Author Archive | Randy Barnett

Blogging here from Carefree (the name of the town), Arizona, I see Will Baude is running an informal blogpoll on Crescat Sententia. Here is how he describes it: It’s time we found a neutral principle for picking a theory of Constitutional Law. I have one. Whose vision of the Constitution produces spiffier diagrams? Exhibit A: […]

Some time ago I ran across this blog post, Special Randy Barnett Constitutional Cryptograms, on Flog by Daniel Atkinson, but was unable to link to it at the time. So now I am finally posting it for the amusement of those who have heard my lectures or read my book.

As I sit sipping coffee in a plaza outside the Omni Hotel here in beautiful scenic downtown LA, I warmly welcome my friends from The Right Coast to the friendly confines of the Conspiracy. I have known most of them for many years BG (Before Blogging) and they, along with Larry Solum of Legal theory […]

The Rockin’ Book Tour for Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty finally concludes with two talks next week, both of which are jointly sponsored by the Los Angeles Lawyers Division of the Federalist Society and the Libertarian Law Council. A limited number of books should be available for sale and signing at the […]

St. George Tucker was professor of law at the College of William and Mary, one of the leading judges of the General Court in Virginia, and the American editor of Blackstone’s Commentaries, the most influential and authoritative legal work of the period. In the 1803 edition of the Commentaries, he attached an appendix discussing the […]

The Rockin’ Book Tour for Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty finally concludes with two talks in June, both of which are jointly sponsored by the Los Angeles Lawyers Division of the Federalist Society and the Libertarian Law Council. A limited number of books should be available for sale and signing at the […]

Latecomers to my extended exchange with Stephen Bainbridge can use the following links (in chronological order) to catch up: Should Conservatives Be Uninformed? Should Conservatives Be Confused? The Founders on Democratic Majoritarianism Stephen Bainbridge Replies The Stubbornness of Facts: Judicial Conservatives and the Ninth Amendment Abortion & the 14th Amendment Originalist Sacrifices

From both my travels around the country, and from the reactions in the blogosphere, it is evident to me that the Supreme Court’s opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, has struck a nerve in some people, as has my defense of the decision on this blog, in The Cato Supreme Court Review as well in as […]

On his blog and on Mirror of Justice, Stephen Bainbridge has turned from the issue of gay sex to that of abortion. Here is what he says: It’s not just about sex. Barnett’s expansive theory of the 9th amendment is at least as radical as William O. Douglas’ theory of penumbras in terms of its […]

Although it does not provide easy answers to all present cases and controversies, one of the nice things about original meaning originalism is that is seeks to discover a genuine fact about the world: the public meaning of the words used at the time of their enactment. In contrast, original intent originalism seeks either to […]

Stephen Bainbridge responds to my earlier post on The Founders on Democratic Majoritarianism with this revealing post: I wonder what those founders would think of our modern Supreme Court as it happily goes about the business of, as Justice Scalia put it, “Day by day, case by case, … designing a Constitution for a country […]

The debate over judicial activism continues with Larry Solum’s latest lengthy reply to Stephen Bainbridge, Majoritarianism, Formalism, and the Feasible Choice Set. What I find most interesting about Professor Bainbridge’s latest reply to Larry is how candidly he admits his preference for a parliamentary system. . . . I would prefer a parliamentary system in […]

On his Legal Theory Blog, Larry Solum has a wonderful addition to his Legal Theory Lexicon entitled Strict Construction & Judicial Activism. Anyone interested in Constitutional Law should read it. Larry has also been making some excellent points about the issues raised by Clayton Cramer and Stephen Bainbridge. The latest is Cramer Sense. Scroll down […]

The Rockin’ Book Tour for Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty is back by popular demand–well, it’s back. This week I return to St. Louis for two appearances on Wednesday, May 12th. University of Missouri, St. Louis – 2:00pm-3:15pm in the McDonnell Conference Room, Social Sciences Building Rm. 331, UMSL (8001 Natural Bridge […]

I have received some thoughtful replies to my response to Professor Bainbridge’s post, Should Conservatives Be Cheerful? including this Reply to Barnett by Professor Bainbridge, and his endorsement of Legislative Tyranny versus Judicial Tyranny by Owen at Southern Appeal. I believe that these post reflect some basic misunderstanding of the position (mine) with which they […]