Hubbry Logo
Randy BarnettRandy BarnettMain
Open search
Randy Barnett
Community hub
Randy Barnett
logo
8 pages, 0 posts
0 subscribers
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Randy Barnett
Randy Barnett
Randy Barnett
View on Wikipedia
from Wikipedia

Key Information

Part of a series on
Libertarianism
in the United States
Schools
Principles
History
Issues
Intellectuals
Politicians
Commentators
Activists
Literature
Parties
Active
Defunct
Organizations
Symbols
Movements
Related

Randy Evan Barnett (born February 5, 1952) is an American legal scholar. He serves as the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University, where he teaches constitutional law and contracts, and is the director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution.

After graduating from Northwestern University and Harvard Law School, Barnett tried felony cases as a prosecutor in the Cook County State's Attorney's Office in Chicago. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Constitutional Studies and the Bradley Prize, Barnett has been a visiting professor at Penn, Northwestern and Harvard Law School.

In 2004, Barnett argued the medical marijuana case of Gonzalez v. Raich before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2012, he was one of the lawyers representing the National Federation of Independent Business in its constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act in NFIB v. Sebelius. He blogs on the Volokh Conspiracy.

Life and career

[edit]

Barnett was born on February 5, 1952, in Chicago, Illinois, to a Jewish family. He was raised in Calumet City, Illinois, while attending synagogue in Hammond, Indiana, where he was president of the local Aleph Zadik Aleph (AZA) chapter and received his bar-mitzvah. After high school, Barnett was educated at Northwestern University, graduating in 1974 with a B.A. in philosophy. As an undergraduate, he was mentored by professor Henry Veatch in addition to being influenced by Murray Rothbard and the works of Ayn Rand.[1]

After graduation, Barnett enrolled in Harvard Law School, receiving a J.D. in 1977. Barnett then returned to Chicago and worked as an Illinois state prosecutor for Cook County, Illinois.[1]

Barnett spent the 1981–82 academic year as a research fellow at the University of Chicago Law School, then, in the fall of 1982, began his academic career as an assistant professor of law at the Chicago-Kent College of Law. In 1993, Barnett was hired as a professor of law at the Boston University School of Law. In 2006, Barnett left Boston and began teaching at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he currently remains.

Jurisprudence

[edit]

In The Structure of Liberty, Barnett offers a libertarian theory of law and politics. Barnett calls his theory "the liberal conception of justice" and emphasizes the relationship between legal libertarianism and classical liberalism. He argues private adjudication and enforcement of law, with market forces eliminating inefficiencies and inequities, to be the only legal system that can provide adequate solutions to the problems of interest, power, and knowledge.

He discusses theories of constitutional legitimacy and methods of constitutional interpretation in Restoring the Lost Constitution.

There have been several criticisms and reviews of his theory, including Stephan Kinsella,[2] Richard Epstein,[3] David N. Mayer,[4] Lawrence B. Solum,[5] and John K. Palchak and Stanley T. Leung.[6]

Supreme Court cases

[edit]

Barnett was also lead lawyer for the plaintiffs in Ashcroft v. Raich (later Gonzales v. Raich), which he won before the Ninth Circuit, which ruled that federal action against legal marijuana patients violated the Commerce Clause. Barnett's side, however, lost on appeal at the Supreme Court, which ruled that Congress had the power to enforce federal marijuana prohibition in states that had legalized medical marijuana. He was also involved in the famous Affordable Care Act case National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius.[7][8]

Constitutional theory

[edit]

Barnett has also done work on the theory of the United States Constitution, culminating in his books Restoring the Lost Constitution and Our Republican Constitution. He argues for an originalist theory of constitutional interpretation and for constitutional construction based on a presumption of liberty, not popular sovereignty.

Barnett also focuses on the history and original meaning of the Second and Ninth Amendments to the United States Constitution. He has advanced the Standard Model interpretation that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to bear arms, subject to federal regulation under Congress's power to organize the militia in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.

Ninth Amendment

[edit]

Barnett is a proponent of the view that the Ninth Amendment's rights "retained by the people" should be vigorously enforced by the federal judiciary. In a 2006 article, Barnett wrote:[9]

The purpose of the Ninth Amendment was to ensure that all [enumerated and unenumerated] individual natural rights had the same stature and force after some of them were enumerated as they had before; and its existence argued against a latitudinarian interpretation of federal powers.

Regarding what stature and force natural rights had before some of them were enumerated, Barnett says that federal courts did not have authority to enforce such rights against the states. He wrote in the same 2006 article:

It was only with passage of the Fourteenth Amendment ... that the federal government obtained any jurisdiction to protect the unenumerated retained natural rights of the people from infringement by state governments.

