I’m happy to report that my forthcoming book on bad ideas from the law schools, Schools for Misrule, just went off to the printer. Encounter Books commissioned a terrific jacket design (by Tamaye Perry) which you can preview here. Here’s the description from the book’s jacket:

Schools for Misrule: Legal Academia and an Overlawyered America

By Walter Olson

From Barack Obama (Harvard and Chicago) to Bill and Hillary Clinton (Yale), many of our national leaders today emerge from the rarefied air of the nation’s top law schools. The ideas taught there in one generation often wind up shaping national policy in the next.

The trouble is, as Walter Olson explains in this book, our elite law schools keep churning out ideas that are catastrophically bad for America. Rights to sue anyone over anything in class actions? Hatched in legal academia. Court orders mandating mass release of prison inmates? Ditto. The movement for slavery reparations? Court takeovers of school funding, at taxpayers’ expense? It’s not by coincidence, Olson argues, that these bad ideas all tend to confer more power on the law schools’ own graduates. In the overlawyered society that results, they are the ones who become the real rulers. And the worst is yet to come, the book demonstrates, as a fast-rising movement in the law schools demands that sovereignty over U.S. legal disputes be handed over to international law and transnational courts.

Some imagine that the law schools possess a finer, purer moral sensitivity than the everyday America outside their walls. (“Welcome to the Republic of Conscience!” Yale Law dean Harold Koh announced to incoming students.) But as this book shows, the pipe dream of training philosopher-monarchs not only leads to one policy disaster after
another, but distracts law schools from the most useful function they can serve: training competent, ethical and suitably humble lawyers for tomorrow.

On the back of the jacket are terrific blurbs from star law professor Randy Barnett of Georgetown (famous most recently for the ObamaCare court challenge), bestselling author and attorney Philip K. Howard (The Death of Common Sense), and perennial libertarian TV hero John Stossel.

You can pre-order the book at great prices from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your favorite bookseller. Publication date is February 15, so copies should arrive before you know it.

Schools for Misrule Is Off To the Printer is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

The legal battle against Obamacare continues. In June, a district court in Richmond denied the government’s motion to dismiss Virginia’s lawsuit (in opposition to which Cato filed a brief).  Despite catcalls from congressmen and commentators alike, it seems that there is, after all, a cogent argument that Obamacare is unconstitutional!  

Having survived dismissal, both sides filed cross motions for summary judgment—meaning that no material facts are in dispute and each side believes it should win on the law.  Supporting Virginia’s motion and opposing the government’s, Cato, joined by the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Georgetown law professor (and Cato senior fellow) Randy Barnett, expands in a new brief its argument that Congress has gone beyond its delegated powers in requiring that individuals purchase health insurance.

Even the cases that have previously upheld expansive federal power do not justify the ability to mandate that individuals buy a product from a private business.  Those cases still involved people that were doing something—growing wheat, running a hotel, cultivating medical marijuana.  The individual mandate, however, asserts authority over citizens that have done nothing; they’re merely declining to purchase health insurance.  This regulation of inactivity cannot find a constitutional warrant in either the Commerce Clause, the Necessary and Proper Clause, or Congress’s taxing power.  Such legislation is not “necessary” to regulating interstate commerce in that it violates the Supreme Court’s distinction between economic activity (which often falls under congressional power as currently interpreted) and non-economic activity (which, to date, never has), it is not “proper” in that it commandeers citizens into an undesired economic transaction.  

Finally, the taxing power claim is a red herring: (a) neither the mandate nor the penalty for not complying with the mandate is a tax, and is not described as such anywhere in the legislation; (b) even if deemed a tax, it’s an unconstitutional one because it’s neither apportioned (if a direct tax) nor uniform (if an excise); (c) Congress cannot use the taxing power to enforce a regulation of commerce that is not authorized elsewhere in the Constitution.

The district court will hear arguments on the cross-motions for summary judgment in Virginia v. Sebelius later this month and we can expect a ruling by the end of the year. 

Obamacare delenda est.

