 'pressing public necessity' rather than an egregious example of the 'racial antagonism' that Black purported to condemn. The US government, through the Solicitor General, has since formally apologized for its role in getting the Supreme Court to uphold the racist curfew and expulsion orders.'

Spoiler alert: no. Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump’s call to bar Muslim immigrants from the United States, a nation founded by immigrants, does not just offend American sensibilities — it would violate U.S. and international law, according to experts. Laurence H. Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School and co-founder of the American Constitution Society, said Tuesday that Trump’s proposed ban would be illegal, exceptionally difficult to implement and damaging to national security. “Donald Trump’s plan to ban all Muslims from entering the U.S. — even as recently pulled back to make exceptions for U.S. citizens abroad, whether in the military or otherwise, who happen to be Muslims — would be illegal and therefore unconstitutional, as well as being a nightmare to administer,” Tribe said in an email to Yahoo News.