A promising conference at the American Enterprise Institute in DC, today at noon. Information here.
Author Archive | Nick Rosenkranz
Constitutional Law After ObamaCare
By Nick Rosenkranz on November 25, 2012 7:00 pm in Constitutional Law, Constitutional Theory, Continuing Legal Education
The Manhattan Institute will be hosting a promising conference on this topic at the Century Club in New York City on Thursday evening, November 29th. I have been asked to speak about The Subjects of the Constitution and The Objects of the Constitution. Other speakers are Prof. Michael Greve of George Mason Law School; Prof. […]
Drug Treaties Do Not Empower Congress To Override Or Repeal State Referenda Legalizing Marijuana
In a press release last week, the President of the International Narcotics Control Board, Raymond Yans, asserted that the recent referenda legalizing marijuana in Colorado and Washington “are in violation of the international drug control treaties.” He is almost certainly wrong about that; federal drug laws keep the United States in compliance with such treaties […]
The Conservative Future
David Brooks had a nice op-ed in the New York Times yesterday, contending that “if you go online, you can find a vibrant and increasingly influential center-right conversation.” Regarding “legal and free speech concerns,” Brooks mentions our very own — “unpredictable libertarian-leaning” — Eugene Volokh.
IQ2US Debate: Legalize Drugs
Intelligence Squared is hosting a debate on the motion “Legalize Drugs” tomorrow evening, Wednesday, November 14, 6:45-8:30pm, at the Kaufman Center, 129 West 67th Street (btw Broadway and Amsterdam), New York City. For the motion: Nick Gillespie, Editor-in-Chief of Reason.com and Reason TV, and Prof. Paul Butler, my colleague at Georgetown Law. Against the motion: […]
Lincoln
I saw Lincoln last night, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the movie is almost entirely about the history of the Thirteenth Amendment. Tony Kushner’s writing and Steven Spielberg’s directing are perhaps just a bit heavy-handed, but the acting is superb. And how often do you get to see a movie about the […]
Introduction
Hello, Conspiracy! I have been a fan of the Volokh Conspiracy since its inception, and I am honored to join you as the newest Conspirator. Some of you may recall my guest posts from September of 2011, or Randy Barnett’s extremely generous review of my recent work. For those who don’t know me, I am […]
The Subjects of the Constitution — Final Thoughts
By Nick Rosenkranz on September 24, 2011 1:02 am in Constitutional Amendments, Constitutional Law, Constitutional Theory
This week, I have argued that the great overlooked question in constitutional law is the who question: who is bound by each clause and so who may violate it? These posts have attempted to answer this question for many of the most important clauses. They have also attempted to sketch some of the implications of […]
The Objects of the Fourteenth Amendment
By Nick Rosenkranz on September 23, 2011 11:55 pm in Constitutional Amendments, Constitutional Law, Constitutional Theory
This week, I have argued that the great overlooked question in constitutional law is the who question: who has allegedly violated the Constitution? The question is important, first, for simple reasons of constitutional accountability: if you care about the Constitution, you should care about who is violating it. But it is also important because it […]
The Objects of the Constitution
On Monday, I pointed out a euphemism of constitutional discourse. We are in the habit of saying “this statute violates the Constitution” (either “facially” or “as-applied”), when what we mean is that some government actor violated the Constitution — Congress, the President, a federal court, a state official. The euphemism is bad, I argued, because […]
The Subject of the Commerce Clause
In light of some of the comments and questions on my prior posts, it might be helpful to take a step back and explain exactly what puzzle I started out trying to solve. For this discussion, we will use an example near and dear to the Conspiracy’s heart: the scope of the Commerce Clause, and […]
Who Has Violated the Constitution?
In yesterday’s post, I argued that the first question in any constitutional controversy should be the who question: who has allegedly violated the Constitution? I gave one reason why: constitutional accountability. Knowing who the constitutional culprit may tell us whom to blame, whom to vote against, whom to impeach. Simply put, if you care about […]
The Subjects of the Constitution
Hello, Conspiracy! This week, I will be guest-blogging about a new model of constitutional review. The first two installments — The Subjects of the Constitution and The Objects of the Constitution — were recently published in the Stanford Law Review, and the comprehensive version is forthcoming next year as a book by Oxford University Press. […]