Yes, Virginia, Congress Is Not Santa Claus and Is Bound by the Constitution is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

I should have posted this earlier, but if anyone interested in legal issues — should be everyone given that most things coming out of Washington these days have constitutional defects — hasn’t yet read Damon Root’s cover story in the July issue of Reason magazine, drop what you’re doing now and do so.

While not a J.D. — or perhaps because he isn’t — Damon paints a completely accurate picture on the differences between conservative and libertarian approaches to constitutional interpretation and judicial philosophy.  And I don’t mean a rehash of debates on social issues except in legalese; there are real subtleties involved, particularly when most people adhering to either of these camps call themselves “originalists” of one stripe or another.  Damon’s article is both deep and wide, surveying the landscape of relevant legal thinkers and explaining to non-lawyers why all this is so, so important.  (And no, I personally am not featured.)

What is more, you can now also watch Damon discussing his article and reporting in this area:

This is groundbreaking and important journalism.

Conservatives vs. Libertarians on Judicial Activism is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

The individual mandate has been a tricky issue for Barack Obama, leading him to make some impressive self-reversals.

When campaigning against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama came out hard against an individual mandate to purchase health insurance, alleging that Clinton would garnish workers’ wages and that Massachusetts’ individual mandate has left many residents “worse off”:

He even dismissed an individual mandate by saying, “If a mandate was the solution, we could try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody buy a house”:

Once president, of course, Obama endorsed and signed into law both an individual mandate and an employer mandate.

During the debate over ObamaCare, Obama likewise mocked George Stephanopoulos — no really, he mocked the poor guy– for suggesting the individual mandate is a tax. Obama didn’t mince words: “I absolutely reject that notion.” The relevant exchange begins three minutes into this video:

Now, the Obama administration says the individual mandate is a tax. According to The New York Times:

When Congress required most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats denied that they were creating a new tax. But in court, the Obama administration and its allies now defend the requirement as an exercise of the government’s “power to lay and collect taxes.”…

Administration officials say the tax argument is a linchpin of their legal case in defense of the health care overhaul and its individual mandate, now being challenged in court by more than 20 states and several private organizations.

(My colleagues Randy Barnett and Ilya Shapiro explain how this flip-flop shows the constitutional challenges to ObamaCare aren’t quite as frivolous as supporters claim.)

The next time Obama is in the mood to reverse himself on the individual mandate, he might consider this statement from June 2009:

When you hear people saying, “socialized medicine,” understand that I do not know anybody in Washington who is proposing that–certainly not me.

When the government makes health insurance compulsory, that is socialized medicine.  (Why else would ObamaCare win plaudits from Fidel Castro?) It would be nice to hear the president admit it.

Obama Flip-Flops on the Individual Mandate (Again) is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

This Sunday’s New York Times had a fascinating story about how the defense of the individual mandate has shifted from the Commerce Clause — even though the law itself is replete with boilerplate about “economic activity” — to Congress’s taxing power.  Here’s the first paragraph (h/t Jonathan Adler):

When Congress required most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats denied that they were creating a new tax. But in court, the Obama administration and its allies now defend the requirement as an exercise of the government’s “power to lay and collect taxes.”

This is huge.  After months of arguing that cases like Wickard v. Filburn (Congress can regulate the wheat farmers grow for personal consumption) and Gonzales v. Raich (Congress can regulate personal growth of state-allowed medicinal marijuana) justify the requirement that every man, woman, and child buy a health insurance policy, government lawyers (and spokesmen) now say the mandate is just a regulation accompanying a lawful tax (the penalty you pay for not buying insurance).  After I spent most of April and May criss-crossing the country debating the constitutionality of Obamacare, it turns out that my opponents were barking up the wrong tree!

But don’t just take it from me.  Here’s Georgetown law professor and Cato senior fellow Randy Barnett’s dissection of the Times story and its significance.  An excerpt:

Now there are cases that say (1) when Congress does not invoke a specific power for a claim of power, the Supreme Court will look for a basis on which to sustain the measure; (2) when Congress does invoke its Tax power, such a claim is not defeated by showing the measure would be outside its commerce power if enacted as a regulation (though there are some older, never-reversed precedents pointing the other way), and (3) the Courts will not look behind a claim by Congress that a measure is a tax with a revenue raising purpose. 

