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.
Think your state courts are bad? Check this out.
Conservatives in Colorado and other states often complain about the liberalism of their states’ courts. They should be glad they don’t live in Montana. Montana’s public image is one of rugged individualism, and in a few spheres of life (such as guns), image reflects reality. But in fiscal and regulatory affairs, Montana has a long […]
Independence Institute Moves to Protect TABOR in U.S. Court of Appeals
The Independence Institute is once again defending the Colorado Taxpayers Bill of Rights against attack. II has filed an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals, shooting holes in the plaintiffs’ claim that allowing the people to check the state legislature’s financial powers is somehow “unrepublican.” The national think […]
New Issue Paper on the Interstate Threat of the anti-TABOR Lawsuit
As regular readers of this site know, a group of plaintiffs representing government interests has sued the State of Colorado, claiming that the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) in the state constitution violates the U.S. Constitution. Even though the claim is an exceptionally weak one, last year a federal district court allowed it to proceed. […]
Why the Framers Could Suggest Ratification by Only Nine States
In prior postings such as the one here, I have explained why it is wrong to claim that the commissioners (delegates) to the 1787 Constitutional Convention exceeded their power in recommending that the Articles of Confederation be replaced by a new instrument. Another aspect of the same charge is that the Framers exceed their power […]
