New paper summarizes rules for amending the Constitution
Our sister institution, The Goldwater Institute in Phoenix, Arizona has just published my paper, Amending the Constitution by Convention: Practical Guidance for Citizens and Policymakers. Using my prior research and new findings, it summarizes the rules you should use in drafting Article V applications, answering objections, heading off congressional interference, and so forth. As I’ve […]
Amendments Convention: Answering Those Not-So-Tough Questions
Are you a state lawmaker or reform advocate challenged to answer “tough questions” about a Convention for Proposing Amendments? If so, here are some answers. Recently I traveled to Indianapolis to testify before the Indiana legislature. While there, I learned that opponents of an amendments convention are circulating questions about a convention, apparently designed to […]
How Can Congress Spend All that Money? – Part II
In my last post, I explained that Congress obtains authority to spend money from its enumerated powers. All of those powers inherently require some expenditures—at least to buy the pen and ink needed to write the laws. Some powers, such as the power to “maintain a Navy” (Art. I, Sec. 8, cl. 13) require expenditure […]
How Can Congress Spend All that Money? – Part I
[For more info on this topic, see Rob’s book, The Original Constitution, or listen to the interview, What in the Constitution Gives Authority to Congress to Spend Our Money? part 1] How can a government that supposedly is one of enumerated powers spend trillions of dollars on everything from semi-porn art exhibits to bridges that […]
The latest health care decision
The score is now 2-2: Two U.S. district courts have found that the individual mandates in last year’s federal health care act are authorized by the power of Congress to “regulate Commerce . . . among the several States,” while two have found the contrary. This latest decision – arising from a case brought by […]
Does Congress really have authority to regulate campaign finance?
[Rob Natelson is the author of the new book, The Original Constitution: What it Actually Said and Meant. To learn more about this topic, hear Rob’s podcast Election Law and the Election Clause.] The Constitution granted Congress only enumerated powers. Did those powers include measures of “campaign finance reform?” Congress justifies campaign regulation as flowing […]
Madison being misread (on an amendments convention)
Sometimes even friends of the Constitution misinterpret the document or the history surrounding it. Throughout the country right now, state lawmakers are advancing constitutional amendments to restrain federal power and federal spending. Because they know that Congress will never propose amendments to restrain itself (2/3 of both the Senate and House would have to approve […]
Reading the Constitution: What it told us about Congress
[Rob Natelson is the author of The Original Constitution: What It Really Said and Meant – an objective explanation of the Constitution as understood by the Founders.] Unlike some both on the right and the left, I don’t think the reading of the Constitution in Congress was a purely symbolic or useless endeavor. It was […]
Confused about a constitutional phrase? The law of the Founders often provides the answer
[Rob Natelson is the author of The Original Constitution: What It Really Said and Meant – an objective explanation of the Constitution as understood by the Founders.] One of the most neglected tools for understanding the Constitution is also one of the most important: The Law of the 18th century. The Constitution is a legal […]
The Feds’ Nosy Survey
[Rob Natelson is the author of The Original Constitution: What It Really Said and Meant – an objective explanation of the Constitution as understood by the Founders.] The people who run the federal government may not be able to balance its budget or even pass an appropriation bill on time, but they certainly can tell […]
Does the Constitution really give Congress power over immigration?
Congress’s power to “define and punish . . . Offenses against the Law of Nations” included authority to “define” immigration rules and “punish” those who violated them.
How to amend the Constitution safely and without Congress — according to the Founders
“How to” Issue Papers on obtaining needed constitutional amendments without the consent of Congress.
