Eugene Kontorovich has posted (here and here) arguing that it would be unconstitutional to limit each person to carrying only one gun, because the word “Arms” in the Second Amendment is plural. I applaud his attention to text, and I am sympathetic to his bottom line, but I don’t find the textual argument persuasive. The […]
Author Archive | Nick Rosenkranz
James Comey Nominated for FBI Director
Yesterday, President Obama nominated Jim Comey to serve as the next FBI Director. One of Comey’s many claims to fame was the dramatic confrontation with White House officials over John Ashcroft’s hospital bed; the New York Times has a compelling account of that episode here. (I was at the Office of Legal Counsel at the […]
Cato Brief in Bond Featured in National Law Journal
A while ago I posted about a brief that I filed in Bond v. United States on behalf of the Cato Institute et al., arguing that a treaty cannot increase the legislative power of Congress. Over at Cato, Ilya Shapiro reports that the National Law Journal recently featured our brief as its “brief of the […]
Profile of Judge Ed Korman
By Nick Rosenkranz on June 16, 2013 11:05 pm in Constitutional Law, Constitutional Theory, Health Care, Originalism, Politicizing Science
The New York Times has a nice profile of Judge Ed Korman, the judge who faced down HHS in the Plan B case. See Jonathan Adler’s posts, here, here, here, and here. Whatever one thinks of the merits, it takes great fortitude for a district judge to stand up to a recalcitrant administration. As for […]
Can a Treaty Increase The Power of Congress?
I will be speaking on this topic at the Cato Institute on Friday, June 14, at noon. The inimitable Judge Kozinski will be commenting. Luncheon to follow. Information and registration here.
Swedish Royal Wedding
I will not be live blogging from the royal wedding here in Stockholm today; that simply would not be appropriate. For those who are interested, see Hello Magazine’s comprehensive coverage, here.
The Bourne Implausibility: Movie Inspires Blog Post, Which Inspires Video, Which Inspires Blog Post
By Nick Rosenkranz on June 1, 2013 1:12 pm in Constitutional Law, Fifth Amendment, National Security, Popular Culture, Targeted Killing
Three months ago, under the heading “The Bourne Implausibility,” I offered up the following (wry?) observation: I just caught the last few minutes of The Bourne Ultimatum. At the end (spoiler alert), Bourne successfully exposes everything, and we catch a glimpse of MSNBC, reporting on a secret CIA assassination program “which in several cases may […]
Joel Alicea on Intellectual Diversity in the Legal Academy
Last month, I posted about a first-rate conference at Harvard Law School on the topic of intellectual diversity in the legal academy. Joel Alicea, the student who organized the conference, has a nice op-ed in the Washington Times on this topic today. Here is how it begins: “One cannot truly understand a legal argument on […]
Bond Amicus Brief for Cato et al.
As regular readers know, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Bond v. United States in January. The case raises the question of whether a treaty can increase the power of Congress. Last week I posted about Paul Clement’s first-rate brief on behalf of the Petitioner. Yesterday, I filed an amicus brief on behalf of the […]
Diversity at Harvard Law School
The Harvard Crimson is currently running “a three-part series on gender disparity issues at [Harvard] Law School.” Part I reports that there are 17 tenured or tenure-track women out of 92 total on the Harvard Law School faculty. It goes on to report: Since she took the helm of the school four years ago, [Dean] […]
Paul Clement’s Brief for Petitioner in Bond v. United States
As regular readers know, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Bond v. United States in January. The case raises the question of whether a treaty can increase the legislative power of Congress. In 1920, in Missouri v. Holland, the Supreme Court seemed to say yes. In 2005, in the Harvard Law Review, I said no. […]
Why Did Law Professors Misunderestimate the Lawsuits against PPACA?
I quite enjoyed reading David Hyman’s new article of this title. It vividly illustrates a point that I tried to make three weeks ago at the Intellectual Diversity Conference at Harvard Law School (Panel 2 – 47:00) — which is that the liberal echo chamber of elite law schools has made them startlingly poor at […]
Harvard Federalist Society Conference: Intellectual Diversity and the Legal Academy
Last week, I posted about a conference at Harvard on the topic of intellectual diversity in the legal academy. I’m pleased to report that the conference was a great success, well conceived and well executed by the excellent students of the Harvard chapter of the Federalist Society. If nothing else, it succeeded in shining a […]
On Liberty
It is always a treat to reread John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty. The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal […]
Harvard Federalist Society: Intellectual Diversity and the Legal Academy
The Harvard Chapter of the Federalist Society is hosting a very important conference tomorrow on intellectual diversity in the legal academy. Many people realize that legal academia “leans” to the left. But even alumni — indeed, even major donors — are often unaware of the extent of the imbalance. At Georgetown, for example, the ratio […]