In today's SCOTUS oral argument, Justice Barrett asked about how Trump's rationales for denying birthright citizenship to children of illegal migrants would also deny it to many ex-slaves. SG Sauer's answer on crucial issue was factually wrong. See my explanation here: reason.com/volokh/2026/...

This thread(s) of conversations among serious scholars emphasizes to me that there is little consensus on the difference (if any) between "legal history" and "history."

So I shared an image of Ken's cookie post at The Other Place and a friend of mine made this is response.

Just so you understand, this is as if you prepared for argument in front of a panel that included Cookie Monster, and Cookie Monster asked you a question about cookies, and you had not thought about cookies in advance.

Nice move by Wang to bring up Italian immigrant children to Alito.

I'm betting there weren't many Indian law scholars in those moots.

OK, now that Justice Barrett has brought up jus soli vs. jus sanguinus it's time to repost my thread on how U.S. citizenship law has historically treated children of citizens born abroad.

Ooooh, Gorsuch brings up the INA of 1940 and original meaning then vs. 1868.

Massively interesting video with lessons not just for novelists but nonfiction writers, including lawyers. In law we've been focused on ghost citations. But what are the costs/benefits of AI changing/flatening our prose? Not saying it shouldn't be done. It's a big conversation to be had, tho.

Hardly the biggest news to come out of SCOTUS's opinion in Chiles v. Salazar, which just dropped, but it seems Justice Gorsuch is not a fan of either "cleaned up" OR the Bluebook's "citation modified."

Putting this together I learned that the famous Lenin quote about nothing happening for decades & then decades happening in weeks is apocryphal. In fact, it wasn't attributed to Lenin until GEORGE GALLOWAY did in the 𝐺𝑢𝑎𝑟𝑑𝑖𝑎𝑛 (of course) in 2001! www.snopes.com/fact-check/l...

DYK North Carolina 𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑜𝑓 had a constitution in May 1776 before its "permanent" one that December? The 1st didn't have a declaration of rights. The latter did. What happened? Decades in weeks and all that. My latest on "The Other Declarations of 1776." ij.org/cje-post/nor...

Disappointed, but not surprised. To stop Trump we need a broad coalition. Ie, appealing to Never Trumpers & moderates. Look at this list! It's almost designed to repel those folks. It's a who's who of Boomer leftists. If we unite to defeat the White Walkers it'll be despite this.

Screens at London's The Garden Cinema, Saturday at 4.15 pm (also Saturday 7 pm at the Forum des Images, Paris, with discussion afterwards). www.thegardencinema.co.uk/film/metropo...

We are in the midst of an existential crisis of constitutionality and accountability, writes @law.ucla.edu's @jcschwartzprof.bsky.social. The ability to sue the government — and spotlighting all that such litigation can accomplish — is critically important.

this is more objectionable and actively anti-American than anything she accuses anyone else of doing

All three judges find that the use of AI without verifying accuracy violates the duty of candor to the court and the duty to provide competent representation.

I think @marinklevy.bsky.social might enjoy this one, partly because of her colleague Tom Metzloff and partly because we report on the erasure of Asheville, N.C. oral arguments in the Fourth Circuit despite 28 U.S.C. 48(a).

2 weeks to go until "The 𝑂𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 Declarations of 1776". If you're in the DC area & would like to come RSVP today! Also excited to share that the conference papers will be published in the Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy!

Just read this. Really interesting application of state constitutional unenumerated rights scholarship and jurisprudence to Puerto Rico's Constitution. Check it out!

I'm excited to share a new resource on SCOTUS from @brennancenter.org's Kohlberg Ctr. The Benchmark is a new hub dedicated to how SCOTUS is functioning as an institution & how it can be reformed. We'll have commentary, explainers, trackers, polling & more. /1 www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ana...

The latest episode of @ij.org's roundtable podcast #UnpublishedOpinions is out. John Wrench, Diana Simpson, and Patrick Jaicomo discuss some of the latest legal news including Afroman's victory for America. ij.org/podcasts/unp...

What is outrageous about this, among many other things, is that makes relief turn on whose loved ones have the resources to hire or luck or network to get a lawyer to file for habeas. If you don't know to file or can't, even "we have no opposition" cases lead to continued detention.

Just spent some time at my happy place. Hands down the best used book store in Minnesota and--I say this in all honesty--one of the best on the planet.

Our Latest Newsletter: Civil unrest, true threats, and South Carolina receptions. ij.org/sc_newslette...

It wasn't that long ago when ChatGPT came out and the fact that it made up cases quickly came out and I was told by enthusiasts "oh no, that won't be a problem. There's a disclaimer when you sign in."

