Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit granted death row inmate John David Stumpf’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus for a second time – seven years after its first habeas grant, six years after the Supreme Court’s reversal of that decision, and four years after the subsequent oral argument. As […]
Archive | August, 2011
Utter Climate Ignorance
I have my share of disagreements with Jonathan Zasloff, particularly on matters of environmental law and policy (see, e.g., here), but his attack on Fox News’ alleged climate “expert” Joe Bastardi hits the mark. There are reasonable bases upon which to question some aspects of global warming, including some of the more dire computer model […]
LawProf “Scam Blog”
A few years ago, law professor blogging behind a pseudonym was pretty common — remember Juan non-Volokh? Here’s a bit of a throw-back, then: Inside the Law School Scam, written by a professor who confesses that he is scamming his students by being a lazy teacher and terrible scholar but drawing a high salary. Or […]
“I Got Awful Grades My First Year in Law School. Should I Quit?”
Say that a student is asking himself this question. He went to law school wanting to become a lawyer. He still would like being a lawyer. He thinks he’ll enjoy being a lawyer, if he can get a good job. But he’s afraid that his very low grades for the first year — say, bottom […]
Collective Action Federalism and Judicial Enforcement of Enumerated Powers
I thank Prof. Kurt Lash for engaging my work with Robert Cooter on collective action federalism. And I am grateful to Prof. Eugene Volokh for giving me the opportunity this week to blog about the theory and to respond to some of Prof. Lash’s criticism. It speaks volumes about Prof. Volokh that he provides a platform for multiple points […]
It’s “the Internet.” Please.
I’m losing my battle to keep the initial capital “I” in “the Internet.” I’m starting see references to “the internet” everywhere; the latest to fall seems to be The Economist (see headline from July 30: “An internet with Chinese characteristics” – I’m quite certain that it was “the Internet” up until quite recently). It actually […]
Neil Siegel and the Claims of Resolution VI Proponents (a reply)
My thanks to Neil Siegel for his willingness to engage the historical arguments presented in my new paper on Resolution VI. In this final post, I will address why the discussion is important and also respond to Neil’s comments and some of the comments made by others during the week. I should state from the […]
Federalism and Property Rights
By Ilya Somin on August 10, 2011 9:26 pm in Blight, Eminent Domain, Federalism, Kelo, Property Rights
My recently published article “Federalism and Property Rights” is now available on SSRN. It’s part of the University of Chicago Legal Forum Symposium on Governance and Power. Here is the abstract: Both the Supreme Court and leading legal scholars have often cited federalism as a reason to severely limit federal judicial enforcement of constitutional property […]
Trekblogging
I’m back from my trek through Mustang, Nepal. Since I blegged here for toys, books, and laptops to take to rural schools along my route, I thought readers might want to learn what actually happened on the trek. I’ve begun posting installments from my travel journal on Skating on Stilts. Since the Volokh Conspiracy isn’t […]
The Ice Cream/Gunpowder Link + Orange Blossom as the Original Ice Cream Flavor + Most Common Vowels in Ice Cream Names
A fascinating and wide-ranging post at the Language of Food (from Stanford linguistics professor Dan Jurafsky. Thanks to Prof. Arnold Zwicky (Language Log) for the pointer.
Search Warrant for Name of the Author of the Renton (Washington) Parody Videos Temporarily Stayed
I blogged about this case last week (Is It a Crime to Publish Parody Videos That Use “Lewd … Language” Meant to “Embarrass and Emotionally Torment” Police Officers?); yesterday, the judge stayed the search warrant aimed at unmasking the author of the videos, pending a hearing on whether the search warrant should be quashed. [UPDATE: […]
What Does the Mandate Regulate?
Today SCOTUSBlog has posted my contribution to its symposium on “The Constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.” It begins: The public debate over the constitutionality of the individual mandate tends to focus on whether it is a permissible exercise of the power to “regulate commerce . . . among the several states.” This is no […]
My SCOTUSblog Post on the Future of the Individual Mandate Litigation
By Ilya Somin on August 10, 2011 4:15 pm in Commerce Clause, Federalism, Health Care, Individual Mandate, Necessary and Proper, Taxing and Spending Clause
SCOTUSblog has just posted my contribution to their symposium on the individual mandate litigation. I interpreted the assignment as focusing primarily on the future prospects of the individual mandate challenges, rather than on the question of whether they deserve to win. So I focused primarily on the former question, even though some other participants in […]
Prof. Lash’s Originalist Claims
I learned from Kurt Lash’s new article, which makes novel and creative claims about historical materials that are important to a variety of theories of constitutional interpretation. In this post, I will first question some of his originalist conclusions. More importantly, I will then explain why he offers little reason to reject the structural, nonoriginalist […]
James Wilson, Resolution VI and Original Public Meaning
This is my third and final substantive guest-post on my new article, “Resolution VI”: The Virginia Plan and Authority to Resolve Collective Action Problems Under Article I, Section 8 and recent efforts to use Resolution VI as a foundational principle for construing federal power under Article I, Section 8. To recap my last post, proponents […]