The recent national poll news is overall bad for Romney, suggesting a reversal in momentum in favor of Obama. The one possible saving grace is that this momentum may primarily be an artifact of increased Obama support in Northeastern states where Romney was not competitive to begin with. The Pew poll, which shows Obama up […]
Archive | Politics
My Election Prediction
I thinking about doing a post on my election prediction, but Ted Frank has written a post on his election prediction and I agree with almost every word. Bottom line: Obama is a 60-40 favorite. Before the hurricane, I would have said “tossup.”
How Should Libertarians Vote?
Continuing the series of posts examining how libertarian-leaning folks should vote (assuming they think it’s worth voting at all), Reason has published essays on the libertarian case for Obama (Mike Godwin), Romney (Robert Poole) and Gary Johnson (Nick Gillespie). Some may also be interested in this post by law professor Brad Smith explaining why he […]
The Popular Vote and Presidential Legitimacy
Recent polling results present the possibility that Mitt Romney could win the popular vote but lose the electoral vote. Would this matter? It shouldn’t. We’ve seen this before, and it is not at all unusual for a President to be elected with less than 50 percent of the popular vote, as some voters support third-party […]
Blog 538 on Ohio
Nate Silver has a curious post up today. He points out that Obama is leading Romney by an average of 2.3% (according to Real Clear Politics, slightly more according to other averages) in Ohio polls. He then goes through all recent examples when there were at least three polls in a state ten days before […]
Re: Libertarian Law Professors and Presidential Candidates
I think David is absolutely correct in his post below that judicial appointments are a big issue for most libertarian-leaning law professors, and on this issue Republican presidents (and their judicial nominees) have done far more to advance libertarian legal views than Democratic presidents. I would add two points to David’s analysis. First, even on […]
Ted Frank: Is 538 Wrong?
There have been many silly posts in the right-leaning blogosphere attacking Nate Silver at the 538 blog for his perceived pro-Obama tendencies. In fact, Silver created his model earlier this year, and has stuck with it as the campaign has progressed. So unless he’s lying about the results of his model, there’s no reason to […]
Why Libertarian Law Professors Tend to Support Romney
As Jonathan and Ilya have recently pointed out, Reason Magazine’s writers are overwhelmingly voting for Gary Johnson, or they are not voting at all. By contrast, most libertarian law professors of my acquaintance are supporting Romney. (And even back in 2008, when some libertarians supported Obama, this was a distinct minority position among libertarian law […]
Over 30% of President Obama’s 2009-2011 Gross Income Came From Foreign Sources
I find it strange that the Obama campaign would be making so much of Romney’s income from foreign sources when Obama’s foreign source income appears to be a much bigger percentage of his income over the last few years. Of course, one can’t tell for sure because Mitt Romney has not released his 2009 […]
Next step: Repeal the individual mandate because it is unconstitutional
By David Kopel on June 29, 2012 7:30 pm in Congress, Constitutional History, Equal Protection, Health Care, Individual Mandate, Necessary and Proper, Politics, Popular Constitutionalism, Presidency, Separation of Powers, Supreme Court, Taxes, Taxing and Spending Clause, Uncategorized
McCulloch v. Maryland had a very good day at the Supreme Court yesterday, with NFIB relying on and applying McCulloch‘s rules for when an enactment violates the Necessary and Proper Clause. What happened after the McCulloch decision also shows the next steps in battle over the individual mandate, as I suggest in an essay this morning […]
NFIB as Marbury
By David Kopel on June 29, 2012 6:25 pm in Constitutional History, Constitutional Law, Federalism, Individual Mandate, Politics, Spending Clause, Supreme Court, Taxing and Spending Clause, Unconstitutional Conditions
My article yesterday for Scotusblog discussed the tremendous importance of the Court’s 7-2 use of the non-coercion rule to limit Spending Clause violations of State sovereignty and independence. The rule has been around ever since Steward Machine Company v. Davis (1937), but NFIB v. Sebelius is the first decision by any federal court to find that […]
Justices Time Their Retirements According to Political Party
Do U.S. Supreme Court justices tend to try to time their retirements to help the political party of the president who appointed them? University of Chicago sociologist Rafe Stolzenberg and I have an article in the journal Demography that finally answers that question: Yes, justices do act politically when deciding whether to retire or take […]
Emmy nomination for 1951 Colorado Inside Out
Every year the political roundtable show Colorado Inside Out does a time machine episode. Last year’s 1951 episode has just been nominated for a regional Emmy Award, in the news/interview program category. Our topics for the episode were the firing of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the Korean War, duck and cover training, and the new federal […]
Public opinion about the National Rifle Association
In April, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found that the National Rifle Association was viewed favorably by 68% of Americans, and unfavorably by 32%. Unlike most polls, the Reuters poll apparently did not allow “unsure” or “undecided” as a choice. In each of the demographics which the poll provided–Republicans, Democrats, independents, whites, and blacks–the NRA was viewed favorably […]
The Great Gun Control War of the 20th Century — And its Lessons for Gun Laws Today
By David Kopel on May 31, 2012 2:37 pm in Constitutional History, Constitutional Law, Fourteenth Amendment, Guns, History, McDonald v. City of Chicago, Politics, Popular Constitutionalism, Registration, Right to carry, Supreme Court
This is the subject of my article in a forthcoming symposium issue of the Fordham Urban Law Journal. The article details the political, cultural, social, and legal battles over gun control from the 1920s to the early 21st century. Here’s the abstract: A movement to ban handguns began in the 1920s in the Northeast, led […]