The boyfriend/landlord in this case got some very good legal advice about how to let his girlfriend live in his second property. I like to think it was from Maury Levy.

Delaware!

Next on our tour of 1776's Declarations of Rights is Delaware. The "1st State" largely borrowed from Maryland. But it had its own ideas about how its declaration could be changed: Never. (Until it was replaced 16 years later.) #1776AndAllThat ij.org/cje-post/del...

Constitutional conventions get up to all kinds of things. One moment they'll be preserving the liberty of the press while in the next forming a committee to consider erecting a gun-lock manufactory.

Big iced tea matchup on Friday

One thing that AI evangelists seem to assume, particularly legal AI evangelists assume, is that the thinking and analysis is quick, and the writing is just tedious busywork that slows us down. But the writing IS the thinking and analysis. You work out the thinking and analysis by writing it down.

The Montana Supreme Court issued a long-awaited opinion in MAID v. Montana, upholding the Montana Land Use Planning Act in its entirety, and vacating some of the conclusions of the district court. A big win for housing in Montana. @shelterwf.bsky.social #mtpol #mtleg 1/

This is an issue that really fascinates me: What if a "principal officer" (eg US Atty) is not legally in office but staff in the dept take their orders? (Prob b/c the President told them too.) What happens? What's the remedy? Is there one? Kind of goes to places constitutional law has never trodden.

"The attorney betook himself to his drawing-room, the clerk to the Magpie and Stump, and Job to Covent Garden Market to spend the night in a vegetable basket." Like many law practices. From The Pickwick Papers, Ch. 47.

NEW: The Arizona Supreme Court is considering a case that could expand state constitutional protections for the right to earn a living. Check out this analysis from @ijsanders.bsky.social at @ij.org, which is representing the plaintiff in this case. statecourtreport.org/our-work/ana...

21 years ago I wrote an article about how state courts continued protecting economic liberty following SCOTUS checking out of that business after the New Deal. Last week my friend Paul Avelar tried to carry on that tradition at the Arizona Supreme Court. Here's my report.

THREAD. A collection of excellent scarecrows I have met on walks in the countryside. You will find the all-important caption to each photo in the alt text.

For the life of me I've never understood why the press and the political class find it so difficult to talk about Donald Trump's severe and manifest personality disorders. These disorders may be impossible for any professional to treat, but they are easily understandable to any ...

Today we launch Liberalism.org, @theihs.org public forum for the liberal tradition — a space where serious thinkers wrestle with the tensions of a free society. Drawing on @theihs.org network of over 7K liberal scholars, we explore how freedom sustains human dignity. Meet the team. 🧵

Are you a law student or recent graduate looking for clerkship opportunities? Join State Court Report for a free virtual event on Thursday, March 19, where four state supreme court justices will share what it’s really like to clerk on a state high court. RSVP today: bit.ly/4dfAEdI

Medieval Markets & Fairs in England & Wales: remember the excellent dataset published back in 2003? I've given it a snazzy new interface, incorporating various updates which were made following publication. Separately, I'm working on extending it to 1846... ihr-digital.github.io/markets-and-...

Shout out to The Female Fortune-Teller on today's @dividedargument.bsky.social. Seems no one found an earlier example of "No, no, a thousand times no!" I bet it's out there, though. To steal a current phrase, perhaps someone could go do a bit of archival work? dividedargument.com/episodes/a-s...

The Court's recent opinions in Mirabelli were head-scratchers when it comes to substantive due process. I explore all that and how Meyer and Pierce are also economic liberty cases. Does that mean there's more economic liberty coming to SCOTUS? ij.org/cje-post/sub...

Our friends at @statecourtreport.org generously ran a blog post I first did a few weeks back on "The 𝑂𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 Declarations of 1776" & the April 10 conference that @ij.org & the Liberty & Law Center are sponsoring. "1776 was a big year." statecourtreport.org/our-work/ana...

Anyone who's worked in the legal support industry-secretary, paralegal, gopher, etc-will enjoy Ch. 31 of Dickens' The Pickwick Papers. They called them all "clerks" back then. "There is the middle-aged copying clerk, with a large family, who is always shabby, and often drunk."

"Happy Birthday, Wealth of Nations" www.econlib.org/econlog/happ...

This reminds me of that line I saw someone say once (which rang true) that something that makes Trump uniquely able to connect with low-information voters is that he is a low-information voter.

Morrison said Naqvi walked walked and hitchhiked to a hotel after being released from the detention center in WI. Naqvi's sister Sarah Afzal also said the WI facility denied she was ever held there. (I was told the same thing when I called the WI facility in the wee hours of Saturday morning.)

Put this on a massive visual at his confirmation hearing. Drill down into exactly what he was thinking at the time and what he thinks of the pardons.