The Limited Scope of the Full Faith and Credit Clause
Article IV, Section 1 of the Constitution requires every state to give “full faith and credit” to public acts, records and judicial proceedings of every other state. This rather obscure ...
Read more.
The Propriety of Presidential Impeachments, Past and Present
Yesterday, as part of my series of posts about taking seriously the constitutional power of impeachment, I reviewed briefly what I have said in the past about impeachment of federal ...
Read more.
Impeaching Judges: Some Preliminary and Prior Thoughts
I am in the midst of a series of posts about the constitutional power of impeachment. I began outlining my overall thesis: that the power of impeachment is, as a ...
Read more.
Don’t Blame the Constitution for Your Loss of Liberty
Some people want to blame the intrusive, overreaching federal government we have today on the Constitution. Many cite a quote fro 19th-century anarchist Lysander Spooner drive home their point: “But ...
Read more.
Big Spenders Get Worse Every Year: The History of Growth Since 1940
In March of 2018, President Trump signed into law a $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill to avoid shutting down the federal government. After signing the 2,200-page bill, the president proclaimed ...
Read more.
A Jeffersonian American Patriot is a State Patriot
One day in January 1811, Thomas Jefferson wrote to a French man of letters whose book he so much admired that he translated it into English and saw to its ...
Read more.
Constitutional Interpretation and the Impeachment Power
Last week, I began what I expect to be a series of posts on the constitutional power of impeachment. What is the proper understanding of the Constitution’s standard for impeachment ...
Read more.
A Future Justice Kavanaugh and Executive Privilege
If a prosecutor one day decided to indict President Donald Trump, a future Justice Brett Kavanaugh might not be the one to stop it. Media reports, like this one over ...
Read more.
Anti-Commandeering: An overview of five major Supreme Court cases
The Supreme Court has long held that states do not have to actively participate in the enforcement or effectuation of federal acts or regulatory programs. James Madison’s advice for resisting ...
Read more.
Supreme Court’s Sports Gambling Opinion is a Rare and Major Win for the Tenth Amendment
Earlier today, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Murphy v. NCAA. The Court’s opinion was rare in that it not only struck down a federal law that infringed on ...
Read more.