Image 01 Image 03
Sign In or RegisterLogout

Constitution Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 30, 2018 152 Comments
Axios reports this morning that Trump is considering signing an Executive Order ending birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants:
President Trump plans to sign an executive order that would remove the right to citizenship for babies of non-citizens and unauthorized immigrants born on U.S. soil, he said yesterday in an exclusive interview for "Axios on HBO," a new four-part documentary news series debuting on HBO this Sunday at 6:30 p.m. ET/PT.
Here's the video clip teasing the interview:

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on July 29, 2018 61 Comments
Michael Anton, a lecturer and research fellow at Hillsdale College and a former national security official in the Trump administration. Anton also was the pseudonymous author of The Flight 93 Election article that cause a stir prior to the 2016 election. Earlier this month, Anton penned an op-ed in the Washington Post in which he argued that birthright citizenship was not a constitutional requirement.  The op-ed generated a great deal of discussion, prompting Anton to explain and defend his argument to critics on both the left and the right.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 21, 2018 41 Comments
The Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling that did not split on traditional ideological lines, upheld South Dakota's ability to require that out-of-state internet sellers collect state sales tax on goods sold into South Dakota. The case involved the internet retailer Wayfair and South Dakota. The case is being misrepresented in many media reports as involving whether states can tax internet sales. They can, and that was not in issue. The issue was whether states can force internet retailers to collect the sales tax and turn those proceeds over to the state.

Posted by Jared Samilow on February 01, 2018 17 Comments
U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker in Tallahassee has ruled that Florida's process for restoring voting rights to convicted felons violates both the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The implications of the ruling, however, may not be so far-reaching since the judge hasn't yet decided on a specific remedy. The Order (pdf.) is embedded at the bottom of this post.

Posted by Jared Samilow on December 30, 2017 37 Comments
It's official: as of 12:00 a.m. January 1, 2018, the U.S. military will be open to transgender recruits—a change in policy that had been set in motion by Former Defense Secretary Ashton Carter in 2016. Last night, the Department of Justice announced that it would not ask the Supreme Court to stay several injunctions requiring the military to go forward with Carter's plan—at least until a "study" that President Trump ordered is completed.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 12, 2017 44 Comments
Georgetown Law Professor Randy Barnett had a tweet on December 5, 2017, that I've been meaning to write about. It reflects a subject I, and others, have been focusing on since election night -- the refusal of Democrats and #NeverTrump Republicans to accept the outcome of the election not just emotionally, but as to the transfer of power that continues to this day, over a year since the 2016 election. Here is Prof. Barnett's tweet, referencing the attempt by outgoing CFPB Director Richard Cordray preemptively to install Leandra English as Interim Director over the objections of the Trump administration.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on October 26, 2017 96 Comments
The left has had a love-hate relationship with the Electoral College for decades.  When it looks like the Electoral College will help or has helped them, they champion it, and when it looks like it has "stolen" an election from their popular-vote winning candidate, they want it dismantled. In the wake of the resounding 2016 Electoral College win for President Trump (304-227), current DNC chair Tom Perez is taking the Democratic Party into uncharted territory with his declaration that the Electoral College "is not a creation of the Constitution."  He made this bizarre pronouncement before a group of law students at Indiana University Law School.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 26, 2017 60 Comments
On October 25, 2017, I gave a speech at Vassar College on "An Examination of Hate Speech and Free Speech on College Campuses." The main sponsor was the Vassar Conservative Libertarian Union, which also sponsored my 2014 speech at Vassar. Other sponsors were Students for Liberty and the Leadership Institute. The lecture originally was advertised as "'Hate Speech' is Still Free Speech, Even After Charlottesville." The name was changed because the sponsoring student group filed for funding under another title, so we were asked to use that approved title. Regardless of title, the planned discussion of hate speech sent a portion of the campus into a vicious smear campaign against me.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 06, 2017 11 Comments
In late August, we covered the attempts of certain leftist interest groups to challenge the pardon granted former Sheriff Joseph Arpaio by President Trump. Media and activist Trump-Derangement-Syndrome types like Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post gave credence to the arguments against a pardon, but there never was any there there, as I wrote in Overblown hype about Court scheduling oral argument in dismissal of Arpaio conviction.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 25, 2017 34 Comments
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., in discussing the limits of free speech, wrote in Schenck v. U.S. (1919):
"The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic."
A lot of people mess up the quote, saying that "you can't yell fire in a crowded theater." Actually you can yell fire in a crowded theater, if there really is a fire.
Accessibility by WAH