10 May 2013

The Breadth of the Ministerial Exception and Ecclesiastical Deference: A State Supreme Court Case Highlights Questions Left Open by Last Year’s U.S. Supreme Court Hosanna-Tabor Ruling

Justia columnist and U.C., Davis law professor Vikram David Amar comments on a decision from the Kentucky Supreme Court concerning the ministerial exception to employment discrimination law, which leaves some inquiries to ecclesiastical, rather than secular resolutions. In this area of law, Amar notes that last year’s U.S. Supreme Court case on the ministerial exception, Hosanna-Tabor, left a number of questions still to be answered by the courts, both state and federal—including the U.S. Supreme Court, meaning, Amar says, that future High Court clarification is likely. Continue reading →

Posted In: Speech and Religion

More Analysis and Commentary by Vikram David Amar

26 Apr 2013 Vikram David Amar

If the Supreme Court Decides the Proposition 8 Sponsors Lack Standing, What Will Happen to Same-Sex Marriage in California? Part Two in a Two-Part Series of Columns

In Part Two of a two-part series of columns regarding legal issues relating to Proposition 8, Justia columnist and U.C., Davis law professor Vikram Amar comments on various scenarios relating to the Proposition that may or may not come to pass. The scenarios include a number of different ways in which Judge Walker’s injunction might be read. Continue reading →

Posted In: Civil Rights, Courts and Procedure

11 Apr 2013 Vikram David Amar

Precisely What Will, or Should, Happen to Same-Sex Marriage in California if the Supreme Court Finds in Hollingsworth v. Perry That the Proposition 8 Sponsors Lack Standing? Part One in a Two-Part Series of Columns

Justia columnist and U.C., Davis law professor Vikram David Amar discusses what the legal consequences may be if the sponsors of California’s Proposition 8, the ban on gay marriage, are found by the Supreme Court to lack standing—that is, the legal right—to defend the Proposition. Amar comments on both what should, and what might, happen in that eventuality. Continue reading →

Posted In: Courts and Procedure

29 Mar 2013 Vikram David Amar

Why The U.S. Supreme Court Should Not Fear That Denying the Proposition 8 Sponsors Federal Standing Will Weaken The Initiative Device (And a Few Other Thoughts on the Oral Argument in Perry v. Hollingsworth)

Justia columnist and U.C., Davis law professor Vikram David Amar comments on the standing issues, as well as some other issues, that were discussed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Justices in their recent oral argument regarding Proposition 8, the California measure that bans same-sex marriage. In particular, Amar discusses whether the proposition’s sponsors are the ones who should defend it in court, concluding that they are not. He adds, as well, that denying the sponsors standing will not weaken the initiative device. Moreover, Amar notes that state law could authorize sponsors to defend initiatives in the future, but the authorization must be done carefully, clearly, and in a way that is visible to voters. Amar also considers the possibility that the Proposition 8 case will ultimately be dismissed by the Supreme Court as having been improvidently granted. Continue reading →

Posted In: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law

15 Mar 2013 Vikram David Amar

(Unpersuasive) Challenges to the National Popular Vote Plan: Part One in a Series of Columns

Justia columnist and U.C., Davis law professor Vikram Amar defends the National Popular Vote (NPV) Compact against challenges raised by Willamette law professor Norman Williams, contending that each of those challenges lacks merit. As Amar explains, the NPV Compact seeks to move America toward making it ever more likely that the President who is elected is the candidate who obtains the most voter support nationwide, by getting various states to sign onto an agreement that would require each signatory state to cast its electoral college votes not for the candidate who garners a plurality of popular votes in that state, but rather for the candidate who wins the most popular vote nationally. Continue reading →

Posted In: Election Law

1 Mar 2013 Vikram David Amar

The First of Many Expected Five-Four Rulings at the Supreme Court this Term: Clapper v. Amnesty International USA Rejects Plaintiffs’ Standing to Challenge Foreign Surveillance

Justia columnist and U.C., Davis law professor Vikram David Amar comments on the recent Supreme Court ruling in the Clapper case, which raised the question whether Amnesty International USA and other plaintiffs had standing to go to court to challenge a law passed by Congress in 2008 that permits the federal government to undertake additional surveillance and information-gathering with respect to persons outside the United States. In a 5-4 ruling, the Court held that the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge that law; Amar explains the reasoning of the majority and that of the dissent, respectively. Continue reading →

Posted In: Courts and Procedure, Uncategorized

14 Feb 2013 Vikram David Amar

Does BLAG Have Standing in the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) Case in Front of the Supreme Court?

