Georgetown University Law School Prof. Larry Solum engages in a discussion at Chapman University with Prof. Lawrence Rosenthal on October 21, 2015. Image: Chapman University Fowler School of Law.George Will’s Libertarian Turn
George Will speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (Christopher Halloran / Shutterstock.com).The Three Fault Lines of Contemporary Originalism
U.S. Constitution (Festa/Shutterstock.com)The Kennedy Succession
Madison and the Liquid Constitution
The conversation Richard Reinsch has sparked on constitutional liquidation is less about constitutional meaning than about the ultimate—note “ultimate”—authority to ascertain it. It is true, as Randy Barnett, among others, notes, that liquidation is a longstanding topic in originalist thought. But Reinsch suggests a new avenue, writing that republican politics bien entendu is the ultimate (see above) expositor of constitutional meaning and that this is true generally, not just in ambiguous or indeterminate cases.
Do Liberals Want Conservative Nonoriginalists?
Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Randy Barnett, as an aside, asks liberals the following question: Why would you possibly want a nonoriginalist “living constitutionalist” conservative judge or justice who can bend the meaning of the text to make it evolve to conform to conservative political principles and ends? However much you disagree with it, wouldn’t you rather a conservative justice consider himself constrained by the text of the Constitution like, say, the Emoluments Clause? In his U.S. Today Column, Glenn Reynolds picks up on the idea and explores various decisions that might be overturned based on a conservative living constitutionalism. Barnett’s is an…
Crouching Congress, Hidden Judges
One of the signal achievements of Bertrand de Jouvenel was establishing the existential status of power: “The Minotaur,” he called it, a metaphysical entity, nearly organic, with an instinct for both survival and expansion. If Mark Tushnet’s overeager call, predicated on a Hillary Clinton presidency, for judges to emerge from what he alleged to be their “defensive crouch liberal constitutionalism” and slay the foes of Progressivism demonstrated anything, it was that there is, miracle of miracles, such a creature as a judicial Minotaur. Randy Barnett’s much discussed and certainly much warranted reply at The Volokh Conspiracy confirms it. Yet the judicial Minotaur…
The Inconvenient Truths Staring Us in the Face
Paul Ryan Addresses The Economic Club Of Washington, DC (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)Quite a few conservatives, beginning maybe with George Will, are saying that the victory of Trump would be the end of conservatism. Others, maybe beginning with Damon Linker, are saying that the nomination of Trump signaled the end of conservatism. There are many ways of evaluating such claims. Here’s one.
Government by Judiciary
Americans are united in professing respect for the Constitution, but they are deeply divided over what it actually means and how it ought to be interpreted. These disagreements have roiled our public life for decades. Everybody who follows politics knows about the clashes between the liberal proponents of judicial activism and the conservative defenders of judicial deference. These arguments go on and on, with neither side succeeding in persuading the other of the superior merits of its theory. Faced with this ongoing deadlock, we wonder if there is any way to achieve unity on the meaning of the Constitution.
Will Judges Debate the Layout of Shower Areas?
Aristotle teaches that justice is necessary where friendship has failed. His point is that the strictures of the law need only be imposed where ordinary, informal, face-to-face interactions collapse. Lawsuits—and, for that matter, laws—thus begin where comity and common sense end. That is worth keeping in mind as the first frontal constitutional challenge to the U.S. Department of Education’s attempt to impose a one-size-fits-all approach to transgender access to intimate facilities—bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers—works its way through the courts.