But I have so far seen no case that says (4) when a measure is expressly justified in the statute itself as a regulation of commerce (as the NYT accurately reports), the courts will look look behind that characterization during litigation to ask if it could have been justified as a tax, or (5) when Congress fails to include a penalty among all the “revenue producing” measures in a bill, the Court will nevertheless impute a revenue purpose to the measure. 

Now, of course, the Supreme Court can always adopt these two additional doctrines. It could decide that any measure passed and justified expressly as a regulation of commerce is constitutional if it could have been enacted as a tax. But if it upholds this act, it would also have to say that Congress can assert any power it wills over individuals so long as it delegates enforcement of the penalty to the IRS. Put another way since every “fine” collects money, the Tax Power gives Congress unlimited power to fine any activity or, as here, inactivity it wishes! (Do you doubt this will be a major line of questioning in oral argument?) 

Well, at least they’re not (yet) relying on Rep. John Conyers’s “Good and Welfare Clause.”  (Conyers, remember, is a lawyer and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee).

For a concise legal argument against the use of the taxing power to justify the individual mandate, see Cato’s amicus brief supporting Virginia’s challenge to the health care reform.  And for a great resource on all the state lawsuits against the new law, see this new blog/website run by Santa Clara law professor Brad Joondeph.

Government Essentially Concedes Commerce Clause Challenge to Obamacare, Calls Individual Mandate a Tax is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

As Larry Solum notes and Randy Barnett seconds, Georgetown law professor and friend-of-Cato Nick Rosenkranz has just published a tremendous article in the Stanford Law Review.  I saw an earlier version of it and can tell you that it offers one of those singular re-thinks of accepted learning.  As Randy puts it, “It is one of those rare pieces that hits you between the eyes and causes you to reconsider how you think about the Constitution.”  The article, entitled “The Subjects of the Constitution,” argues that all of us are going about our constitutional theorizing, at least with respect to judicial review, the wrong way.  Here’s the first paragraph of the abstract:

Two centuries after Marbury v. Madison, there remains a deep confusion about quite what a court is reviewing when it engages in judicial review. Conventional wisdom has it that judicial review is the review of certain legal objects: statutes, regulations. But strictly speaking, this is not quite right. The Constitution prohibits not objects but actions. Judicial review is the review of such actions. And actions require actors: verbs require subjects. So before judicial review focuses on verbs, let alone objects, it should begin at the beginning, with subjects. Every constitutional inquiry should begin with a basic question that has been almost universally overlooked. The fundamental question, from which all else follows, is the who question: who has violated the Constitution?

In thinking about who violated (or allegedly violated) the Constitution, Rosenkranz contends, we get to a truer understanding of whether the Constitution was violated, and how.  Fascinating stuff, which you can download here – and the sequel, titled “The Objects of the Constitution,” is coming soon to a legal journal near you (perhaps for next summer’s blockbuster law review article season).  (Coincidentally, today the Supreme Court unanimously ruled against Nick in his first argument before the Court — a technical case regarding the award of attorneys fees under Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) — so we now know where his comparative advantage lies!)

And while I have you thinking about such high-fallutin’ theoretical matters, let me also direct your attention to a new article by an up-and-coming legal scholar, also a friend-of-Cato (and my sometime co-author), Josh Blackman.  Josh argues that the Supreme Court’s relatively new “class of one” doctrine, by which a single person can present himself as a class discriminated against in violation of the Equal Protection Clause, should be used to challenge eminent domain abuse.  That is, homeowners can establish a class of one (i.e., the person whose home the government takes) if their property is singled out for condemnation while other similarly situated properties are not.  The singled-out homeowner(s) can thus challenge the arbitrariness of the government’s taking of their property.

Josh obviously hopes that some court will accept this novel strategy of borrowing equal protection jurisprudence to check rampant eminent domain abuse and vindicate property rights.  Here you can download his article, which is titled “Equal Protection from Eminent Domain: Protecting the Home of Olech’s Class of One.”  Coincidentally, two years ago Roger Pilon wrote an essay on the Supreme Court’s most recent “class of one” decision, which you can read here.

