Nathaniel Donahue
@nwdonahue.bsky.social
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Golieb Fellow @ NYU. Yale legal history JD-PhD candidate. Goat aficionado. Grackle enthusiast.
Move over Super Bowl!
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3 days ago
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Lincoln’s strongest soldiers are the wokes!
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about 1 month ago
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New hot ones challenge just dropped: “Twenty-years-of-research-in-manuscript-sources level spicy”
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about 1 month ago
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This seems spicy. I am PUMPED!
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about 1 month ago
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A real history job in the wild!
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about 1 month ago
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Nathaniel Donahue
sanjukta paul
about 1 month ago
Job opening for a clinical teaching fellow in the Civil Rights Litigation initiative at Michigan Law. This is an opportunity to plug into (or continue within) a robust local social justice lawyering network while also exploring teaching. Please share widely!
careers.umich.edu/job_detail/2...
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Clinical Teaching Fellow- Civil Rights Litigation Initiative, Law School | U-M Careers
https://careers.umich.edu/job_detail/271657/clinical-teaching-fellow-civil-rights-litigation-initiative-law-school
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An enormous loss. His work on 19th century state formation and on juries has been invaluable to me. When people learn I’m on the fellowship he helped create, I almost invariably hear stories of someone who he mentored at NYU. He played a huge role in shaping legal history for at least a generation.
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about 2 months ago
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That was a lot of fun! Thanks for having me on!
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about 2 months ago
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Nathaniel Donahue
Jake Charles
about 2 months ago
None of my friends understood why I was so happy to see this in the mail. 🤷‍♂️
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The subtitle of my next paper…
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about 2 months ago
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Nathaniel Donahue
Jed H. Shugerman
about 2 months ago
I’ll attempt to live-skeet the Trump v. Slaughter oral arguments at 10 am. I might be considered biased b/c I filed amicus briefs in Slaughter & Cook, with particular historical interpretations. Or I might be considered well-informed. You can judge for yourself. See the summary below & a thread…
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Nathaniel Donahue
Jed H. Shugerman
about 2 months ago
Helpful and concise Brennan Center preview for today’s big case on the unitary executive oral arguments (against the historical claim of an unchecked presidential removal power) Annotated Guide to Historical Amicus Briefs in the Slaughter and Cook Removal Cases
www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...
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Annotated Guide to Historical Amicus Briefs in the Slaughter and Cook Removal Cases
As the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments in two cases challenging the removal of independent agency heads, several historians and legal scholars have filed friend-of-the-court briefs focused on...
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/annotated-guide-historical-amicus-briefs-slaughter-and-cook-removal-cases
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Nathaniel Donahue
Daniel Rice
about 2 months ago
Missed this when it was originally uploaded, but "Conscription's Constitution" by Gerard Magliocca looks fascinating:
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
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Conscription's Constitution
This Essay examines the military draft in constitutional practice and argument. The constitutionality of national conscription is clear, but what that means for
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5351002
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Nathaniel Donahue
Legal History Blog
about 2 months ago
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More Congressional Material On-Line
[We are reproducing the following from In Custodia Legis, the blog of the Law Library of Congress, on the latest "migration" of Congressional materials from "Century of Lawmaking" to the digital site, Congress.gov. DRE]  We have been working on migrating content from Century of Lawmaking to Congress.gov over the last few years. We kicked this off with migrating 30,000 Bills and Resolutions from 1799-1873. Then, in February 2024, we added the Annals of Congress to Congress.gov. In November last year, we added the Senate Journal to our site. The House Journal was added in the following release. If you are interested in more information on the journals, we have help pages for both the House Journal and Senate Journal. Earlier this year, in February, we added the Congressional Globe. The Debates of Congress (Congressional Globe, The Annals of Congress, and the Register of Debates) are all predecessors to the Congressional Record, which goes back to 1873 on Congress.gov. The Globe was followed by the Senate Executive Journal going live on Congress.gov in April. With today’s release we are adding the last item from the Debates of Congress, the Register of Debates. This is also the last area of content to migrate from Century of Lawmaking to Congress.gov. You can see the Register of Debates starting with the 18th Congress of the Browse page and through the 25th Congress.
http://dlvr.it/TPYpW6
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Yet another example of money taxes and specialized equipment displacing compulsory labor!
