Thanks Dan!

Hear hear!

Call for papers for the best constitutional law conference every year is now out! Please circulate widely & consider sending us your paper/lightning round proposals. Tucson is incredible this time of the year, and we have amazing confirmed commentators already lined up 🌵🌵

Hi Folks! I wanted to share a 🧵about my JMP in @yalelawjournal.bsky.social (now on SSRN). It reconstructs the law of officeholding in early US, arguing that it is inconsistent with the unitary executive theory. (1/

Just applied!

I 💰NY

Come for the great institutional history of McCarthyism, stay for the insight that the rule of law is about more than empowering Congress to oversee the presidency, but about creating buy in to neutral principles and reason-giving requirements.

This is going to be a fun new viewpoint to have in the conversation!

My article on history-based briefing was featured by Adam Liptak in the NY Times! www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/u...

The Jefferson Commonplace book is a criminally underrated source for early American legal understandings!

A really underrated experience, especially for anyone interested in common law, local government law, state constitutions, etc!

This paper is a delightfully provocative response to those who want to rationalize statutory interpretation using social science and formal doctrine!

Wonky new blog post at JReg blog Humphrey’s Executor, the 1935 case that will decide whether much of the administrative state can stay independent from Trump. It is often dismissed as incoherent, inventing strange terms that make it unworkable. I argue it’s misunderstood. 🧵

What are they trying to hide from us about the Kennedy assassination?

My colleague Jim Pfander, who knows more than the next 10 people combined about remedies against the federal government, has a guest post on volokh about the fight over the order to pay withheld foreign aid funds. Featuring an 1838 case saying there's no dispensing power! reason.com/volokh/2025/...

Domestic sparkling wine producers be like:

Jenny Rivera on the NY court of appeals showing us how state courts can be a place to develop an alternative to the Supreme Court’s constitutional jurisprudence. A good reminder at a moment when legal argument can feel hopeless. www.nycourts.gov/ctapps/Decis...

This opinion is a good introduction to the debate in the Appointments Clause. I have one gripe, which is just shameless self-promotion. The gripe is about whether unitary executive theory is "efficient." The efficiency argument ignores administrative capacity. 1/

When gauging public reactions to the latest controversy, it's important not to conduct or share misleading polls. Our new paper in Public Opinion Quarterly is a template for how to (and how not to) poll about the effect of political developments. Gift link: academic.oup.com/poq/advance-...

Obviously a limited data set subject to confounding factors, but wild if this is even somewhat true!

FED. WORKERS: I am collecting data on agency instructions w.r.t the OPM email. I am seeking the following: (1) Your agency and bureau, (2) who sent the instruction, (3) whether you were told to reply, (4) a screenshot of the instruction for verification (anonymize) (if possible). Signal: Nbednar.46.

You’ve gotta really mean it to egg someone in 2025…

László Tóth rapidly becoming the biggest resist lib of 2025… www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/r...

@heidikitrosser.bsky.social "Protecting Public Knowledge Producers" really bears re reading in the current moment. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Is Doge Taking Credit for President Carter's Death?: An Investigative Report by a data junkie with too much time on his hands 1/6

Reading about Elon Musk this morning and thinking about that time James Madison helped a constituent “farm the exclusive privilege of transporting the mail.” For whatever reason.

I put together some teaching materials related to the civil service and Schedule F. The materials should work for any Legislation & Regulation or Admin Law course. I am uncertain whether it's too dense for undergraduates, but if someone tries let me know. nbednar.com/wp-content/u...

All roads ultimately lead back to Parrillo…

Great news for people who want to live in Boston (well not IN Boston, but nearby…)

One of the best parts about being a historian of local government is that the answer to the question “when did we stop doing that?” is often “never.” www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/n...

I am writing about what is happening to federal personnel policy. One difficulty is that it's hard to observe and verify what is actually happening. I am particularly interested in information about the employment status of individuals working with/in DOGE. Anonymous tips welcome. Signal: Nbednar.46

So happy that my article about the origins and first decades of the Atlanta Police is finally out! It traces the institutional development of the department, the discourses of Black criminality that underlaid racist policing, and protest against the police. lawreview.colorado.edu/print/volume...

If anything this article understates how asinine Yarvin’s claim is that emancipation was bad for African Americans Even reducing human experience to “per capita GDP” doesn’t get you that slavery was good for African Americans—or even America writ large : bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/u...

New way of spelling “potatoes” just dropped! I personally am partial to “potoooooooo,” but “pot8oes” has a kind of early 2000s charm

We need more competition in the airline industry!

I have a new piece out @newrepublic.com, a reply to Ezra Klein's recent "ignore fact-finders, respond to the anger" take on Pod Save America. On the one hand, I agree 100%: politics are vibes, and can't fact-check vibes. On The Other Hand Those (incorrect) vibes COME FROM SOMEWHERE: the media.

Annals of anti-monopoly…..in the news…. www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020...

Glad to see strong Langdellian representation among my favorite podcasts! @profschleich.bsky.social

This is fantastic news. That said, my hope is that SCOTUS will eventually livestream its oral arguments—just like so many other federal and state courts across the nation. The courts belong to the people.

🧵 🧵 Let's talk a bit more about birthright citizenship. An explainer thread. The start of the 14th Amendment reads as follows: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

Back in the day (18th and 19th century, obvs), you’d sometimes just keep electing and fining people until someone said yes or found a substitute!

Very happy that my article Policing after Slavery: Race, Crime, and Resistance in Atlanta has found at home with the University of Colorado Law Review! I've got a few edits to make but am hoping to put it up on SSRN in a week or so.

This is one of the most damming reports of judicial malfeasance I've ever read.

This is the sand-mining/local-governance content the people CRAVE!