How Much Authority Does Congress Have Under the Treaty Power? The Question the Supreme Court Dodged in Bond v. U.S.
In its recent decision in Bond v. United States, the Supreme Court avoided deciding whether Congress, in executing a treaty, could exceed the enumerated powers to which the Constitution otherwise restricts it. For example, if a treaty requires a signatories to make it a crime to use a particular chemical, may Congress pass a law […]
The Dark Side of Hobby Lobby: Contraceptive Coverage as a ‘Compelling Government Interest’
Note: This item originally appeared at the website of The American Thinker. The Hobby Lobby case is being hailed by freedom advocates as a great victory. On balance it certainly it is a victory for those who value personal freedom. But it also contains land mines that may one day prove destructive to freedom. One […]
More evidence that “progressivism” increasingly is totalitarianism
Early this year in The American Thinker and in this column I discussed state marijuana legalization and federalism. I cautioned against advocates of freedom and federalism forming alliances with the “progressive” left on those issues in which the left claimed to favor free choice. I pointed out that that for that bunch”free choice” is nearly […]
Book Review: James Madison: A Life Reconsidered, by Lynn Cheney (Viking, 2014)
After some truly painful reading experiences, I’ve become skeptical of history books written by celebrities. Lynn Cheney is the wife of former Vice President Dick Cheney and thus our former Second Lady. She certainly counts as a celebrity. I was, therefore, skeptical of her new biography, James Madison: A Life Reconsidered. But she won me […]
Problems in the Recess Appointments Case (Even though Rob was cited again)
(This article originally appeared in The American Thinker.) I applaud the result of the recess appointments case and I am happy to have been cited again in a Supreme Court opinion (this time by Justice Scalia). But in several respects the case exemplifies what is wrong with constitutional jurisprudence today. In National Labor Relations Board […]
Conservatives need to support trial by jury, too
Although I’ve often criticized the constitutional tone-deafness of “progressives,” conservatives can sometimes exhibit such tendencies as well. Over at The Seventh Amendment Advocate, Andy Cochran points out why trial by jury in civil cases—as guaranteed by the Seventh Amendment—is important, and how some conservatives disregard it. The problem arises because when constituency politics often trumps […]
Momentum for an Amendments Convention Accelerates Even More
Well over a hundred state lawmakers from 33 states met this past week to plan for an Article V “Convention for Proposing Amendments.” Most attendees had been appointed officially as delegates by the leaders of their respective state legislatures. The highly successful meeting dealt with such issues as convention rules and procedures, how to involve […]
Momentum for Amendments Convention Accelerates
It increasingly looks like a “convention for proposing amendments” is really going to happen. The last 18 months have witnessed a flood of new state legislative applications for such a convention. New Hampshire re-booted the process in 2012 with an application for a convention limited to considering a balanced budget amendment. Late last year, the […]
The Results Are In: The Obamacare “Penalty” Didn’t Violate the Origination Clause, but Obamacare’s Regulations Did
Is the penalty for not buying insurance in the Affordable Care Act (ACA—Obamacare) unconstitutional as a “tax” that originated in the Senate? Under the Constitution’s Origination Clause, the answer appears to be “no”—the Senate’s decision to add the penalty to the underlying bill was not a violation of that Clause. But under the same provision, […]
Town of Greece Case Returns the Establishment Clause To Its Original Meaning
Last week I reported on Justice Thomas’ citation of my work in his concurring opinion in Town of Greece v. Galloway, a widely-discussed decision on the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. This week, I’ll put the decision in context. The meaning of the Establishment Clause (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of […]
Rob Natelson Cited Again at Supreme Court—This Time in a Religion Case
I’m pleased to report that this past week the brilliant Justice Clarence Thomas cited my work on the Necessary and Proper Clause in his concurring opinion in Town of Greece v. Galloway, an Establishment Clause case that received wide publicity. This was the thirteenth citation in the third Supreme Court case in the past 11 […]
Get Members of Congress Out of the Business of Rigging Campaign Rules
The Supreme Court’s latest campaign finance decision, McCutcheon v. FEC, has sent up the predictable howls. In McCutcheon, the Court struck down, as violating the First Amendment, certain incumbent-protection rules that Members of Congress had rigged for their own election campaigns. But no one—including the Court—has yet convincingly addressed a question even more fundamental than […]
