Jurisdictional Gerrymandering: Zoning Disfavored Rights Out of the Federal Courts
![handle is hein.journals/hcrcl16 and id is 137 raw text is: COMMENTARY
JURISDICTIONAL GERRYMANDERING:
ZONING DISFAVORED
RIGHTS OUT OF THE FEDERAL COURTS
Laurence H. Tribe*
Introduction
This essay discusses the recent barrage of proposals to curtail the
jurisdiction of the federal courts: at least eighteen such proposals were
pending in the House of Representatives on June 3, 1981.' Those
unfamiliar with the tenor of the pending measures might well conclude
that lawyers and legalism had finally taken over Capitol Hill alto-
gether, or perhaps that the Nation as a whole had developed an unac-
countable fascination with matters that, in more robust times, would
have seemed too technical and arcane to be of general concern.
In truth, of course, no interest in the arcana of jurisdiction as
such lies behind the proposed bills; their proponents have, without
exception, fastened on jurisdiction [only] as a means to an end,2 the
end being nothing less than the de facto reversal, by means far less
*Professor of Law, Harvard University. This essay is a somewhat expanded ver-
sion of the author's testimony before the Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties,
and the Administration of Justice of the House Judiciary Committee, June 3, 1981,
which has been read into the Congressional Record by Senator Gary Hart of Colo-
rado. See 127 CoNG. REc. 56,780 (daily ed. June 23, 1981).
' These proposals purport to limit federal jurisdiction over:
abortions or abortion funding: H.R. 73, H.R. 867, H.R. 900, H.R. 3225;
busing: H.R. 761, H.R. 869, H.R. 1079, H.R. 1180;
gender discrimination in military service: H.R. 2365, H.R. 2791;
voluntaryprayer in public schools: H.R. 72, H.R. 326, H.R. 408, H.R. 865, H.R.
989, H.R. 1335, H.R. 2397; and
state orders reviewable by the state's highest court: H.R. 114.
All references to congressional bills in this essay are to measures pending in 1981
before the 97th Congress, 1st Session.
2 United States v. Klein, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 128, 145 (1871).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/hcrcl16&div=10&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Jurisdictional Gerrymandering: Zoning Disfavored Rights Out of the Federal Courts
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