NSA Seizures: Papers, Effects, and the Constitution
Randy Barnett has an interesting op ed in the Wall Street Journal arguing that the NSA’s seizure of voluminous data on U.S. citizens was unconstitutional and that the approval of the seizure by the...
View ArticleDoes the Constitution Allow a Female President? Originalism Says Yes. Some...
This might seem like an odd question, but a journalist recently asked me my opinion about the matter. It turns out that Article II of the Constitution refers to the President as a him. For example:...
View ArticleMad Dog Mattis, the 7 Year Delay Provision, and the Appointments Clause
President Elect Donald Trump has announced that he will be nominating James “Mad Dog” Mattis to be Secretary of Defense. However, a statute requires “retired military officers to be out of uniform for...
View ArticleWas Justice Scalia an Old Originalist?
One of the standard distinctions these days is between the old originalism and new originalism. While different people define the distinction a little bit differently, I define the old originalism as...
View ArticleThe Original Fourth Amendment and Unreasonable Searches and Seizures
Recently, Laura Donahue, a professor at Georgetown Law and an expert on digital privacy, came to the Originalism Center at the University of San Diego to talk about her recent article, “The Original...
View ArticleReviving the Nondelegation Doctrine
The Supreme Court has accepted certiorari in a case that raises a nondelegation doctrine question (as well as several other issues). In Gundy v. United States, the nondelegation issue involves the...
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Ratifying the Constitution and the Bill of Rights Was More Peculiar Than Most...
Most people know that there were 13 original states that declared independence from Great Britain. But the Constitution changed things and that caused significant actions in our early constitutional...
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An Important Difference Between Historians and Originalist Law Professors
Recently, I was having a discussion with a law professor who looks at matters from a historical perspective. While such law professors are not professional historians, many of them have adopted the...
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Birthright Citizenship: Originalism and Nonoriginalism
President Trump has put the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause in the news. The question is whether the language in the Amendment—“All persons born or naturalized in the United States and...
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Acting Appointments and the Constitution’s Original Meaning
There has been much controversy over the naming of Matthew Whitaker, the Chief of Staff of former Attorney General Sessions, to be Acting Attorney General. Whitaker was not serving in a position that...
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Gouverneur Morris’s Rewriting of the Constitution
Recently, the Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism held its annual Works-in-Progress Conference. One of the papers was written by Dean William Treanor of Georgetown Law School. (Both Bill...
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Our Fiduciary President
One important area of constitutional law involves the Take Care Clause of the Constitution. Unfortunately, there is a great deal of disagreement about the Clause’s meaning.Happily, at the Originalism...
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Unifying Original Intent and Original Public Meaning
John McGinnis and I have just published a new article on Original Methods Originalism, the interpretive theory that we have developed. In this post, I wanted to describe the first part of the article....
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Clutching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory: Gundy and the Prohibition on...
The prohibition on the delegation of legislative power to the executive is one of the key structural features of the Constitution’s original meaning. The prohibition prevents the legislature from...
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