Ground-Breaking Constitutional Theories is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Since I first issued my challenge to debate “anyone anytime anywhere” on the (un)constitutionality of Obamacare, a lot has happened.  For one thing, Randy Barnett and Richard Epstein, among many others, have published provoctive articles looking at issues beyond the Commerce Clause justification for the individual mandate — such as the argument that Congress’s tax power justifies the mandate penalty and that the new Medicaid arrangement amounts to a coercive federal-state bargain.  (Look for to a longish article from yours truly due to come out in next month’s issue of Health Affairs.)  For another, as Michael Cannon noted, seven more states — plus the National Federation of Independent Business and two individuals – have joined the Florida-led lawsuit against Obamacare.  Perhaps most importantly, such legal challenges are gaining mainstream credibility.

Here’s a brief look at some important legal filings from the past 10 days:

1. On May 11, the U.S. government filed a response to the Thomas More Center’s lawsuit asking a federal court in Michigan to enjoin Obamacare on various grounds, including, distinct from other suits I’ve seen, religious liberty violations from having to pay for abortions.  The government argues that the plaintiffs lack standing because it’s unclear whether the individual mandate will harm them and in any event this provision doesn’t go into effect until 2014 at the earliest. The government also predictably argues that the mandate is a valid exercise of Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce and to provide for the general welfare.  There is nothing surprising here and we now await the court’s preliminary ruling.
2. On May 12, the U.S. Citizens Association (a conservative group) and five individuals filed a new suit in Ohio, as Jacob Sullum notes.  In addition to the government powers arguments that are being made in most Obamacare lawsuits (most notably the state suits), this suit claims a violation of: the First Amendment freedom of association (the government forces people to associate with insurers); individual liberty interests under the Fifth Amendment; and the right to privacy under the Fifth Amendment’s liberty provision, Ninth Amendment retained rights, and the rights emanating from the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments (such is the Court’s convoluted jurisprudence in this area).  I’ll add that the attorney filing this suit, Jonathan Emord, worked for Cato over 20 years ago.
3. On May 14, Florida filed an amended complaint that, along with adding seven states, two individuals, and the NFIB — so all potential standing bases are covered — beefs up relevant factual allegations and, most importantly, shores up a few legal insufficiencies to the previous claims.  This is a solid complaint, and alleges the following counts: (1) the individual mandate/penalty exceeds Congress’s power under both the Commerce Clause and taxing power and, as such, violate the Ninth and Tenth Amendments; (2) the mandate violate’s the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause; (3) the mandate penalty is an unconstitutional capitation or direct tax because it is unapportioned; (4) the Medicare expansion constitutes a coercive federal-state bargain that commandeers state officials; (5) a different formulation of coercion/commandeering; and (6) interference with state sovereignty and functions under the Tenth Amendment.   After further briefing, oral arguments on the government’s expected motion to dismiss are scheduled for September 14 in Pensacola.
4. At least one enterprising analyst has determined that the 2,400-page bill lacks a severability clause.  This means that if one part of the bill is struck down as unconstitutional, the whole thing falls! — and would mean that the drafters committed legal malpractice of the highest order.  I guess it goes to show that nobody has read the whole thing.

Finally, if anybody is reading this is in Seattle, I’ll be debating Obamacare at the University of Washington Law School next Thursday, May 27 at 4:30pm.  This debate, sponsored by a number of groups, including the law school itself and the Federalist Society, is free and open to the public.  For those interested in other subjects, I’ll be giving a different talk to the Puget Sound Federalist Society Lawyers Chapter the day before at 6:30pm at the Washington Athletic Club ($25, rsvp to Michael Bindas at mbindas@ij.org).  The title of that one is “Justice Elena Kagan?  What the President’s Choice Tells Us About the Modern Court and Confirmation Process.”  Please do introduce yourself to me if you attend either event.

Update on the Legal Challenges to Obamacare is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

The New York Times‘ Kevin Sack reports on the legal challenge to ObamaCare’s individual mandate launched by 20 state attorneys general:

Some legal scholars, including some who normally lean to the left, believe the states have identified the law’s weak spot and devised a credible theory for eviscerating it…

Jonathan Turley, who teaches at George Washington University Law School, said that if forced to bet, he would predict that the courts would uphold the health care law. But Mr. Turley said that the federal government’s case was far from open-and-shut, and that he found the arguments against the mandate compelling.

