Tabloid Constitutionalism: How a Bill Doesn't Become a Law

2008:

Abstract:
What does it take to get Congress to pass a law? To get a judge to declare a statute unconstitutional? To get your law-review article featured in the National Enquirer? Based on one data point, at least, I can say that two of those three things are difficult.

This piece is a follow-up to my 2005 Georgetown Law Journal article, The Perfect Crime. Back then, I argued that there is a fifty-square-mile swath of Idaho - a so-called zone of death - where one can commit crimes with impunity.

In this piece, I first discuss the attention that The Perfect Crime generated: it was covered not just by the Enquirer but by mainstream media, and it inspired a best-selling novel.

I next discuss my efforts to lobby Congress. I initially tried to get Congress to change the law. When that failed, I tried to get Congress to acknowledge my existence. That effort essentially failed as well, at least until a senator read the aforementioned novel.

Finally, I discuss the treatment of my theory in an actual criminal case where the defendant invoked it. The handling of the theory there was almost as dispiriting as Congress's.

The theory I set out in the Perfect Crime had plenty of limitations and counterarguments; it is not my intention in this piece to criticize people for disagreeing with me. Rather, my intention is just to recount one case study - amusing in some parts, infuriating in others - of the American system of government and law. ..Source.. by BRIAN C. KALT, Michigan State University College of Law

Georgetown Law Journal, Vol. 96, No. 6, 2008, MSU Legal Studies Research Paper No. 06-12