That time that the Supreme Court of the United States made the uncontroversial proposition that Parliament can pass bills of attainder & cited for authority . . . Edward Gibbon's autobiography? From Farrington v. Tenn. (1877).

Has anyone written on how state courts addressed constitutional issues during the Confederacy? I'm reading state court cases from that time and the confederate ones are nervously like "well, the Confederate Constitution says X, and it's the law now. Well for the moment anyway."

You're right, no one bothered to tell the Court. Must be time to fire the Solicitor General, I guess.

Our Latest Newsletter: Non-condensing furnaces, drag shows, and master accounts. ij.org/sc_newslette...

Our Latest Podcast: Government Fails Rational Basis Test for Once. With Arif Panju & Michael Pena! ij.org/podcasts/sho...

First Upton Sinclair, then Donald Trump. A perfect horseshoe.

Carolene Products Footnote 4 is wrong. That's the tweet.

At the @brennancenter.org @northwesternlaw.bsky.social conference on state constitutions. @mawaldman.bsky.social tells an OG story about how he was in the room where it happened when Justice Brennan gave a state constitutions lecture at NYU.

Some voters have no clue how economics works and vote for Mamdani. Other voters have no clue how economics works and vote for Trump. It's a horseshoe of ignorance.

We live in an age of strange bedfellows.

I'm not sure if the de facto corporation doctrine will work here.

In the 2000s, a proto-YIMBY bill would have prevented Texas localities from mandating HOAs in new subdivisions. From Beyond Privateopia

Our Latest Podcast: Is Sharing Your Password a Federal Crime? With Sam Gedge & Michael Soyfer! youtu.be/FHg3GGqjPFg?...

This is the first year our kids are too old/too cool to have costumes and I'm starting to realize I may not be ready for it.

Lawgeeks, there's an important part in here where the Court rejects the school district's argument that because social media is so pervasive it should be considered on-campus speech. Held: nope, that would let schools regulate virtually all student speech online wherever made and whatever about.

This is nowhere close to being true. Two @ij.org clients are citizens who were arrested & @propublica.org found 168 more. Plus, we have witness statements from others who--like most of the citizens caught up by Noem's tactics--didn't have their arrests recorded so they didn't make the news.

As in (credit to an old Economist cover) "She Who Must Be Obeyed."

Genuinely delighted to download a PhD thesis from a university repository where the author has neglected to remove the words "BITCH THIS IS YOUR THESIS" from the filename.

The Clerk's Guide to emergent applications really strongly discourages amicus briefs, but no one is going to listen to that anymore, if they ever did.

Inspiration for all amicus brief writers who late at night have looked out the window and asked "does this even matter?"

Read my @ij.org colleague John Wrench at @scotusblog.com on why "medical consensus" is a dangerous path to travel down when justifying judicial restraint. He gives some background on the Chiles (conversion therapy) argument & the infamous Buck v. Bell. www.scotusblog.com/2025/10/the-...

It's the latest episode of our roundtable podcast, Unpublished Opinions. With John Wrench @ijsanders.bsky.social & Anya Bidwell! ij.org/podcasts/unp...

Your annual reminder that the clocks changed in the UK and Europe last night but not in the US, so if you do transatlantic zoom meetings this week at least one person will get the time wrong. (Trying to make sure it's not me.)

He fareth best who loveth best All fees both great and small. For the Bench declare that the etiquette Of the Bar is 'Pocket All.' -Punch (1847)

Although the underlying facts are not funny, some of these ICE encounters remind one of a Peter Sellers movie. www.reddit.com/r/chicago/co...

Our Latest Podcast: Weekend at Humphrey's With Todd Zywicki, Casey Norman & Bob Belden! ij.org/podcasts/sho...

This is old news. Toddy Zywicki and I were arguing for this back in 2008. (I will add, this traditional approach is much more defensible for common law adjudication. For statutes and constitutions it's more fraught, and Hayek didn't address that as much.) papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

In what constitutional universe is "the President is telling the Justice Department to pay him $230 million" not an abuse of power?

ICYMI, my thoughts on "the rule of law" from last week.

Mahomes' "this never **** works" play was genius.

This was clever too. #NoKings

Federalist Papers sighting. #NoKings

Hey Tom Emmer, you might need POTUS to fire missiles into downtown Minneapolis. There are scary people here wearing extremely old shirts they bought from @scottlincicome.bsky.social & Josh Jordan that say terroristy-things.

Scary looking ANTIFA-types here in Minneapolis. Saying things like "We the People," "Constitution," "1776," & "Democracy."

No legal need to say this but I will anyway: I will be posting content to this account today that represents entirely my own views & not those of any employer of mine. With that said, on with the First Amendment exercise. #NoKings

People say the rule of law is under threat. I think that’s true. But what exactly 𝑖𝑠 the “rule of law”? I argue that judicial engagement is essential for the rule of law. But more importantly I try & tease out a bit of an answer to that inherently contestable question. 1/ ij.org/cje-post/the...

Since the Alien Registration Act of 1940, every noncitizen has been required to carry their documents with them at ALL times. That applies to every green card holder, every tourist, every foreign student, etc... No admin in the modern era has EVER tried to enforce this law.

Word I propose bringing back to frequent use: "limn." Can mean to illuminate a manuscript or paint a picture, but can also be figurative. Ex: in court you might say "the picture limned by the record."

A woman “who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness.” Viva Maria Corina Machado and may Venezuela once again regain its freedom.

Amen. From Henry Oliver. substack.com/@henryoliver

Ummmm . . .

Please help me get the word out about the new websites for Legal Theory Blog and the Legal Theory Lexicon. Reposting here and on other social media sites is great. It would be especially helpful if law school faculty members could send an email to their colleagues with the new addresses.

Extraordinary statement. FWIW, it's been a few years, but I've been in and out of this courthouse hundreds of times. The most security I've ever seen there (which even then wasn't much) was the day Blago was taken in to be booked.

Next week the US will impose 25% tariffs on cabinets & sofas - for "national security." It's insane (& costly & ineffective), but, sadly, par for the course. My latest: "Trump’s New Furniture Tariffs Are (Almost) Everything Wrong with U.S. Trade Policy Today" thedispatch.com/newsletter/c...

New Prague, Minnesota.

For Trump's secret police, the claim that US citizens have no right to monitor them or record what they are doing is a tenacious and firmly held conviction... which lacks any plausible basis in actual law. It's invoke to justify the use of violence against citizens where other pretexts fail.

So this is funny. The administration just issued a rule slashing foreign agricultural worker wages. And to justify it, in a public filing, Trump's Labor Department alleges that Trump's immigration enforcement has devastated the Ag workforce and caused a "risk of supply shock-induced food shortages."

Chicago folks: I'll be speaking at this as will 2 of my @ij.org colleagues. Come join us!

Come to our FREE symposium on the power of state constitutions in Chicago, Nov. 6-7! Panels on so many rights: voting repro economic LGBTQ+ against cruel/unusual punishment Plus sessions on federalism, barriers to rights vindication, and constitutional amendments. SEE YOU THERE! 🤸🎉📚