“There are few cases in the history of the court system that have a more significant assertion of authority by the government,” said Mr. Turley, a civil libertarian who acknowledged being strange bedfellows with the conservative theorists behind the lawsuit. “This case, more than any other, may give the court sticker shock in terms of its impact on federalism.”

Supporters claim the individual mandate will pass muster with the Supreme Court because in the past the Court has declared that the U.S. Constitution’s interstate commerce clause authorizes Congress to regulate non-commercial activity that affects interstate commerce. Sack writes:

Lawyers for the government will contend that, because of the cost-shifting nature of health insurance, people who do not obtain coverage inevitably affect the pricing and availability of policies for everyone else. That, they will argue, is enough to satisfy the Supreme Court’s test.

But to [the attorneys' general outside counsel David] Rivkin, the acceptance of that argument would herald an era without limits.

“Every decision you can make as a human being has an economic footprint — whether to procreate, whether to marry,” he said. “To say that is enough for your behavior to be regulated transforms the Commerce Clause into an infinitely capacious font of power, whose exercise is only restricted by the Bill of Rights.”

Sack’s article contains an inaccuracy.  He writes:

Congressional bill writers took steps to immunize the law against constitutional challenge…They labeled the penalty on those who do not obtain coverage an “excise tax,” because such taxes enjoy substantial constitutional protection.

In fact, the law uses the term “excise tax” several times, but never in reference to the penalty for violating the individual mandate.  It describes that penalty solely as a penalty.  (The law does refer to the penalty for violating the employer mandate as a tax, but not an excise tax.)

As my Cato colleague Randy Barnett explains, that means supporters cannot reasonably claim that the individual mandate’s penalty is a tax, because that’s not what Congress approved.  As Cato chairman Bob Levy explains, even if supporters do claim that penalty is a tax, it would be an unconstitutional tax, because it does not fit into any of the categories of taxes the Constitution authorizes Congress to impose.

The “substantial constitutional protections” afforded to excise taxes do not protect the individual mandate.

NYT: Attorneys General Advance “a Credible Theory for Eviscerating” ObamaCare is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

That’s the question NYU law professor Rick Hills asks over at PrawfsBlaws:

So why do American libertarians think that federalism is consistent with their commitment to individual liberty? Why not, instead, support a strong national government that can suppress subnational trade wars and protect a robust set of national liberties? What’s the payoff, in terms of individual liberty, from protecting subnational jurisdictions’ exclusive jurisdiction over certain topics?

In other words, if government is bad, why do we want a multiplicity of governments — federal, state, local — all presumably restricting individual liberty in some way?

Well, with all due respect to Prof. Hills — who also graciously commended Cato’s brief in Comstock, in which we argue that that Congress cannot enact a civil commitment statute for sexual predators because there is no such enumerated power and it cannot be inferred from the Necessary & Proper Clause — his analysis erroneously assumes that libertarians (he specifically mentions Cato, our senior fellow Randy Barnett, and our adjunct scholar Ilya Somin) are results-oriented in our approach to constitutional interpretation.  And we shouldn’t pursue federalism, he says, because it’s against our interests.

Both of these premises are flawed.  I won’t go into much detail because Randy and (the other) Ilya have already provided reactions at the Volokh Conspiracy here and here, with which I agree.  First , we like federalism because that’s the system the Constitution set up and luckily, the Constitution is, for the most part, a libertarian document.  Second, the Framers set up the Constitution that way because the different levels of government would exist not to multiply power-hungry bureaucrats’ opportunities for mischief but precisely to disallow dangerous aggregations of power.  So from the get-go there was no possibility of federal tyranny and, after the Fourteenth Amendment empowered Congress and federal courts to protect individual rights against state infringement, there was to be no state tyranny either.

