Creating Constitutional Protections Against American Socialism
Note: This article is cross-posted on CNSNews. If any public policy lesson stands out from the experience of the 20th century, it is that socialism doesn’t work. I use the word “socialism” in its technical sense of government ownership of the means of production—or, in lay language, government operation of business enterprises. Socialism in this […]
How A Famous English Convention Clarifies the Role of a Convention of States
Note: This article first appeared on the American Thinker website. In the Anglo-American constitutional tradition, a “convention” can mean a contract, but the word is more often applied to an assembly, other than a legislature, convened to address ad hoc political problems. The “Convention for proposing Amendments” authorized by Article V of the Constitution is […]
Rob Natelson on TV: Explaining the Constitutional Issues in "Birthright Citizenship"
How the Constitutional Case Against Citizenship for Children of Illegal Entrants SHOULD Be Argued
This is a corrected version of an article originally appearing at the American Thinker website. It is the third of a three-part series. In two prior postings (here and here), I listed flaws in the constitutional arguments of opponents of birthright citizenship for children of aliens living here illegally. For children to be American citizens […]
New Independence Institute Issue Paper: The Untold Story of the Colorado State Song!
The year 2015 is the centennial of the Colorado General Assembly’s designation of Where the Columbines Grow as the first state song. (The original sheet music appears at the end of this Issue Paper.) Despite the legislature’s direction that the song be played and sung “on all appropriate occasions,” it has been neglected and even maligned.
Birthright Citizenship Opponents Should Not Rely on 14th Amendment Congressional Debates
An earlier version of this article first appeared in The American Thinker. Opponents of birthright citizenship often cite fragments of the congressional debate over the Fourteen Amendment’s Citizenship Clause to argue that the amendment’s drafters intended to exclude the children of visiting foreigners. However, reliance on these fragments is a mistake. Opponents of birthright citizenship […]
An Objective Guide to Birthright Citizenship
An earlier version of this article appeared in The American Thinker. This is a guide to the constitutional issue of whether a child is a citizen if born in the United States to alien parents here illegally. If you are simply looking for arguments to bolster your political views, look elsewhere. If you are genuinely […]
Term Limits for the Supreme Court?
This article first appeared in the American Thinker. Term limits are among the reforms being proposed by advocates of curbing federal government abuses through the Constitution’s Article V amendment process. The idea of congressional term limits has been around for some time. But more recent discussion centers on term limits for the judiciary, especially for […]
Rob Responds to Editorial Praising Order Forcing Baker to Make Same-Sex Wedding Cake
The following response to a Denver Post editorial first appeared in the Aug. 23, 2015 Denver Post. Are those signs that say “no shirts/no service” now illegal? Your August 14 editorial endorses a court ruling forcing a baker—at the cost of his livelihood!—to assist conduct his religious faith says is immoral. “Commercial establishments can’t pick […]
Proposed Rules for An Article V Convention!
If 34 state legislatures forced Congress to call a convention for proposing amendments, what would the rules look like? The Convention of States movement (CoS) wanted an answer to this question. So its president asked me to take the lead in drafting sample rules. Then CoS would present them to state legislators for comment. This […]
"Runaway Convention" Nonsense—One More Time
Seldom has a claim so weak been so often advanced than the claim that a convention for proposing amendments would be a “constitutional convention” that could “run away”—that is, disregard its limits and propose amendments outside its sphere of authority. I have little patience with this sort of alarmism, partly because it is so patently […]
A Convention of States in “Gone With the Wind”
Margaret Mitchell, the author of the hugely popular novel Gone With the Wind, was a newspaper reporter and the child of a family steeped in history. Her father, a prominent Georgia attorney, was one of the leading lights in the state historical society. That her book has a plethora of references to historical events occurring […]
