The U.S. Constitution, especially as amended after the Civil War, was written to secure individual liberty under limited government. Drawing on the vision first set forth in the Declaration of Independence, it authorizes a federal government of delegated, enumerated, and thus limited powers, which must be exercised consistent with our natural and moral rights. Unfortunately, with the rise of Progressivism at the end of the 19th century, the Constitution has been read increasingly as authorizing largely unlimited government and the modern administrative state. Cato’s scholars are dedicated to addressing the many aspects of that problem and to restoring America’s promise of liberty under limited government.
Constitutional Law
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Reimagining the Conservative Legal Movement
Is the entire originalist/textualist project corrupt?
Supreme Court Doesn’t Need Fixing, Everything Else Does
Our independent judiciary has proven to be one of the most effective parts of our Constitution, and that was put on display over the last two months.
Supreme Court Needs to Set Clear Standards for Vote‐Denial Claims
Without a basic framework, any change in voting rules can draw a legal challenge and might be upheld one year only to be struck down the next
The Impeachment Was a Watershed Moment for Legal Blogging
Before Congress could even return to the ransacked Capitol, legal scholars were already discussing whether the Senate could try and convict an impeached official who was no longer in office.
Ilya Somin participates in the event, “Supreme Court Packing and Reforms: Proposals & Prospects,” hosted by the Committee for Justice
Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court
The brutal confirmation battles we saw over Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh are symptoms of a larger problem with our third branch of government, a problem that began long before Kavanaugh, Merrick Garland, Clarence Thomas, or even Robert Bork: the courts’ own self‐corruption, aiding and abetting the expansion of federal power.
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Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies
Cato’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies and its scholars take their inspiration from the struggle of America’s founding and Civil War generations to secure liberty through constitutionally limited government. The Center’s scholars address a wide range of constitutional and legal issues, especially by encouraging the judiciary to neither make nor ignore the law but rather to interpret and apply it through the natural rights tradition inherited from the Founders.