And so, much as we like the strict limitations on Congress’s power — the express enumerations of Article I, section 8, the Commerce Clause, etc. — we also like the Due Process, Equal Protection, and Privileges or Immunities Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.  There is thus no conflict between federalism as a structural constitutional provision that promotes liberty and other, “anti-federalist” provisions that also promote liberty.  In practice that means there is no conflict between arguing that Obamacare exceeds the federal government’s authority while asking the Supreme Court to strike down Chicago’s handgun ban.  The original meaning of the relevant constitutional provisions support both arguments — and both arguments enhance liberty!

It really is a remarkable document, this Constitution.  Too bad its proper understanding has been lost. 

For related thoughts on this fascinating debate, Randy proposes a constitutional amendment that might get us back to the federalism we once knew while (the other) Ilya dispels another of Prof. Hills’s minor premises, that European libertarians diverge from Americans on the issue of federalism.

Why Do Libertarians Care about Federalism? is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Glenn Greenwald takes a look at the prospect of Obama nominating Cass Sunstein to the Supreme Court.  Whereas Randy Barnett has championed a “presumption of liberty” whenever a constitutional controversy is unclear, Sunstein seems to champion a “presumption for the state.”

More on Sunstein here.

Justice Sunstein? is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) was asked on Friday where in the Constitution Congress gets the power to force people to buy health insurance.  He said, “Under several clauses, the good and welfare clause and a couple others.”

As it happens, there is no “good and welfare clause” — which Conyers should know, as both judiciary chairman and a lawyer.  But even if you excuse his casual use of constitutional language, what he probably means — the General Welfare Clause of Article I, Section 8 — is not a better answer.  What that clause does is limit Congress’s use of the powers enumerated elsewhere in that section to legislation that promotes ”the general welfare.”  (So earmarks are arguably unconstitutional, though you can make a colorable argument that, when considering a pork bill as a whole, with all parts of the country getting something, that monstrosity is collectively in “the general welfare” — maybe.)  In any event, the General Welfare Clause doesn’t give Congress any additional powers — and I’d be curious to know what the other “several clauses” are.

Conyers  also noted that, “All the scholars, the constitutional scholars that I know . . . they all say that there’s nothing unconstitutional in this bill and if there were, I would have tried to correct it if I thought there were.”  Well, Mr. Conyers, to start let me introduce you to three constitutional scholars — not fringe right-wing kooks or anything like that, but respected people who publish widely — who think Obamacare is unconstitutional.  Now will you try to “correct” the bill?

Here’s video of Conyers’s full remarks on the subject (h/t Jon Blanks):

And for a survey of the various constitutional issues attending Obamacare, see Randy Barnett’s oped from Sunday’s Washington Post.

Individual Mandate Is Constitutional – If You Rewrite the Constitution is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Yesterday the Heritage Foundation released a new paper on the unconstitutionality of the proposed health care mandate.  Think tanks aren’t normally in the habit of promoting their peer institutions’ work, but this paper is incredibly timely and its lead author is Cato senior fellow Randy Barnett.  You really should go read it.

Interestingly, at the event unveiling the paper, Eugene Volokh (of UCLA Law School and the Volokh Conspiracy blog) at one point wanted to quote the Constitution and realized he wasn’t carrying one! Eugene asked if anyone had a Heritage Constitution.  Former Attorney General Ed Meese, now chairman of Heritage’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, saved the day by passing Eugene his… handy, dandy, Washington Post-bestselling Cato Constitution.  It seems that General Meese likes our version because it’s smaller and so fits easier into your pocket.  (I would add that it also features the Declaration of Independence — as does Heritage’s — as well as a preface by my boss, Roger Pilon.)

You can watch the entire health care event, which features Senator Orrin Hatch along with Randy and Eugene, here (the Constitution bit starts at about 40:15; I ask a question at 1:04:46).  The bottom line — beyond the health care abomination — is that you should always carry your Cato pocket Constitution wherever you go.  Like Josh Blackman, I keep one in every suit jacket (as well as backpacks, totebags, briefcases, and roll-aboards).  You never know when you — or someone else — may need it.

They also make great stocking stuffers and gifts for any night of Hanukkah (as does the latest Cato Supreme Court Review, though you may need a slightly larger stocking).

