Last week a Denver District court judge ruled to stop the Douglas County Choice Scholarship Program (voucher program). Education Policy Center director Pam Benigno spoke with Douglas County School District board president John Carson this morning on iVoices.org. Take a listen to this iVoices podcast to hear how the school district is dealing with the ruling and what their plans are for the future.
I’ve talked a number of times about how we can tackle our federal government’s spending problem. Each time the subject gets brought up, I must make mention of the Constitution’s solution to the problem. Our Constitutional scholar Rob Natelson puts it like this: the Founders envisioned a time when the problem would be Congress itself. So what to do when Congress is out of control and won’t rein in itself? Well then it’s up to the states to take control.
The next logical question is: how do the states take control? Answer: A convention for proposing amendments! The states must come together and address the issue of runaway spending by our runaway Congress. Rob has been talking about this solution for quite some time, but after a couple years of incredibly in-depth scholarship, he’s written his masterpiece for Tennessee Law Review: Proposing Constitutional Amendments By Convention: Rules Governing The Process.
Rob’s article contains the most in-depth look at our Founding era’s historical record on Article V conventions ever put down on paper. I suggest giving it a read if you’d like to become educated on this topic so riddled with fallacies and misconceptions. Additionally, check out this iVoices.org podcast Rob did this morning with my minion. It’s probably the best overview of the subject you could get in around 20 minutes time.
Even though the whole debt ceiling fiasco is on its way out, I want to point this iVoices.org podcast in your direction. Last week a new narrative emerged from the debt ceiling = default storyline. It advanced the idea that the president could raise the debt ceiling unilaterally – Congress be damned! As you might have guessed, our constitutional scholar Professor Rob Natelson had some serious constitutional issues with this narrative. It’s no accident that the president does not enjoy both the power of the “sword” and the power of the “purse” at the same time. The Founders rightfully feared a president who was both commander and chief and guardian of the nation’s checkbook. Thus, the idea that President Obama could raise the debt ceiling by himself would have angered (and frightened) the Founders. Professor Rob Natelson addressed this issue in a blogpost on constitution.i2i.org and in this iVoices.org podcast.
Exactly who is Chief Justice John Marshall? That question has special importance today. Due to a belief that Chief Justice Marshall was a progressive judicial activist, many today are using his words as ammunition in the case for our overbearing and clearly unconstitutional federal regulatory state. However, like he’s often done many times before, Professor Rob Natelson is here to set the record straight. In a recent blog post on constitution.i2i.org and this iVoices.org podcast, Rob explains why Marshall may have gotten this ill deserved reputation and also why it’s wrong. Rob explores three cases which, when taken in the context of the law and language of the time, irrefutably dispel the notion that Marshall would have ever been in favor of the vast regulatory state we have now – let alone the health control law. In fact, Rob and Dave Kopel let Marshall refute Obamacare in his own words! How’d they do that? With a little research and a dash of creativity. In this article, “Health Laws of Every Description”: John Marshall’s Ruling on a Federal Health Care Law,” Rob and Dave use Marshall’s own words to help destroy another pro-Obamacare argument.
Rob Natelson must spend his days and nights repelling the incessant, research-free, and totally weak arguments for Obamacare’s constitutionality. This latest example of poor 18th century scholarship points to a 1798 statute that allegedly shows that the original understanding of the Constitution is broad enough to authorize federal health care programs. No way says Rob. You can read Rob’s full response to this nonsense on his blog and listen to Rob on the latest podcast from iVoices.org.
Our Constitution scholar Rob Natelson’s deconstruction of the highly inaccurate Time Magazine article on the Constitution has received a ton of attention. (Thanks Instapundit)! I also wanted to point you towards a podcast Rob did on this very subject. You can find it over on iVoices.org here. In it, Rob goes into some more detail about certain illogical and inaccurate statements made in the Time Mag article. I just can’t get enough of this stuff!
A little while back I told you about the amicus brief that was filed on behalf of the Independence Institute and against the latest justification for Obamacare’s constitutionality. The brief carefully explains, with the help of 18th century law scholars like our own Rob Natelson, that the individual insurance mandate found in Obamacare is neither necessary nor proper. Now for those that who do not like reading as much as I do, let alone a scholarly amicus brief, we’ve got Rob Natelson and Dave Kopel in studio for an iVoices.org podcast discussing their brief with a minion of mine. They trace the arguments made in the past for justifying Obamacare and discuss why this latest “necessary and proper” argument fails yet again.
Let’s put another stake in Herb Fenster’s TABOR lawsuit shall we? As if there weren’t enough stakes in the heart of this silly lawsuit, we’ve got perhaps the largest, most rusty stake yet courtesy of Senior Fellow Rob Natelson. As you might remember, Vincent Carroll cited Rob many times in his Denver Post editorial on the TABOR lawsuit, but we did not get a chance to hear directly from Rob himself until his post on his blog here and then this Colorado Springs Gazette guest column, TABOR Does Not Violate the U.S. Constitution. There is no greater authority on the founding era understanding of terms, phrases, legal jargon, and our Constitution than Rob Natelson. His op-ed rips the lawsuit to pieces and leaves the reader knowing that the founders had no beef with TABOR (nor our initiative and referendum process). Additionally, Rob sat down with one of my minions to do an iVoices.org podcast on this subject. You can listen to that podcast over on iVoices.org.
My minion Justin Longo wonders whether, in the absence of our Constitution and thus our Second Amendment, how we could make a positive case for our human right of self-defense, which comes with it, our right to bear arms. In this iVoices.org podcast, Research Director Dave Kopel answers that question and provides some background in the origins of the wide consensus view that we do indeed have a human right of self-defense. Kopel also discusses how that right is extended to owning firearms, protecting our property, and protecting others who are unable to protect themselves from violence.
On Wednesday March 2nd, the Independence Institute held a panel event at the University Club in Denver to discuss the solutions presented in the Citizens’ Budget project. Presenters included project director Penn Pfiffner, Education Center policy analyst Ben DeGrow, Health Care Policy Center director Linda Gorman, and Fiscal Policy Center senior fellow Barry Poulson. Each presented for around 10 to 15 minutes, with a questions and answers period at the end of the event. All presentations, including the introduction, closing remarks, and Q & A have been recorded.
For those of you unable to make it, we’ve compiled the presentations by each speaker in individual podcasts. Feel free to download these podcasts and share them with others who might be interested.
