Women's History Month at the Harris County Law Library

March is women’s history month and the Harris County Law Library marks this important commemoration with an exhibit celebrating the contributions of Camille Elizabeth Stanford Openshaw. Among her many accomplishments, Ms. Openshaw was the first woman to serve on the Law Library’s oversight board and helped shepherd the institution through the Great Depression. All who benefit from access to legal information at the Law Library today can thank Ms. Openshaw for doing her part to ensure access to the Law Library for all.

To learn more about Ms. Openshaw, please visit the Harris County Law Library’s downtown location, where an exhibit honoring her accomplishments will be on display throughout the month of March. An accompanying digital exhibit can be viewed on the library’s website.

1912 Houston Bar Association Bench & Bar Composite

Come see the latest addition to our library walls, an historic photograph composite from 1912 of leading members of Houston’s legal community. Seven of the featured portraits depict founders of the Harris County Law Library. On your next visit here, challenge yourself to spot them all.

Today, Houston is proud to be the most diverse city in the United States, and is defined by its rich and unique blend of cultures, both in our legal community and our population at large. While the 1912 Houston Bench and Bar was noticeably less diverse, the composite itself heralds change and hints and our city’s future as it includes portraits of two women, Hortense Ward and Alice S. Tiernan. Ward was the first woman licensed to practice law in Texas. Tiernan passed the bar shortly thereafter, and became one of the fewer than 1% of women trial attorneys nationwide.

Constitution Day - September 17, 1787

Constitution Day is observed each year on September 17 to commemorate the signing of our Constitution in 1787. On display in the Law Library lobby throughout the month of September is an exhibit featuring foundational documents that shaped the Constitution, including the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation, along with examples of broadsides that were crucial to the states’ decisions to ratify our founding document.

Hispanic Heritage Month

https://www.army.mil/article/87962/army_aims_outreach_at_hispanic_community

Saturday, September 15, marks the independence day of five Latin American countries: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Mexico, Chile, and Belize follow shortly after, on the 16th, 18th and 21st. The Harris County Law Library extends Happy Independence Day wishes to the more than 57 million Americans, and roughly 11 million Texans, who claim Hispanic roots. We would also like to commemorate Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs from September 15 through October 15, by recognizing the contributions of several of our era’s high-profile Hispanic lawyers, including Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor; former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; United States Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio; New Mexico Governor, Susana Martinez; and former Director of Intergovernmental Affairs under President Obama, Cecilia Muñoz. We also honor the trailblazers who came before, including the rich history of Latina and Latino lawyers practicing before the United States Supreme Court.

National Bar Associations

• Hispanic National Bar Association

• Latina Lawyers Bar Association

• National Latino Trial Lawyers Association

State and Local Bar Associations

• Hispanic Bar Association of Houston

• State Bar of Texas Hispanic Issues Section

Judicial Review

Justice John Marshall was the first to flex SCOTUS's Judicial Review muscle. 

There is a commonly held, but incorrect, belief that Judicial Review in the United States began with Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803). While this ruling marked the first time the Supreme Court held a law passed by Congress to be unconstitutional, the roots of Judicial Review in our land go even deeper, stemming beyond the Constitutional Convention, beyond Federalist No. 78, and even beyond 18th century British colonization in North America.

Jamestown, the first successful, permanent British settlement in North America, was established by the Virginia Company of London in 1607. Puritan separatists landed near Plymouth Rock in 1620. Judicial review existed in some form or another in 17th century England until William of Orange overthrew James II in 1688, but remained in the collective consciousness of the geographically separate North American colonists. By the time the Constitutional Convention rolled around in 1787, a majority of the newly formed states had already witnessed the power of Judicial Review exercised by their own supreme courts.

Despite dying in Greenwich Village in 1804, Alexander Hamilton can now be seen nightly on Broadway.

Though the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists argued over the level of power the Federal Judiciary should be able to wield over the co-equal Executive and Legislative branches, the record is clear that Judicial Review was a foregone conclusion on both sides, and the question was one of limitation. Jefferson fretted that the Judicial Branch would become the ultimate arbiters of what is or is not Constitutional, and would rule like oligarchs. Hamilton argued that the Judiciary was the weakest branch, and that its existence would ensure its own continued weakness by encouraging the Legislative and Executive Branches to preemptively conform their works to Constitutional restraints.

The 1953 Warren Court attempted to desegregate American schools through its Brown ruling.

While concern has always existed that judges would be able to enforce the opinions of a tyrannical minority, some scholars argue that centuries of Congressional intransigence has been offset by the Judiciary’s ability to apply majority consensus to the laws of the land when the other branches are unable to act. One example of this is Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), which aimed to desegregate American public schools. Majority opinion within the nation supported desegregation, but political considerations hamstrung both Congress and the President.

Learn more:

• Corrina Barrett Lain, Upside-Down Judicial Review, 101 Georgetown L.J., 113 (2012).
• Saikrishna B. Prakash and John C. Yoo, The Origins of Judicial Review,  University of Chicago Law Review 70 U. Chi. L. Rev., 887 (2003).
• Federalist No. 78.