Justices Make It Tougher for State Universities to Discriminate, But Not Tough Enough
(This is the third of several short commentaries on recent Supreme Court decisions.) The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Fisher v. University of Texas has made it tougher for state universities to run their ethnic spoils systems. But not tough enough. First, the background: The Fourteenth Amendment requires states to extend “equal protection of the […]
Do the Feds Belong in Indian Adoption Law? (Together with another Natelson citation in the Supreme Court and an acknowledgment of Lisa Morris)
(Note: This is the second of several short commentaries on recent Supreme Court decisions.) There is little more heart-rending than the sorrow of a child. The sorrow of a child—and of her adoptive parents—created one of the Supreme Court’s more compelling cases this term. I was happy to be cited extensively in one of the […]
Justice Thomas, Quoting Rob Natelson, Had the Constitution Correct In the Arizona Citizenship-for-Voting Case
NOTE: This is the first of several short commentaries on recent Supreme Court decisions. The Supreme Court recently ruled that Arizona’s law requiring proof of citizenship for voting violates federal statutes. In his dissent, Justice Thomas relied heavily on my own research. The Independence Institute did not participate in that case. So how did it […]
Without The Constitution You Might Be Someone’s Slave Today—And Other Crucial Facts About The Founding
On June 14, I keynoted a conference on the American Founding. The conference was sponsored by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, an educational and publishing non-profit that focuses on civic education for college students. The keynote included six crucial facts about the framing and ratification of our Constitution: First: The Constitution was the product of careful […]
The Breakdown of America
A nation’s health and prosperity depends on good institutions. These institutions are political and private. Good political institutions include balanced government with a significant amount of popular control, the rule of law, freedom from corruption, and respect for individual rights. Good private sector institutions include free and open markets and positive moral codes in religious […]
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 […]
