Every time I promise myself I'm done writing about constitutional interpretation, another Damn Idea occurs to me.

The year is 2036. Law professors must submit their articles before Halloween if they want to have any hope of getting accepted. Everyone still calls it the "spring" cycle.

Heading to New Orleans for AALS! Message me or email me if you want to meet! I'm there all week and my schedule is fairly flexible. Feel free to accost me if you see me!

What an episode

Someone else already said this but I wanted to amplify that @bradwendel.bsky.social has a wonderful book about this called Cancelling Lawyers. I think he is right that this isn't a space for bright line rules. global.oup.com/academic/pro...

This Weekend

NEW: Creating a circuit split, a 9th Cir panel decrees that CA's ban on openly carrying firearms violates the Second Amendment. The 2-1 panel decision is written by Trump-appointee Judge VanDyke, possibly the most extreme federal circuit judge in 2A cases. fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldoc...

Not long now

Nothing I love more than downloading a New Mobile App for a conference.

?

just one more thing… happy new year!

Happy New Year

FINALLY @scholasticahq.bsky.social gives a year-end wrap up that lists the most popular article keywords according to frequency! blog.scholasticahq.com/post/trendin...

Lexis and Westlaw, sites I use every day, the first time that I try to use them each day:

I would greatly appreciate help with coming up with a title for an article I wrote!! Quick summary: I conducted a full historical survey of state constitutions’ search and seizure provisions, graphed the changes over time, surveyed the caselaw, answered determined that the text matters very little.

Magnificent: www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...

I always tell students if you ask a good question the article will write itself

Williams on the Decline of Small Claims Courts Telia Mary U. Williams (South Texas College of Law Houston) has posted The Court of Small Things, The Curse of Legal Superstition: The Precipitous Decline of Small Claims Court, Why it Matters, and What can be Done about it on SSRN. Hereis the…

Annnnd hitting for Margolis is her co-author, here to say, @elliemargolis.bsky.social and I wrote an article about this very exact precise thing! And you can have it FOR FREE! papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

my new theory is that once you have a certain amount of money and wealth you start to go crazy and detach from reality. that number is different for everyone. for me it's $20

Stacked up the books I read in 2025! A decent year!

I regret to inform you there’s a new post telling us we’re rubes who’ve missed the obvious & clear meaning of the Const’n for a century. This is the type of post you make when your goal is to juice engagement from those who want nothing more than to be told their policy goals are const’l commands.

Finally got around to this. Other notable points include Christopher Lloyd with a surprising amount of screen time dismissing the idea that the main character time traveled, and Shatner stroking his fake beard in literally every one of his scenes.

Saw Mike Lee’s execrable proposal a few days ago—it’s bad. Sadly in line w/ the increasing momentum to expand private actors’ privilege to use violence. Darrell Miller & I wrote about this regrettable right-wing movement that we called “the new outlawry” www.columbialawreview.org/content/the-...

Even if you want to use automated (instead of human) analysis for determining authorship, using an LLM is absolutely not the way to do it. LLMs are language predictors that give you the impression that they are doing fancy analysis on the backend, but they don't actually do it. 1/

I regret to report that this is where we are with the anti-birthright-citizenship stuff papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

counterpoint: this is stupid and understanding the constitution shouldn’t require an understanding of Roman law

僕は毎日パーティーしたい。がんぼるぞい。 translation: I want to party every day.

Holiday State Constitutional Law reading with research assistant

I had missed this latest delirium by Adrian Vermeule on birthright citizenship 'Common law?! NAH, it's the Roman law of adoption that should govern the interpretation of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution!' thenewdigest.substack.com/p/immigratio...

Dane on Christmas Perry Dane (Rutgers School of Law - Camden) has posted Christmas on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This paper, which is still in a very early form, looks again at the recurring problem of Christmas and the Constitution. Conventional Establishment Clause analysis of Christmas is…

Dumpling Cat

Escalante & March on Christmas Brawling in Rural Peru Edwar E. Escalante (Norris-Vincent College of Business at Angelo State University; Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University) & Raymond March (North Dakota State University - Department of Agribusiness and Applied Economics; North Dakota…

Hey Now You're a Boxcar Full of Children Solve Crimes

Finally spotted pileated woodpeckers in North Libery, Iowa!

The good news: I found a never-read copy of the records of the fiftieth anniversary of Iowa's 1857 Constitution at an Iowa City antiques shop! The bad news: I know it's never been read because nearly all the pages are uncut and now I have to do that work.

"porch piracy" is theft. it's illegal in every single state. in states with expansive statutes, this could even be burglary. there is no evidence that local police or prosecutors are unable to handle this. and existing federal law on interstate transportation of stolen property can handle big cases.

The Reading Disruptor

Up on SSRN now, a new draft about Measuring Judicial Ideology with a special focus on state courts, forthcoming in the Ind. L. J. With all of the recent discussion about the power of state courts to protect rights, it's worth noting the robust study of state court judge ideology. /

Dumpling Cat

I've long wanted to write a piece on how to run a law review symposium: to offer, without judgment or condescension, some best practices and relevant questions to ask. And I've finally drafted a brief (7K) word piece on that topic in rough draft form. If you're interested in reading, let me know!

Good evening

That's the stuff.

Pumpkin Spice Originalism

The Epstein files appear to have plagiarized @noahchauvin.bsky.social's scholarship: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Are we at war, or is it just a flyover for the big game? Either way, nothing I can do but continue writing.

The Right to Exit Religion is finally out in the Georgetown Law Journal. For anyone interested: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....