National Review has posted an on-line symposium in honor of Judge Robert Bork, the great legal scholar and jurist who passed away today. Here is an excerpt from my contribution: Judge Robert Bork was an outstanding legal scholar and jurist. It is often forgotten that he first became prominent thanks to his path-breaking work on […]
Archive | Conservatism
Marijuana Legalization on this Year’s Ballot
Six states have marijuana legalization referendum questions on the ballot in this year’s election. Philip Smith has a good summary of them on the Stop the Drug War website [HT: Tom Angell]. Colorado, Oregon, and Washington will vote on initiatives to legalize marijuana generally, though all three would impose fairly extensive regulation on the new […]
Richard Epstein on Hayek
NYU law professor Richard Epstein has an excellent short summary of F.A. Hayek’s thought and its continuing relevance today. Along the way, Epstein explodes various claims that Hayek’s thought had little intellectual merit and little influence until Tea Partiers and Republicans like Paul Ryan popularized it over the last few years. In reality, as I […]
Left, Right, and Judicial Review
By Ilya Somin on July 12, 2012 5:43 pm in Conservatism, Constitutional History, Constitutional Theory, Federalism, Health Care, Individual Mandate, Originalism
Various commentators, such as co-blogger Orin Kerr and Joel Alicea argue that the individual mandate case represents a sea change in conservative attitudes to judicial review. Whereas before conservatives supposedly opposed most judicial invalidation of statutes, now they emphasize the need to strike down laws that can’t be justified on originalist grounds. Orin also suggests […]
Fumento on “Today’s Right-Wing Darlings”
Conservative writer Michael Fumento explains his discomfort with the “extreme right” in Salon. While I think portions of his essay are overstated, I generally agree. Further, like Professor Bainbridge, I found this passage worth repeating: Civility and respect for order – nay, demand for order – have always been tenets of conservatism. The most prominent […]
Nonlegal Arguments for Upholding the Individual Mandate
By Ilya Somin on May 21, 2012 5:57 pm in Commerce Clause, Conservatism, Constitutional Theory, Federalism, Health Care, Individual Mandate, Public Opinion
Both sides in the individual mandate litigation have developed a wide range of legal arguments to support their position. Some defenders of the mandate have also emphasized several nonlegal reasons why they believe the Court should uphold the law. These arguments have gotten more emphasis since the Supreme Court oral argument seemed to go badly […]
Conservatives and Immigration
Politico’s Arena site recently asked contributors to weigh in on whether the GOP is likely to be “wounded” by its support for severe restrictions on immigration. My answer is available here: The real tragedy here is not that the GOP might suffer politically, but that so many conservative Republicans have turned against immigration in the […]
Jonah Goldberg on Heather Gerken’s Progressive Case for Federalism
Like me, conservative National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg has a generally favorable take on Yale Law Professor Heather Gerken’s progressive case for federalism: A one-size-fits-all policy imposed at the national level has the potential to make very large numbers of citizens unhappy, even if it was arrived at democratically….. Pushing government decisions down to the […]
John Samples on the Cato vs. Koch Controversy
John Samples of the Cato Institute has an interesting recent piece on the conflict between Cato and the Kochs [via Gene Healy]: The politically engaged have offered much commentary on the conflict over the future of the Cato Institute. Some prominent people on the left have spoken of their respect for the current Cato. In […]
Jeb Bush on Immigration
In this recent Washington Post op ed on how the GOP can increase its appeal to Hispanic voters, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush says the following about immigration: The American immigrant experience is the most aspirational story ever told. Immigrants left all that was familiar to them to come here and make a better life […]
Rick Santorum as this Year’s Mike Huckabee
This year’s election was supposed to be something new and different. However, Rick Santorum, the big winner in this year’s Iowa GOP primary is remarkably similar to the big GOP Iowa winner of 2008: Mike Huckabee. Like Huckabee, Santorum is a hard-core social conservative whose big government proclivities extend far beyond social issues. I covered […]
NYU Law School Talk on the Tea Party and Popular Constitutionalism
By Ilya Somin on October 3, 2011 12:38 pm in Conservatism, Constitutional History, Constitutional Law
This Wednesday, I will be giving a talk at NYU Law School on the Tea Party Movement and Popular Constitutionalism. The talk will be at 11 AM in Vanderbilt Hall, Room 202. NYU Professor Roderick Hills will comment on my presentation, and there will also be questions from the audience until around 12:30 or so. […]
Cross-Ideological Dating at Match.Com
This interesting Slate article on Match.com notes that Match’s statistical data base finds that conservatives are more willing to date liberals on the site than vice versa: Indeed, says [Match.com’s Amarnath] Thombre, “the politics one is quite interesting. Conservatives are far more open to reaching out to someone with a different point of view than […]
The Ideological Turing Test
In a recent interview, Paul Krugman argued that liberals generally understand conservative arguments better than vice versa: A liberal can talk coherently about what the conservative view is because people like me actually do listen. We don’t think it’s right, but we pay enough attention to see what the other person is trying to get […]
The Tea Party Movement and Popular Constitutionalism
By Ilya Somin on May 31, 2011 10:30 am in Conservatism, Constitutional Law, Constitutional Theory, Democracy, Libertarianism, Political Ignorance
My article, “The Tea Party Movement and Popular Constitutionalism,” is now available on SSRN. It is part of a recent Northwestern University Law Review Colloquy symposium on the Constitutional Politics of the Tea Party Movement. Here is the abstract: The rise of the Tea Party movement follows a period during which many scholars have focused […]