Althouse: Randy Barnett talks about winning on the Commerce Clause, but losing the Obamacare case.

July 14, 2012

Randy Barnett talks about winning on the Commerce Clause, but losing the Obamacare case.

15 comments:

rhhardin said...: Way too long, to judge from the first ten seconds.; 7/14/12, 5:33 PM
edutcher said...: The operation was a success, but...; 7/14/12, 5:58 PM
avwh said...: I didn't realize this was the first time since the New Deal that SCOTUS found there's a limit on spending power.

Pretty fascinating stuff.; 7/14/12, 6:06 PM
Astro said...: Entertaining and fascinating. Thanks for the posting. I could listen to this guy all day.

His last comments about the strength built into the Constitution reminded me of a song I discovered on YouTube recently:
Coming In On A Wing And A Prayer; 7/14/12, 6:27 PM
Scott said...: I like Barnett's dry wit, saying that liberal justices saw a "national problems clause" in the Constitution, where Congress could do anything it wanted if there was a national problem.; 7/14/12, 6:29 PM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: The guy's damned articulate, and certainly gets the words out fast. I think if I were in a class of his, I'd need to tape-record his lectures.

One point that surprised me: Barnett says that the four liberal justices joined the Commerce Clause part of Roberts' opinion. I could've sworn they didn't, only the subsequent "saving construction" tax-power part. My impression was that neither the dissenters nor the other four in the majority joined that section (well, the dissenters didn't join anything, though surely they agreed with the Commerce Clause analysis).

It reminds me of Bakke, in that an opinion that only one Justice articulated and no one else joined ended up the law of the land (and the origin, thirty-something-years on, of a massive "diversity" industry). Or am I getting any of this wrong?; 7/14/12, 6:30 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 7/14/12, 6:37 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I'm not a lawyer but..

There is an apparent contradiction..
What is said here.. and what was posted here dont go together.

No legal academic has held that view before.. (the view that Roberts found) said Barnett.

Unless we are in a Robwellian world were there are no contradictions..; 7/14/12, 6:45 PM
MaggotAtBroad&Wall said...: That was an enjoyable interview. Thanks. I've seen the name Lysander Spooner invoked at libertarian sites like the Mises Institute and Lew Rockwell's site before, but who would imagine hearing his name dropped in an interview about Obamacare.; 7/14/12, 6:56 PM
wyo sis said...: This gives me a lot to think about. I think his last analogy about the jet is exactly right. I for one am saying many prayers that we can get some more engines fired up very soon.; 7/14/12, 8:12 PM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: Damn, and all this time I've had it in my head that Lysander Spooner was the Spooner of spoonerisms. No such luck.

At least Edmund Clerihew Bentley did in fact invent the clerihew.; 7/14/12, 9:17 PM
Unknown said...: Less than 4000 visits to this guy's website since 2003. He'll probably get more views from links to Reason than that total. He's not a blogger I suppose but more exposure of views like these can't hurt. It's too late, of course. We're doomed. But it can't hurt.; 7/14/12, 10:52 PM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: Bertram Wooster,

I've been reading Randy Barnett for years and didn't even know that he had his own site. He blogs regularly at the Volokh Conspiracy. I would guess that he's got a lot more traffic there; hell, just the comments in the last several months alone to his PPACA posts probably top that 4000.; 7/14/12, 11:32 PM
bagoh20 said...: I also found him wonderful to listen to. He speaks with a flow, that is amazingly clear, continuous and interesting. I couldn't stop listening, and I usually have a short attention span. Thanks for posting it.

He estimates that less than 1% of legal academics are like him. That is truly a devastating charge to the profession of teaching, and almost certainly true or close to it.

I love what he says about it being great to be such a minority. It must me a lot of fun to be rare, special, controversial, and uncommonly correct in that pond full of "schooling" fish.; 7/15/12, 12:14 AM
Unknown said...: Volokh. Ok I'll go have a look. I've been there a couple of times but not lately.; 7/15/12, 8:43 AM