I want to thank all my friends from around the country, and Volokh Conspiracy readers, for their many emails expressing support and words of encouragement to me following the Supreme Court’s disappointing decision on Monday in Gonzales v. Raich. I have also taken solace in the outpouring of disapproval for the Court’s decision from every ideological quarter of the blogosphere.
As you can imagine, after investing over two years litigating this case in the District Court and Court of Appeasls, and almost the entirety of my fall semester preparing for three moot courts and oral argument, Monday was a pretty tough day. All these expressions of support, which I have yet to individually acknowledge, really did help–as did the clarity and potency of the dissenting opinions by Justices O’Connor and Thomas. I was grateful as well that Chief Justice Rehnquist, the author of the opinions in Lopez and Morrison on which our arguments were based, completely endorsed our reading of those cases by joining Justice O’Connor’s cogent opinion that adopted our arguments in their entirety. This was not what experienced court watchers expected from him. Perhaps it is worth noting that the three justices who did not ask me any questions in oral argument ultimately sided with us.
When the decision came down, I was in the middle of six hours of lectures on Contracts at NYU for LawPReview. I used my hour for lunch to skim the opinion and participate in a telephonic press conference with 50 reporters. Then I had to return to the classroom to teach contract law. The students were very understanding of the fact that I was probably not quite the same teacher as I had been for the first 2 hours of the day. After that, I faced a several hour delay returning to Boston due to thunderstorms at LaGuardia. My parents arrived from out of town to visit hours before my return to Boston, so I am now preoccupied with spending time with them.
For all these reasons, I have been too drained and distracted to blog on the decision, and it continues to be difficult to write about it dispassionately. Today, however, I did manage to pen some brief comments that I expect will appear on National Review Online tomorrow. When they do, I will link to them here and, perhaps, add some additional thoughts. In the meantime, thanks to everyone who wrote to me or who blogged their support. It really meant a lot.
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