Author Archive | Randy Barnett

A few weeks ago, I testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the constitutionality of the individual insurance mandate. I recently replied to written follow up questions from Senators Durbin and Sessions. I thought Volokh readers would be interested in what they asked and how I answered. My answers are in bold. Questions from […]

I just uploaded a revised version of “Whence Comes Section One? The Abolitionist Origins of the Fourteenth Amendment,” which is forthcoming in the Journal of Legal Analysis. In this the penultimate version before editing for publication, I make explicit the connection between “constitutional abolitionism” and the founding of the Republican party. I only became fully […]

Orin makes a valid point about Comstock not being a favorable predictor for challenges to the individual mandate, especially if you are a formalist con law prof. I was at oral argument in Comstock and was able to discern the concerns of many of the justices. Above all was their concern about releasing sexually dangerous […]

My article, Commandeering the People: Why the Individual Health Insurance Mandate is Unconstitutional, has been published by the NYU Journal of Law and Liberty. You can download a pdf of the published version here. This is the abstract: The “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” includes what is called an “individual responsibility requirement” or mandate […]

The New York Times today published my letter responding to their editorial critical of my testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The letter is here, and reads: To the Editor: Your Feb. 10 editorial “A Debate Bigger Than Reform” criticized my testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the unconstitutionality of the individual insurance mandate. […]

This morning at 9:30am, I am testifying before the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing on the constitutionality of the individual mandate. The other witnesses will be Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, and former Solicitor General and Duke lawprof Walter Dellinger. I don’t know whether C*SPAN will cover these hearings, but I suspect that media interest in […]

Because I have been on the road, I did not have chance to comment on Thursday’s editorial in the New York Times entitled, “A Debate Bigger Than Reform” (registration required). It strikes me as significant that the editorial board of the Times now feels the need to address the constitutional objections to the individual mandate, […]

This week I am speaking on “Turning Citizens into Subjects: Why the Individual Insurance Mandate is Unconstitutional” at Duke, Davidson, and Campbell. Here’s the line up: Duke (Law School 3037): Tonight at 7:30pm Davidson College (Philanthropic (“Phi”) Hall, Second Floor): Thursday at 4:30pm Campbell (Law – Room 313): Friday at Noon. On Saturday, I will […]

Charles Lane, the Washington Post’s columnist, member of the Post’s editorial board, and its former Supreme Court reporter has an excellent column in today’s Washington Post that deserves to be read in its entirety. Here is a bit: . . . As a policy matter, there is a case to be made that an individual […]

I have been too busy with page proofs for my forthcoming article in the NYU Journal of Law & Liberty to blog about yesterday’s Senate Judiciary Hearings. I suppose my one overall reaction was that if the Democrats, who called this hearing, hoped to blunt the momentum of the legal challenges by showing that the […]

I will be testifying today at 10am before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the constitutionality of the individual insurance mandate. Other witnesses include Charles Fried and Walter Dellinger. The hearing will be webcast on the Judiciary commitee’s website here.

On her blog With Irresistable Clearness (a Spooner phrase), political science professor (and Spooner scholar) Helen Knowles remembers Lysander Spooner’s birthday today by reproducing a harsh letter he write to Senator William Seward three days after his birthday. Three days after his birthday in 1860, Spooner wrote to William H. Seward, the latest letter in […]

I am in New York to appear on CNN’s Parker Spitzer tonight some time during 8pm – 9pm ET. They did not dictate a topic, which is more typical, but instead asked me for two or three topics I am working on now. So i don’t yet know which ones they will ask about. We’ll […]

My Bloggingheads diavlog with my friend Texas law professor Sandy Levinson was posted yesterday. In it we talk about the Tea Party, popular constitutionalism, the fixity of the Constitution, the Repeal Amendment, Sandy’s hatred of the Senate, majoritarianism, and the importance of remembering that the Fourteenth Amendment and how it changed the original Constitution for […]

I awoke this morning expecting to find my new Washington Examiner op-ed, Who’s Afraid of the Repeal Amendment, in which I respond to criticisms of the proposal by Dana Milbank, Dahlia Lithwick & Jeff Shesol, and the New York Times — all in the mandatory 600 words. (I will be offering an expanded 3300 word […]