The Constitutional Convention Did Not Exceed Its Power and the Constitution is not “Unconstitutional”
Judging by recent claims in the media such as this one, there is still a lot of life in the old tale (dating back to the Anti-Federalists) that the 1787 federal convention “ran away” and that the Constitution was unconstitutionally adopted. I’ve dealt with both claims in this column occasionally (see, e.g., here and here), […]
Myth-Busting: The “Roman Condominium” Myth
Much of my scholarly research is designed to set the historical record straight—essentially myth-busting. For reasons I’ll explain another time, most legal writers are terrible historians. They tend to cherry-pick history to promote a case, and when there aren’t enough historical facts, they sometimes make them up. My efforts to correct the record are best […]
Federalism (“States’ Rights”) Get Short Shrift in Colorado Judicial Exhibit
I recently visited the new Ralph Carr Colorado Judicial Center—the huge and incredibly expensive building complex that now houses the Colorado Supreme Court and Court of Appeals. But even after spending $258 million, they couldn’t get one sign right. An exhibit there has the worthy purpose of educating the public about the rule of law. […]
Progressive Dementia: Claiming Kopel Doesn’t Know Gun Laws
I normally don’t get into the pit with mudwrestlers, but the gob of muck that flew past my desk today was too rich to ignore. One of Colorado’s lefty pressure groups is claiming that II’s Research Director Dave Kopel fed the 2013 Colorado legislature false information on gun bills. II’s “credibility . . . has […]
Top Denver Post Columnist Exposes Weakness of Anti-TABOR Theory
Veteran Denver Post (and former Rocky Mountain News) columnist Vincent Carroll writes here about the overweaning ambition of those who support the anti-TABOR lawsuit. That lawsuit claims that because Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) imposes fiscal limits on the power of the state legislature—that is, restricts lawmakers’ power to tax, spend, and borrow— it […]
New Evidence Suggests Obama’s “Recess Appointments” Are Not Valid
Litigation over President Obama’s “recess appointments” to the National Labor Relations Board is going to the Supreme Court. A similar battle is being waged among lawyers about whether the President’s appointments to that Board, and to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, are constitutional. At stake is the legal validity of hundreds of administrative decisions and […]
Why We Must Act Now To Use the Constitution’s Amendment Process to Restore Fiscal Sanity
Following is an address I gave in Orlando Florida on April 26, 2013 on the need to use the Constitution’s Convention-Amendment Process to rein in Congress: My initial background was in the private sector, but I served many years in academia. I spent much of that time teaching constitutional law and constitutional history to aspiring […]
Colorado, Here's One Way You Can Learn from Montana—Reject the Obamacare Medicaid Extension
Colorado’s legislature and governor have opted to endanger our state’s financial future—and the quality of health care—by yoking Colorado to Obamacare’s risky and expensive “Medicaid expansion.” This is one area in which Colorado could take a lesson from our sister state to the north, Montana. Montana has a long history of what used to be […]
Protect Democracy: Avoid Election-Day Registration
Carting uninformed, transient voters to the polls to vote for the political boss-man is a time-dishonored practice of demagogues everywhere. It has been proposed for Colorado, but it has no place here. Some historical perspective: America has a long tradition of democratic governance. By the time our American Constitution was adopted, nearly all states had […]
The Constitutional Issues In Same-Sex Marriage
I’ve found that most of the discussion about same-sex marriage, even among lawyers, tends to mis-characterize the constitutional issues. This is particularly true of the “equal protection” issues. Under the Constitution as originally understood, jurisdiction over domestic relations outside federal enclaves and federal territories was reserved to the states. State laws dealing with domestic relations […]
Some Humor on the Corruption of the the Modern University
A high school senior who has just gone through the college admissions process humorously reflects on her experience in this Wall Street Journal op-ed. Her column is a good P.S. to my recent posting on what’s wrong at modern universities. Beneath the humor, the analysis by Suzy Lee Weiss of the skewed criteria many admissions […]
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The Original Constitution: What It Actually Said and Meant (2nd ed.) is an objective explanation of the Constitution as understood immediately after adoption of the Bill of Rights. The Original Constitution is written for the layperson. It draws on legal and historical sources alike, including many long-overlooked by other writers. Get it here or here.
