Put simply, constitutional originalists believe that controversial policy choices are best left to us — the people.
The first sentence of the US Constitution’s First Amendment provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion[.]” This is known as the “Establishment Clause,” and to say it has long generated controversy is an understatement. The Establishment Clause has been interpreted so that states, and all other governmental entities (not merely...
For the past three years, the conservative legal movement in America has been split by a debate over natural law. Basically, there are two schools of thought. The first, called positivism, is embodied by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who believed that judges should be bound by the text of the law as enacted by...
It was the slam heard around the world, as North Carolina’s own, Congressman Patrick McHenry of the 10th Congressional District, brought his gavel down in frustration. His friend and mentor, now-former Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California, was just ousted, as the vast majority of Republicans were unable to hold off a mutiny of eight, led...
The people of North Carolina, through the democratic electoral process, decided they believe judges should make clear interpretations of the law, not create law or policy whole-cloth by legislating from the bench. Judicial activism can end in our state’s highest court — as long as the originalists on the court stick with originalism. Starting this...
Carolina Journal recently surveyed the four candidates running for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court. Below are their answers to core questions on personal judicial philosophy. Read carefully, because the stakes are high. November's two races could shift the balance of power on the state's high court.
Overturning Roe v. Wade is the Republican party’s greatest achievement in generations. Abortion, the intentional killing of an innocent and unborn human being, is no longer recognized as a constitutional right. It took 49 years, and Chief Justice John Roberts made every effort to salvage Roe, but the five remaining conservative justices did not waiver. Conservatives can be prone...
An involuntary recusal, in the teeth of a Justice’s own judgment that recusal is not necessary, is in effect a public declaration that the Justice has engaged in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice. It is difficult to imagine a procedure better calculated to poison the deliberations of this body and its ability to...
The 2016 presidential campaign turned me into a judiciary junkie. As Democrats force fed the American public an unhealthy diet of identity politics, voters like me quietly became champions of the judicial branch. While we didn’t know how Donald Trump would govern, we did know his judicial philosophy when he wisely released his list of...
The Constitutional Convention delegates who assembled in Philadelphia in 1787 understood that preventing bad or incompetent rulers from doing too much damage was an important part of their task.
To agree with others is not a problem in any society; it is the right to disagree that is crucial. It is the institution of private property that protects and implements the right to disagree. —Ayn Rand, “What is Capitalism?” During the 2016 presidential campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump tweeted that he believed people who burned the American...
