Commentators such as liberal E.J. Dionne and even libertarian David Harsanyi are claiming that the election results prove that Obama won a great referendum on the role of government in American society, achieving a mandate for expanded government intervention. The CNN exit polls tell a very different story. 51 percent of voters said that government […]
Author Archive | Ilya Somin
Presidential Preferences of George Mason Law Students
As co-blogger David Bernstein notes, the two of us conducted anonymous online presidential polls of our Constitutional Law I classes. Here are my results, for a poll conducted over the weekend just before election day: Barack Obama (Democrat): 29 Mitt Romney (Republican): 18 Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party): 2 Jill Stein (Green Party): 1 Other: 0 […]
Is it Unjust to Require Children to Pass a Knowledge Test to Vote, but Not Adults?
By Ilya Somin on November 8, 2012 12:27 am in Election Law, Elections, Political Ignorance, Voting Rights for Children
Canadian legal blogger Leonid Sirota has posted an interesting response to my post advocating extension of the franchise to politically knowledgeable children. He argues that it is unjust to require children to pass a knowledge test for voting, but not adults. He would therefore prefer to lower the voting age to 16 instead: Pour ma […]
Explaining Obama’s Victory
Beginning today, pundits are going to offer a wide range of explanations for Obama’s victory. But I think the simplest and most obvious is that he won because the economy had improved just enough since 2008 to give him the edge. As I pointed out back in September, standard models of presidential election outcomes based […]
Education and Voting Rights for Knowledgeable Children
By Ilya Somin on November 7, 2012 1:03 pm in Democracy, Education, Political Ignorance, Voting Rights for Children
In response to my post arguing that we should grant voting rights to politically knowledgeable children, Paul Horwitz of Prawfsblawg makes the following suggestion: What spurred this post is Ilya Somin’s argument on the VC yesterday that knowledgeable children ought to be allowed to vote. He addresses some standard objections in his post, but a […]
Colorado and Washington Vote to Legalize Marijuana
In a significant political breakthrough for opponents of the War on Drugs, Colorado and Washington voters passed referenda legalizing marijuana tonight. To my knowledge, these wins are the first time that any state has passed a referendum initiative that legalizes marijuana generally, as opposed to only for medical purposes. For reasons I outlined here, this […]
Racial Progress and Obama’s Reelection
As I see it, Obama’s reelection is overall likely to cause more harm than good. But there is one important positive aspect that deserves special mention. Obama’s reelection victory cements the idea that having an African-American president is normal. For a nation with a long history of racial oppression – one where most blacks didn’t […]
Implications of Obama’s Victory
All of the major networks have called the election for Obama, and it’s pretty obvious that he’s going to win, even though the Romney campaign has not yet officially conceded. It’s an impressive political achievement for the president and his supporters, especially if (as now seems likely), he does better in the popular vote than […]
Virginia Eminent Domain Reform Question 1 Passes
We don’t yet have the final results. But Virginia news radio station WINA 1070 is projecting that Question 1, the Virginia eminent domain reform referendum question, is going to pass by an “overwhelming” margin. For reasons I outlined here and here, this is an important improvement over the present Virginia constitution, which is one of […]
Suffer the Little Children to Vote
By Ilya Somin on November 6, 2012 11:05 am in Democracy, Election Law, Political Ignorance, Voting Rights for Children
On this election day, as on most others, we will hear a lot about the need to increase turnout and the dangers of voter suppression. But few will even consider questioning the systematic exclusion of a huge part of our population from the franchise: children under the age of 18. We allow even the most […]
The Case for Abstaining from Ignorant Voting
Today, Americans will have an opportunity to vote on a wide range of candidates and ballot initiatives. In many cases, however, we will be voting on candidates and issues that we know very little about. It is rational for most voters to be ignorant about most issues, because the chance of casting a decisive ballot […]
Michael Greve on the Proper Meaning of “Proper” in the Necessary and Proper Clause
By Ilya Somin on November 5, 2012 8:00 pm in Federalism, Health Care, Individual Mandate, Necessary and Proper
At the Law and Liberty Blog, my George Mason colleague Michael Greve has posted an insightful commentary on my forthcoming article analyzing the proper meaning of “proper.” Michael agrees with my conclusion that the individual health insurance mandate was improper, but takes issue with some of my reasoning: My colleague Ilya Somin has penned a […]
Richard Epstein and Glen Whitman on Libertarians and the Presidential Election
Well-known libertarian scholars Richard Epstein and Glen Whitman have recently weighed in on a question that has been much-debated in the blogosphere: Who, if anyone, should libertarians support in the presidential election. Epstein argues that we should support Romney as the lesser of the two available evils: In the final countdown to what promises to […]
Some Key Referenda to Watch
By Ilya Somin on November 5, 2012 4:58 pm in Elections, Eminent Domain, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights, War on Drugs
In addition to the presidential and congressional elections tomorrow, there are also some important referenda initiatives on the ballot in many states. They include several on issues of special interest to me and many VC readers: property rights and the War on Drugs. Here in Virginia, we have Question 1, which would strengthen protection for […]
New Pew Poll Gives Obama a Three Point Lead
In my last post, I said that Obama should be favored to win the election, and suggested he has roughly a 65-70 percent chance of winning. My estimate of Romney’s chances was based in large part on his relatively strong showing in national polls, which still had him even with Obama late last week. Today, […]