Justia columnist and U.C., Davis law professor Vikram David Amar discusses the question whether BLAG, the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the House of Representatives, has standing in the same-sex marriage cases now before the Supreme Court. Amar details the argument made by professor Vicki Jackson, who was appointed by the Supreme Court to brief questions as to whether BLAG has standing, and also whether the case is justiciable. Amar notes the role of the key precedent of INS v. Chadha, which concerned a legislative veto, and other important precedents that may prove significant to the Court. Continue reading →

Posted In: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law, Courts and Procedure

1 Feb 2013 Vikram David Amar

The No Budget, No Pay Bill, the Twenty-Seventh Amendment and the Debt Ceiling

Justia columnist and U.C. Davis law professor Vikram David Amar comments on a bill that purports to withhold salary from all members of a House during the time the House has failed to produce a budget. Amar contends that such a bill violates the Constitution’s Twenty-Seventh Amendment, which states that “No law, varying the compensation for the services of Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election for Representatives shall have occurred.” The bill itself purports to comply with the Twenty-Seventh Amendment, but Amar is deeply skeptical about that claim. Continue reading →

Posted In: Constitutional Law, Government, Tax and Economics

18 Jan 2013 Vikram David Amar

Do Special Legislative Protections for Labor Picketing Violate the First Amendment? The California Supreme Court in the Ralphs Grocery Case Says “No,” Disagreeing with the D.C. Circuit and Setting Up a Split Only the Supreme Court Can Resolve

Justia columnist and U.C., Davis law professor Vikram David Amar comments on the possible First Amendment issues that could arise from the application of laws that especially favor labor picketing, above other kinds of picketing. Amar covers a recent California Supreme Court ruling on the issue, and the relevant U.S. Supreme Court precedents as well. Amar critiques the California Supreme Court’s analysis, but also concludes that, in the end, the California Supreme Court’s result was the right one. Amar also notes the reasons why this important First Amendment/labor rights issue may ultimately land at the U.S. Supreme Court in the coming years. Continue reading →

Posted In: Constitutional Law, Speech and Religion

4 Jan 2013 Vikram David Amar

The Constitutional Problems With the Hawaii Law By Which Senator Schatz Was Appointed to Replace the Late Senator Inouye

Justia columnist and U.C., Davis law professor Vikram David Amar argues that there are serious Seventeenth Amendment issues plaguing the Hawaii law that resulted in the temporary appointment of Senator Schatz, after Hawaii Senator Inouye had passed away. More specifically, Amar explains, Hawaii law provides that its Governor shall make a temporary appointment to fill a Senate vacancy by selecting a person from a list of three prospective appointees submitted by the same political party to which the prior incumbent had belonged. Amar questions the constitutionality of Hawaii’s procedure with respect to the three-prospective-appointee list and how it is composed. Continue reading →

Posted In: Constitutional Law, Election Law

Vikram David Amar

Vikram Amar rejoined the UC Davis Law School (where he was a faculty member from 1993-1998) in 2007, after teaching at UC Hastings for a decade. He has also taught regularly as a Visiting Professor at the UC Berkeley School of Law and at the UCLA School of Law.

He received a bachelor's degree in history from the University of California at Berkeley and his J.D. from Yale, where he served as an articles Editor for the Yale Law Journal. Upon graduating from law school in 1988, Professor Amar clerked for Judge William A. Norris of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and then for Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the United States Supreme Court. After that he spent a few years at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, devoting half of his time to federal white-collar criminal defense and the other half to complex civil litigation.

Professor Amar writes, teaches and consults in the public law fields, especially constitutional law, civil procedure, and remedies. He is a co-author (along with William Cohen and Jonathan Varat) of Constitutional Law: Cases and Materials (Foundation Press, 12th ed. 2005), and is a co-author on a number of volumes of the Wright & Miller Federal Practice and Procedure Treatise (West Publishing Co.). In addition, he has published in a variety of journals, including the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, the Cornell Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the Vanderbilt Law Review, the California Law Review, the William and Mary Law Review, the Hastings Law Journal, Constitutional Commentary, the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, and the Green Bag Journal.

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