Sandy Levinson on Our Constitution
It is a pleasure to comment on Sandy Levinson’s Jeffersonian Proposal for the Constitution (as well as on Richard Epstein’s brief comment on it). I find myself somewhere in the middle in this debate....
View ArticleWhy a Majority of the Senate Can Change the Filibuster Rule
Recently, Mike Ramsey discussed the letter of a host of distinguished scholars arguing that the Constitution requires that a majority of each house have the power to change its rules (at least on the...
View ArticleDemocracy and the Egyptian Coup
Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Ilya Somin argues that “it isn’t inherently hypocritical for liberal democrats to – in some cases – support the overthrow of an elected government.” The reason, Ilya...
View ArticleOriginalism and the Good Constitution
My new book, Originalism and the Good Constitution (coauthored with John McGinnis), is now available at Amazon.com (although the Harvard University Press website lists the publication date as...
View ArticleBipartisanship, Supermajority Rules, and Legitimacy
Over at Balkinization, Gerard Magliocca talks about the norm of bipartisanship. He notes that supermajority rules, including the filibuster rule, operate to promote that norm. In my own work (with...
View ArticleJames Buchanan and Supermajority Rules
Over at the Independent Review, they have a symposium on James Buchanan, who passed away last year. Buchanan was a giant. My own work on supermajority rules (with John McGinnis) was greatly...
View ArticleMore on Supermajority Rules: May’s Theorem
Recently, Adrian Vermeule had a review of the new book by Melissa Schwartzberg on supermajority rules – Counting the Many: The Origins and Limits of Supermajority Rules. I haven’t read Schwartzberg’s...
View ArticleOur Supermajoritarian Constitution – Part II: The Republican Purpose of the...
In my last post, I discussed how John McGinnis and I argue that the dominant character of the Constitution is that it is supermajoritarian. I explained that the three basic provisions of the...
View ArticleA Classical Liberal State Spends for Public Goods, Not Free Lunches
In the coming weeks Washington faces another budget showdown between Democrats and Republicans in Congress and then between Congress and the President. Sadly, whoever wins or whatever compromise is...
View ArticleSupermajority Rules, Submajority Rules, and the Regulation Freedom Amendment
Before John McGinnis and I started collaborating on originalism, we wrote a significant number of pieces on supermajority rules together. Much of constitutional government appears to involve simple...
View Article