Health Care Mandate Is Unconstitutional — and Don’t Leave Home Without the Cato Constitution is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Last month, Cato (joined by Cato senior fellow Randy Barnett) filed a brief in United States v. Comstock, a case regarding the constitutionality of a law authorizing the federal government to civilly commit anyone in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons whom the attorney general certifies to be “sexually dangerous.” The effect of such an action is to continue the certified person’s confinement after the expiration of his prison term, without proof of a new criminal violation.

As I wrote in a previous blog post, “the use of federal power here is unconstitutional because it is not tied to any of Congress’s limited and enumerated powers.” Moreover, the government’s reliance on the Necessary and Proper Clause (Article I, Section 8), “is misplaced because that clause grants no independent power but merely ‘carries into execution’ the powers enumerated elsewhere in that section.” The commitment of prisoners after their terms end simply cannot fit into one of the enumerated powers.

While we of course hope that the Supreme Court pays attention to our brief, we know that Solicitor General Elana Kagan, at least, is concerned enough about our arguments to spend several pages of the government’s reply brief addressing them (see pages 5-9). 

For more on Comstock, see its case page on SCOTUSwiki, which now has all the briefs and will around the Jan. 12 argument date be populated with argument previews and reviews, as well as links to media coverage.

Cato’s Legal Arguments Worry U.S. Government is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Yesterday I described the brief Alan Gura filed on behalf of the petitioners challenging Chicago’s gun ban in the Supreme Court — asking the Court to apply the individual right to keep and bear arms to the states.

Late last night, Orin Kerr at the Volokh Conspiracy sketched out his predictions of whether the individual justices would go for Gura’s main argument: that the indefensible Slaughter-House Cases should be overturned and thus that the Court should “incorporate” the rights at issue via the Privileges or Immunities Clause.  (Cato supports this argument, as we’ll show in the brief we’ll be filing next week.) He concludes that Justice Thomas is the only vote available for this claim. According to Orin, the Chief Justice and Justices Scalia and Alito are too enamored with stare decisis to overturn an 1873 precedent, Justice Kennedy isn’t an originalist and likes substantive due process too much, and the other four are too afraid of Lochner and Institute for Justice-style economic liberty arguments to go there.

As George Will would say: Well. Orin could turn out to be right, but I think his analysis is too simplistic. I was just about to write my response when I saw that Josh Blackman, with whom I have a law review article forthcoming on these issues, already said it best in the comments to Orin’s post:

First, I think you present a binary choice; incorporate through Due Process OR incorporate through privileges or immunities. The question presented asked about both routes of incorporation. Neither path is by necessity mutually exclusive. As Gura’s brief makes clear, the Court could incorporate through the Due Process Clause, and alternatively recognize that the right to keep and bear arms is also among the Privileges or Immunities of Citizenship. The Court need not displace 100 years of substantive due process jurisprudence with this single case. And from a practical perspective, basically the entire Bill of Rights has been incorporated. So, unless some people start clamoring about states quartering troops in theirs homes, this would be a one time deal. Such a holding would do little to upset the apple cart, or as we put it, open Pandora’s Box.

Second, I think you may over-simplify Scalia’s views on originalism and stare decisis. Our article shows that Scalia, while on the Supreme Court, has never voted in favor of a substantive due process incorporation. The last such case was in 1982. Can Scalia really cite the doctrine that he excoriated in Lawrence, Casey, and elsewhere based solely on reliance interests? It is no secret Scalia likes guns, and he wants to incorporate the 2nd Amendment. But he does not want to enlarge substantive due process. Is he stuck between a rock and a substantively hard place? The Privileges or Immunities Clause provides an alternative method for Scalia. He could write a classic originalist opinion tracing the right to bear arms during Reconstruction, and find that it applies to the State.

Finally, fellow Volokh conspirator Randy Barnett (and Cato senior fellow) also disagrees with Orin, offering this perspective:

When choosing between the two pending cases in the Seventh Circuit, why would four Justices grant cert on the McDonald case in which the challenge was focused on the Privileges or Immunities Clause and deny cert on NRA case, which confined its argument to the Due Process Clause? Why would they have rejected the City of Chicago’s proposal which limited the question presented to Due Process?

