Senator Ted Cruz has an excellent essay in the Harvard Law Review Forum entitled Limits on the Treaty Power. Here is a taste: The Necessary and Proper Clause does not give Congress power to implement treaties in a way that contravenes the structural limitations on the federal government’s powers …. The President should not be […]
Archive | Federalism
Christian Burset on William Baude on Federal Eminent Domain
Last year I published an article in the Yale Law Journal arguing that the Constitution did not give the federal government the power of eminent domain. The Necessary Proper Clause was originally understood not to implicitly grant “great” powers to the federal government, and I argue that eminent domain (at least over land) was best […]
The Benefits of State Polarization
By Ilya Somin on December 30, 2013 1:50 pm in Democracy and Political Ignorance, Federalism, Political Ignorance
Many commentators decry the increasing polarization between “red states” and “blue states.” This recent Washington Post article summarizes some of the standard criticisms. But as my George Mason colleague Michael Greve explains, state polarization also has some valuable benefits: Polarization (whether measured by single-party control over states, policy outcomes, or whatever) has its downsides. Single-part […]
Upcoming Heritage Foundation Event on Our Book A Conspiracy Against Obamacare
By Ilya Somin on December 30, 2013 11:20 am in Federalism, Health Care, Individual Mandate, Uncategorized
On January 7, co-bloggers Randy Barnett, Orin Kerr, and I will be speaking at an upcoming event at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC on our recently published book A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case, which details ours and the VC’s role in developing the arguments in the Supreme […]
Radiolab: Sex, Ducks, and The Founding Feud
Radiolab just did a nice segment about Bond v. United States, locating the treaty issue within the larger context of sovereignty and federalism. John Bellinger, Joseph Ellis, Duncan Hollis, and I make appearances. Audio here.
Upcoming Event on A Conspiracy Against Obamacare
Co-bloggers Randy Barnett, Orin Kerr, and I will be speaking at an upcoming event at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC on our recently published book A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case, which details ours and the VC’s role in developing the arguments in the Supreme Court’s Obamacare decision […]
Federalism and Marijuana Event
Many constitutional conservatives were critical of the Supreme Court’s decision in Gonzales v. Raich, holding that the federal government’s Commerce Clause power could reach the intrastate use and possession of marijuana for medical purposes authorized under state law. Now that an ever-growing number of states has chosen to authorize marijuana use and possession — some […]
The Prospect of Scottish Secession from Britain
One of the major issues on the British political agenda while I have been in the UK this week giving talks about Democracy and Political Ignorance is the prospect that Scotland might become an independent nation separate from the United Kingdom. A referendum on independence is scheduled for September 2014. A recent poll shows the […]
The Impact of the Volokh Conspiracy on the Obamacare Litigation
By Ilya Somin on November 13, 2013 11:10 am in Blogosphere, Federalism, Health Care, Individual Mandate
Part of my concluding essay in my new book, A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case (coauthored with VC co-bloggers Randy Barnett, Jonathan Adler, David Bernstein, Orin Kerr, and David Kopel) deals with the impact of the VC and the blogosphere on the case. Here is an excerpt: What role […]
Upcoming Josh Blackman Presentation on his book Unprecedented at George Mason University School of Law
This Wednesday from 5 to 6 PM, South Texas College of Law Professor Josh Blackman will be doing a presentation on his book Unprecedented: The Constitutional Challenge to Obamacare at George Mason University School of Law. In addition to being a highly successful young legal academic, Josh is also a prominent blogger, and a GMUSL […]
NAACP Backs State Autonomy on Marijuana Policy
By Ilya Somin on November 11, 2013 11:20 am in Federalism, Racial Discrimination, Racism, War on Drugs
The NAACP recently passed a resolution backing a proposed federal law that would prohibit enforcement of federal laws banning marijuana in states that have imposed lesser penalties or have legalized marijuana entirely. The resolution cites the “misguided and misplaced policies” of the War on Drugs, which have resulted in “the disproportionate over-confinement of racial and […]
Book Signing at the Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention
By Ilya Somin on November 8, 2013 1:40 pm in Democracy and Political Ignorance, Federalism, Individual Mandate
Next Friday, November 15, from 11 to 12 AM, I will be signing copies of my recently published books Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter and A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case, at the Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention, in the main promenade of the hotel […]
In Bond Oral Argument, the Federal Government Once Again Refuses to Admit there are any Structural Limits to Federal Power
Earlier this week, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Bond v. United States, an important case on the issue of whether the Constitution allows the federal government to use international treaties to give Congress authority over issues that otherwise would be beyond the scope of federal power. Bond – which has already been to […]
“Great” Powers and Federal Power Over Treaties
In my new article, Rethinking the Federal Eminent Domain Power, I begin by explaining a theory of the Necessary and Proper Clause that I call the idea of “great powers.” Put simply, the idea is that there are some powers that are sufficiently important that they cannot be implied through the Clause, even if they […]
My Talks about “Great Powers” and Eminent Domain Next Week
Next week I’ll be giving two talks about my most recent article (and I think it’s my best!) — Rethinking the Federal Eminent Domain Power. Here’s Ilya’s JOTWELL post about the piece. (Even if you think you don’t care about the federal eminent domain power, I promise it’s far more interesting than that, since it’s […]