Our Notes published under the "Good for your Constitution" are intended to track the impact of judicial decisions on policy and vice-versa.

Our white papers will mix traditional sources with citations to the relatively informal commentary in the “blogosphere”. The incorporation of such works is generally limited to posts from blogs that claim a focus and expertise on matters of the law. These blogs essentially represent lawyers writing informally, as opposed to policy analysts writing more formally. Yet, for their informality, the principals on these blogs retain an appeal to authority based on grounding in the law, and it is in this context that we incorporate and critique these materials.

In many cases these online discussions are candid admissions of the policy co-dependency reflected in today's legal process.

This is intended to be some kind of archive of allegations of judicial activism, but rather recognizes that law is, after all, policy in statute. Further, there is an interactive nature where courts do hold statutory schemes unconstitutional, or where they interpret existing statutes in 'unpopular' ways, legislative action often follows court decisions as well as preceding them.

Executive actions as well track a certain tension that further defines the separation of powers.

We welcome the submission of notes and papers hewing to this approach and will alert the legal and policy community of specific topics of interest and publication schedules for these works.

Research, Papers, etc...

Public Document Request made for Lead Paint "Dupont Deal"

OSPRI FILES PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST FOR LEAD PAINT DOCUMENTS FOLLOWING MCCONNELL NOMINATION

In October of 1999, Rhode Island filed a controversial lawsuit against paint manufacturers for creating a “public nuisance” by selling lead-based paint 32 years ago. The Court eventually found no basis for the case and released the manufacturers from liability. This happened after one of the defendants, Dupont, struck a deal with Attorney General Patrick Lynch and lead attorney on the case John McConnell of Motley Rice, to be removed from the defendant list and both attorneys claimed that legal fees had been waived. Co-council Leonard Decof of Decof and Decof challenged this assertion and said, “there are two questions . . . Is it a settlement, and was a fee paid.”
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Perpetual Contracts test Constitutional Limits - Policy Brief

It is a foundational tenet of the American political system that a sitting legislature cannot bind a future legislature. This concept is the very basis of our electoral system. Elections would have little meaning if the actions of former legislators could not be dislodged by their successors.
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Federalist Society and OSPRI host John Yoo luncheon

In the orgy of leaks and recriminations that dogged the Bush administration adoption of what were, by definition, reactionary policies in the wake the attacks of September 11, 2001, a controversial figure has emerged as the legal devil in the details of US conduct in the war on terror. Rather than the bit player in the minutia of governance he expected to be, John Yoo’s work regarding the scope of the Commander-in-Chief power has cast him forever in the blogosphere as having crafted Bush’s “imperial presidency” from whole cloth.
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Yoo'nitary Theory of the Executive - (extended version)

In the orgy of leaks and recriminations that dogged the Bush administration adoption of what were, by definition, reactionary policies in the wake the attacks of September 11, 2001, a controversial figure has emerged as the legal devil in the details of US conduct in the war on terror. Rather than the bit player in the minutia of governance he expected to be, John Yoo’s work regarding the scope of the Commander-in-Chief power has cast him forever in the blogosphere as having crafted Bush’s “imperial presidency” from whole cloth.
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Constitutional Foundations - Project introduction

The Founders Project, housed at the Ocean State Policy Research Institute, works to connect the formal world of constrained and formalistic legal analysis with the more freewheeling functionally oriented public policy discourse. The attempt is to do so with a respect for the traditions of legal writing and argument that nonetheless admits legal analysis often translates into a policy tool for accomplishing desired outcomes–and must anticipate criticism in that vernacular.
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