Faced with this background and the actual question presented, I wonder how would Orin have briefed the case. Would he have offered any of the analysis in his post? Would he have told the Court just to ignore the Privileges or Immunities Clause? Or might he not have assumed as an experienced litigator that the Justices could write a Due Process Clause “incorporation” opinion in their sleep–heck, their clerks could write that opinion in their sleep–and then devoted the bulk of his brief to describing the meaning of the Privileges or Immunities Clause in context?

Ultimately, Orin’s analysis is based in what he thinks will be the Justices’ dislike for the interpretation of the Privileges or Immunities Clause described in the brief. The conservatives will hate the references to “natural rights” while the liberals will hate the references to “property.” Fair enough. But notice that the brief does not offer Alan Gura’s theory of the Privileges or Immunities Clause. All the phrases to which Orin objects are taken from quotes from the historical sources. Was Gura supposed to conceal these sources from the Court or faithfully report them? Orin may think this case is a hoot, but for the parties and the Court it is serious business.

In short, Orin’s legal realism/conventional wisdom may turn out prescient — and all the rest of us are engaged in a quixotic originalist/libertarian crusade – but I’ll put my money elsewhere.

How Will the Court Vote on “Incorporating” the Second Amendment? is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

In 2006, Congress passed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act. One provision of the law authorizes the federal government to civilly commit anyone in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons whom the attorney general certifies to be “sexually dangerous.” The effect of such an action is to continue the certified person’s confinement after the expiration of his prison term, without proof of a new criminal violation.

Six days before the scheduled release of Graydon Comstock — who had been sentenced to 37 months in jail for receiving child pornography — the attorney general certified Comstock as sexually dangerous. Three years later, Comstock thus remains confined in a medium security prison, as do more than 60 other similarly situated men in the Eastern District of North Carolina alone.

Comstock and several others challenged their confinements as going beyond Congress’s constitutional authority and won in both the district and appellate courts. The United States successfully petitioned the Supreme Court to review the case.

Cato, joined by Georgetown law professor (and Cato senior fellow) Randy Barnett, filed a brief opposing the government. We argue that the use of federal power here is unconstitutional because it is not tied to any of Congress’s limited and enumerated powers. The government’s reliance on the Necessary and Proper Clause of Article I, Section 8, is misplaced because that clause grants no independent power but merely “carries into execution” the powers enumerated elsewhere in that section. The commitment of prisoners after their terms simply is not one of the enumerated powers.

While the government justifies its actions by invoking its implied power “to establish a federal penal system” — itself a necessary and proper auxiliary to certain enumerated powers — civil commitment is unrelated to creating or maintaining a penal system (let alone any enumerated power). Nor can the law at issue fall under the Commerce Clause, because civil commitment involves non-economic intrastate activity.

As the Supreme Court recognized almost 150 years ago in Ex Parte Milligan, “[n]o graver question was ever considered by this court, nor one which more nearly concerns the rights of the whole,” than the government’s unconstitutional assertion of power against its own citizens. In this spirit, the Court should affirm the Fourth Circuit’s rejection of this blatant government overreach.

United States v. Comstock will be argued on January 12.  You can read Cato’s brief here.

As it Turns Out, There Are Limits on Congress’s Power is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Cato senior fellow Randy Barnett has a piece in the Wall Street Journal on the Senate’s confirmation hearing for Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court.  Excerpt:

Supreme Court confirmation hearings do not have to be about either results or nothing. They could be about clauses, not cases. Instead of asking nominees how they would decide particular cases, ask them to explain what they think the various clauses of the Constitution mean. Does the Second Amendment protect an individual right to arms? What was the original meaning of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the 14th Amendment? (Hint: It included an individual right to arms.) Does the 14th Amendment “incorporate” the Bill of Rights and, if so, how and why? Does the Ninth Amendment protect judicially enforceable unenumerated rights? Does the Necessary and Proper Clause delegate unlimited discretion to Congress? Where in the text of the Constitution is the so-called Spending Power (by which Congress claims the power to spend tax revenue on anything it wants) and does it have any enforceable limits?

Read the whole thing.

Barnett on the Supreme Court Confirmation Hearing is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog