Balkinization
A project spearheaded by Jack Balkin but featuring the insights of more than a dozen other professors and experts, Balkinization offers a wealth of commentary on political issues on a daily basis. Lots of reader comments make the content here even more worthwhile to read.
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Featured Articles
Self-defense, the Second Amendment, and the Ninth Amendment
One of the valuable points made in Saul Cornell's book on the Second Amendment is that self-defense was treated as a "common-law" right and not a "constitutional right" at the time of the Framing. So, as a matter of sheer historical accuracy, Scalia was probably wrong in suggesting that the Second...
Through the Looking Glass: Indefinite Detention and the Parhat Case
Can the President indefinitely detain someone who has no connection to Al Qaeda and who has not engaged in any belligerent acts against the United States?Last week, an ideologically diverse panel (Judges Sentelle, Garland and Griffith) of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of...
How the Financial Crisis is Reshaping Democratic Politics: Term Limits Reconsidered (written with Elizabeth Garrett)
The financial crisis is already reshaping electoral politics even in the short term. The crisis appears to have transformed the presidential race, with Sen. Obama apparently moving ahead substantially during the last two weeks, at least for now, directly as a result. Now, we are seeing another...
Recent Articles
Who Won that Masked Election?
NPR and other news sources are reporting a roiling debate in the Democratic party about what the election meant. As I understand it, there are at least two debates, although they intersect. One might be called "person vs. policy." Did voters select Obama primarily for his leadership qualities...
The Invisible Election
Given that election law is my specialty, regular readers of Balkinization may have been puzzled that I haven't posted much during the last year. The reason is that I have been serving as a member of then-Senator Obama's national election protection team since April of 2007. Because I was doing that...
The Rehnquist Papers
The Hoover Institution Library and Archives has released parts of the Papers of Supreme Court Justice William H. Rehnquist. Now open at the archives are Rehnquist's papers from 1947 to 1971 and Supreme Court papers from the 1972 to 1974 terms.Law review writers will want to be aware of the...
The Pro-Life Movement After The Election-- And The Beginnings of Compromise
The Washington Post reports on emerging ideas in the pro-life movement about how to reduce abortions without criminalizing them. Essentially, it involves increased support for social programs that will help poor women and families, under the reasoning that poor women without means are more likely...
A Commitment Device for Energy Conservation
Crosspost from Freakonomics:There’s lots of evidence that commitment contracts can help people change behavior with regard to all kinds of things (like savings and smoking cessation). But since participation is voluntary, a huge question is whether you can get people to sign up. This is more than a...
Small steps toward rural land reform
On a rainy day in Guizhou Province last month, I followed a group of local officials off a rural road into what looked like a carefully tended field of mud. Holding a bullhorn and with an umbrella-toting aid running after him, one official pointed to a twig poking out of the ground and started...
An "awkward" summit (thanks to our Constitution)
An article in today's NYTimes noted the "awkward[ness]" of the fact that there will be a purported "summit" meeting next week that will not be attended by President-elect Obama. The Times quoted Robert Gibbs, described as a "senior adviser to Mr. Obama": “While some may say it’s awkward that he’s ...
