The Constitutional Studies Center combines careful, objective scholarship into the original understanding of the Constitution with advocacy for human freedom under law. It produces books, issue papers, articles, and legal briefs reporting the results of its research. Since 2010, the Center has had enormous influence on constitutional law cases and commentary, but also on policy makers and grass roots activists. For example, the Center’s research findings galvanized the massive and growing “Article V” movement to restore constitutional limits on the federal government.
Constitutional Studies
- Home
- Constitutional Studies
Latest Posts
New II Backgrounder Explains the “Convention of States” Constitutional Amendment Process0
- December 4, 2014
A new II Backgrounder contains a brief and clear explanation of how the people, through their state legislatures, can address federal dysfunction while bypassing Congress. The Backgrounder is the first publication of II’s new “Article V Information Center.” You can read it here.
READ MOREPrinciples for Drafting A Balanced Budget Amendment0
- December 1, 2014
This article originally appeared at The American Thinker. The Article V Handbook, which I authored for the American Legislative Exchange Council, emphasizes that citizens pressing for constitutional amendments should avoid fringe or unpopular proposals. The Handbook distills four guiding principles for selecting amendments worthy of support: (1) An amendment should move America back toward Founding
READ MOREMore Evidence An Article V Convention is a “Convention of the States”0
- November 20, 2014
Earlier this year, I documented one of the reasons we know an Article V convention is a “convention of the states” rather than a mass popular gathering: Founding Era documents tell us so. I listed several such documents. (Subsequent to the Founding, in the case of Smith v. Union Bank, the Supreme Court also referred
READ MORE
One Reason Government Keeps Expanding and Freedom Keeps Shrinking0
- November 16, 2014
Find out how much federal land ownership the Constitution really authorizes! Get Rob’s book, The Original Constitution: What It Actually Said and Meant. **** Mary Taylor Young’s work, Rocky Mountain National Park: The First 100 Years (2014) contains this profile (p.151) of George B. Hartzog, Jr., the Assistant Superintendent of the park from 1955 to
READ MORETreatise on Amendments Conventions Updated to Include Rules for Congress’s “Call”0
- November 6, 2014
Some people claim the rules pertaining to the Constitution’s “Convention for Proposing Amendments” are largely unknown, but there actually is quite a lot of law on the subject. Earlier this year, I pulled together that body of law in a legal treatise entitled “State Initiation of Constitutional Amendments: A Guide for Lawyers and Legislative Drafters.”
READ MOREEmbracing Foreign Languages0
- October 31, 2014
Republican Congressman Mike Coffman and his Democratic opponent Andrew Romanoff held a public debate yesterday—all in Spanish. It was billed as the first non-English candidate debate in Colorado state history. Well, maybe not. Hispanics settled Colorado long before Anglos did. When I was practicing law in Denver in the 1970s and 1980s (before embarking on
READ MORE
Get the latest edition of the popular work, The Original Constitution: What It Actually Said and Meant. You can buy it in either hard copy or Kindle form here.
Contact
Rob Natelson, Senior Fellow, Constitutional Jurisprudence
Email: rob.natelson1@gmail.com
Phone: 303-279-6536, ext 114