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2 months ago
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Okay so everyone rags on the em dash as a hallmark of AI writing. Am I the only person who uses them like all the time?
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2 months ago
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A lot of really amazing folks have come out of this one!
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2 months ago
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This brief responds to a few attacks on Humphrey’s Executor: 1) its reasoning makes no sense (& we should overturn it); 2) its holding is narrow (and doesn’t even apply to today’s FTC); 3) that it made up legal ideas from whole cloth to score a political win against FDR (so we should disregard it)
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3 months ago
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Great piece! I really liked section II.A, which gives a really helpful sense of how running the analysis through N&P might more helpfully structure these separation-of-powers inquiries.
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3 months ago
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Boy do I have some thoughts about this one…
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3 months ago
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Nathaniel Donahue
Noah Rosenblum
3 months ago
New York Historians — come join us! 🗄️
@rauchway.bsky.social
is this tag the one to flag the historians?
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Fee-based governance as a response to the political difficulty of money taxes remains undefeated. We are so back (to the 19th century)!
pbs.twimg.com/media/G3i8p5...
3 months ago
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Jotwell
4 months ago
Jotwell ConLaw: Andrea Katz, Falsifying the Unitary Executive: Popperian Empiricism and History’s Uses and Misuses, JOTWELL (October 8, 2025),
conlaw.jotwell.com/falsifying-t...
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Anthropic settlement website is live! Authors (including academics): look your book up and get paid!
secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup/?_gl=...
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Submit a Claim
https://secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup/?_gl=1le4rvd_gcl_auNzgwNzEyNDQuMTc1OTQ0NTA0Mg
4 months ago
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I haven’t been this excited to hear about the disposition of a million dollars in prewar America since Bringing Up Baby!
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4 months ago
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Nathaniel Donahue
William Baude
4 months ago
Bombshell! - Caleb Nelson, one of the most respected originalist scholars in the country, comes out against the unitary executive interpretation of Article II
democracyproject.org/posts/must-a...
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Thanks Dan!
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5 months ago
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Hear hear!
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5 months ago
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Nathaniel Donahue
Oren Tamir
5 months ago
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 🌵🌵
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Hi Folks! I wanted to share a đź§µabout 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/
5 months ago
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Just applied!
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5 months ago
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I đź’°NY
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5 months ago
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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.
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5 months ago
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This is going to be a fun new viewpoint to have in the conversation!
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6 months ago
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Nathaniel Donahue
6 months ago
My article on history-based briefing was featured by Adam Liptak in the NY Times!
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/u...
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As the Supreme Court Focuses on the Past, Historians Turn to Advocacy
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/us/politics/supreme-court-historians-advocacy.html
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The Jefferson Commonplace book is a criminally underrated source for early American legal understandings!
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7 months ago
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A really underrated experience, especially for anyone interested in common law, local government law, state constitutions, etc!
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9 months ago
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This paper is a delightfully provocative response to those who want to rationalize statutory interpretation using social science and formal doctrine!
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9 months ago
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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. 🧵
9 months ago
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What are they trying to hide from us about the Kennedy assassination?
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9 months ago
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Nathaniel Donahue
Paul Gowder
11 months ago
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/...
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Domestic sparkling wine producers be like:
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11 months ago
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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...
11 months ago
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Nathaniel Donahue
Nick Bednar
11 months ago
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/
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Nathaniel Donahue
Matt Graham
11 months ago
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-...
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Obviously a limited data set subject to confounding factors, but wild if this is even somewhat true!
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11 months ago
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Nathaniel Donahue
Nick Bednar
11 months ago
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.
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You’ve gotta really mean it to egg someone in 2025…
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11 months ago
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László Tóth rapidly becoming the biggest resist lib of 2025…
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/r...
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President Trump’s Attack on Brutalist Architecture in Washington
Call them monuments, foreign elements, eyesores — Brutalist buildings have become another battleground in President Trump’s culture war.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/realestate/trump-brutalist-architecture.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
11 months ago
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Nathaniel Donahue
Kate Wright
11 months ago
@heidikitrosser.bsky.social
"Protecting Public Knowledge Producers" really bears re reading in the current moment.
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
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Protecting Public Knowledge Producers
In this Essay, I consider the crucial role played by “public knowledge producers” in a healthy democratic system, current threats to public knowledge production
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4262359
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