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.
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Latest Posts
Shut 'Er Down!0
- September 29, 2013
Two stories in today’s Denver Post show how cynically the mainstream media are playing the story about what they misleadingly call a “government shutdown.” Of course, it’s really not a shutdown, just a slowdown—more on that below. And in our constitutional system the states, not the feds, are the primary line of government. The states
READ MOREColorado's Billion-Dollar Tax Hike Proposal: Really Bad Constitution-Writing0
- September 22, 2013
Hear Justin Longo’s interview with Rob on Amendment 66. Colorado’s Amendment 66—the billion dollar tax hike—is a constitutional monstrosity. Amendment 66 is, technically, not entirely a constitutional amendment. It is an unusual hybrid of constitutional amendment and change in the state tax law. The secretary of state refers to it as Initiative 22, and it
READ MOREMadison and the Amendments Convention: A New Chapter in a Brand New Book0
- September 15, 2013
A new book, edited by Professor Neil H. Cogan, has just been issued in which well-known constitutional scholars from across the political spectrum explore issues of state interposition, nullification, and secession. I am among the contributors: I wrote the second chapter, which is entitled James Madison and the Constitution’s Convention for Proposing Amendments. The book
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May state legislative applications limit an Article V convention? Subject, yes; specific language, probably not0
- September 12, 2013
Some constitutional scholars believe state applications for a convention for proposing amendments may limit the convention to voting “yes” or “no” on a specifically-worded amendment. A prescribed-wording application, they say, reduces the fear of a “runaway” convention and places the state legislatures in the equal position with Congress that Article V of the Constitution was
READ MOREHow We Have Learned More and More About the Constitution's "Convention for Proposing Amendments"0
- August 30, 2013
Listen to Mark Levin’s interview of Rob here. (Go to Aug. 29 podcast, and fast forward to minute 55.) This past week, conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly contributed a short piece to Townhall.com in which she attacked the movement for an Article V convention. As I wrote in my response, she was relying on claims about
READ MOREAnd You “Can’t” Defund Obamacare . . . Why?0
- August 25, 2013
Freedom and popular government in Britain and America became possible because over the course of many years the House of Commons, and later the American colonial legislatures, were willing to exert the power of the purse to discipline an overreaching executive. In Britain, the House of Commons—Parliament’s lower chamber—sometimes defunded the executive in order to
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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