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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Constitutionally, Speaker Boehner Should Not Be Making Pre-emptive Tax Concessions0
- December 23, 2012
From the standpoint of one familiar with our constitutional history, the spectacle of the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives making pre-emptive tax concessions to the President is unnerving. Over a period of centuries, the lower house of the English Parliament, the House of Commons, fought for and won the “power of the purse”—that
READ MOREDo States Have a Right to Secede?0
- December 12, 2012
The news that thousands of people have signed a petition for their own states to secede from the union has raised this issue once again. We’ll leave to another time the suspicion-inducing question of why so much attention is focused on the most extreme remedy for federal overreaching when the Framers’ own perfectly constitutional remedy
READ MOREWhy States Must Shun the Obamacare Medicaid Expansion0
- December 6, 2012
During the Obamacare case before the Supreme Court, the Independence Institute argued that the law’s provisions forcing the states to expand Medicaid were unconstitutional. Neither the Constitution nor case law, we pointed out, permits the federal government to use federal spending programs to coerce the states. Seven of the nine justices agreed with us, essentially
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Bans on Political Party Endorsements of Judges Held Invalid0
- November 29, 2012
A federal appeals court has struck down a Montana law forbidding political parties from endorsing candidates in non-partisan judicial elections. The court order does not affect the system by which candidates for judgeships run without party designation. But it does affirm the right of political parties to speak their minds about those candidates. Non-partisan elections
READ MOREDid the Founders’ Constitution Permit Federal Tort Reform?0
- November 23, 2012
NOTE: The photo shows the author at the sundial in James Madison’s garden at Montpelier, VA. On behalf of the national Chamber of Commerce, super-lawyer Paul Clement has authored a new paper arguing that federal tort reform is constitutional. The paper begins with a section purporting to show that the Framers’ Commerce Clause was broad
READ MORE“Necessary and Proper” = “Necessaria et Opportuna”0
- November 17, 2012
To justify the huge growth of federal regulations over the last few decades, lawyers and judges frequently cite the Constitution’s Necessary and Proper Clause (I-8-18). But is that provision really broad enough to authorize what they claim it authorizes? This little essay focuses on the meaning of the word “necessary.” Early legal documents—used by English
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Contact
Rob Natelson, Senior Fellow, Constitutional Jurisprudence
Email: rob.natelson1@gmail.com
Phone: 303-279-6536, ext 114