Three New Supreme Court Cases Show in Some Areas, the Constitution No Longer Matters
Note: This article originally appeared at CNS News. An earlier version included unauthorized editing and should be disregarded. Three recent Supreme Court decisions reveal in the area of personal rights, most of the justices are applying rules unrelated to the U.S. Constitution. In two of the cases, the majority refused to protect rights expressly laid […]
Antonin Scalia, RIP
Justice Antonin Scalia was one of the most eloquent opinion writers in the history of the United States Supreme Court–perhaps the greatest of all. His dissents may have been the most powerful ever written. Justice Scalia was more than an outstanding lawyer: He was an perceptive social commentator. In tribute, I reproduce below his […]
Some of the Colorado Supreme Court’s Mistakes in the Douglas County School Choice Case
As people who follow education reform already know, the Colorado Supreme Court recently struck down the Douglas County school board’s school choice program. It did so based on Article IX, Section 7 of the state constitution. This is sometimes called Colorado’s “Blaine Amendment,” although that phrase is technically a misnomer. Actually, the Blaine Amendment was […]
A Liberal Supreme Court Majority Grants Businesses Bill of Rights Protection
This article was first published on the American Thinker website. Some on the left now argue that only individuals—not businesses or business associations such as corporations—should enjoy First Amendment rights. To be sure, their argument contradicts decisions made, not just by the current centrist Supreme Court, but also by “progressive” Supreme Court majorities throughout the […]
The Arkansas-Indiana Religious Freedom Controversy: “Progressive” Hypocrisy On Display
This article originally appeared at CNS News. When two of the largest corporations in the world—Walmart and Apple Computer—pressured Indiana and Arkansas politicians not to adopt laws protecting religious freedom, did you hear any howls against “corporate lobbying” or “corporate money” or corporate meddling in politics? Chances are you didn’t. Because Walmart and Apple were […]
New Study Shows Campaign Disclosure Rules Violate First Amendment
This article was first published at the American Thinker website. Many commentators and politicians have attacked the Supreme Court’s 2010 case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission for holding that citizens do not surrender their First Amendment rights when they organize under state corporation law. The Vermont state legislature has even adopted an application […]
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 […]
A Question: Where Did the Story Get Started that Most of the Founders were Deists?
It is a common claim that most of the Founders were deists. (A deist is a person who believes that there is a Creator but that He is not actively involved in the world—the “great watchmaker” hypothesis.) As many authors have shown, the claim is false: Tom Paine aside, almost all the leading Founders professed […]
Can Treaties Override the Constitution? An Issue Posed By Bond v. United States
One of the most common questions posed to me when I discuss the Constitution on talk radio is “Can a treaty override the Constitution?” The question has arisen particularly in view of the pending Supreme Court case of Bond v. United States. In that case, Congress is claiming a power under the Treaty Clause that […]
Rebutting the Claim that an “Anti-Corruption” Principle Should Re-Write the First Amendment
Law professors are overwhelmingly left-of-center, and they spend an undue amount of time trying to justify nearly unlimited federal power. Sometimes they torture constitutional history to do so. For example, several have long asserted that the Constitution’s grant of power to Congress to regulate “Commerce” was designed to grant authority to regulate the entire economy—or […]