A related issue is whether the original unamended Constitution gave federal courts authority to enforce unenumerated natural rights against congressional regulation of the federal district. Barnett has indicated that federal courts had such authority and that enumerated rights "had the same stature and force" in the district even before they were enumerated. He has indicated that the case of Bolling v. Sharpe (dealing with integration of public schools in the District of Columbia) is hard to justify textually from the Constitution, and if it were to be overturned, Congress would create more laws desegregating the district, which would be justified in his view of the Constitution.[10]

The question of what constitutional rights citizens possessed in the federal district has ramifications for the meaning of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In 2003, Barnett wrote:[11]

Just as the Fourteenth Amendment extended protection of the enumerated rights of the first eight amendments to violations by state governments, so too did it extend federal protection of the pre-existing unenumerated rights "retained by the people."

If no such federal constitutional protection of unenumerated rights existed in the federal district prior to the Fourteenth Amendment, only enumerated rights may have been extended by it.

Fourteenth Amendment

[edit]

With Evan Bernick, Barnett reviews the history and sources of the Fourteenth Amendment as well as its misunderstanding and legal misuse in the Belknap Press title The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment: Its Letter and Spirit. Barnett's reading of Lysander Spooner was instrumental in changing his constitutional theory.[12][13]

In February 2025, Barnett co-authored an op-ed in the New York Times with Ilan Wurman where they argue that there is no right to birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants under the Fourteenth Amendment. They wrote the op-ed in defense of an executive order by President Donald Trump. Other legal scholars challenged the op-ed.[14] Jed Shugerman wrote that Barnett and Wurman offered very thin evidence for their interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment; he asserted no evidence from the period of ratification was cited.[15] Indeed the only two pieces of evidence to which they could point, he asserted actually contradicted their argument.[15] Ilya Somin also criticized the lack of evidence, while adding that if Barnett and Wurman's interpretation was correct, it would undermine the central purpose of the Citizenship Clause.[16]

Repeal Amendment

[edit]
Barnett speaking at the 2013 FreedomFest in Las Vegas, Nevada

Barnett has proposed a Repeal Amendment to the United States Constitution, which would give two thirds of the states the power to repeal any federal law or regulation.[17] According to Barnett, the proposed amendment "provides a targeted way to reverse particular congressional acts and administrative regulations without relying on federal judges or permanently amending the text of the Constitution to correct a specific abuse."[17] He described the intent of the amendment as follows:

The Repeal Amendment alone will not cure all the current problems with federal power. Getting two-thirds of state legislatures to agree on overturning a federal law will not be easy and will only happen if a law is highly unpopular.

Perhaps its most important effect will be deterring even further expansions of federal power. Suppose, for example, that Congress decides to nationalize private pension investments. Just as it must now contemplate a presidential veto, so too would Congress need to anticipate how states will react.

The Repeal Amendment would help restore the ability of states to protect the powers 'reserved to the states' noted in the 10th Amendment. And it would provide citizens another political avenue to protect the 'rights ... retained by the people' to which the Ninth Amendment refers. In short, the amendment provides a new political check on the threat to American liberties posed by a runaway federal government. And checking abuses of power is what the written Constitution is all about."[17]

Barnett's proposal has received interest from many politicians and academics, even those who do not share his libertarian beliefs. "[A] number of congressional Republicans, including soon-to-be House Majority Leader Eric Cantor" have endorsed the proposal,[18] as has Attorney General of Virginia Ken Cuccinelli.[19] Republican Congressman Rob Bishop of Utah introduced the amendment in the House of Representatives.[20] University of Texas Law Professor Sanford Levinson has said that the Repeal Amendment "ha[s] the merit of recognizing that structures matter.".[21]

Bill of Federalism

[edit]
Bill of Federalism
CreatedMay 13, 2009
AuthorRandy Barnett
Purpose"To restore a proper balance between the powers of Congress and those of the several States, and to prevent the denial or disparagement of the rights retained by the people"[22]

The Bill of Federalism is a list of ten proposed amendments to the United States Constitution by Barnett. It would enshrine in the Constitution certain ideas based on states' rights and free market libertarianism. Barnett drafted the bill in response to the Tea Party movement's emphasis on limiting federal powers. The present draft of the document was published on May 13, 2009 and incorporated much of the feedback that Barnett had received in response to the previous draft. The document is an expansion of an earlier 'Federalist Amendment' that Barnett composed as part of an article he wrote in the Wall Street Journal.[23]

Barnett advocates for the states to call for a Constitutional Convention in which they would propose the amendments comprising the bill. Alternatively, the United States Congress could propose the amendments to the states, as they have done every time a Convention to propose amendments has been called for.

The amendments, summarized by number below, would:

  1. Disallow federal income taxes (repeal Sixteenth Amendment), as well as gift, estate, and consumption taxes; allow FairTax; require a three-fifths supermajority to raise or set new taxes
  2. Set limits on the Interstate Commerce Clause
  3. Disallow unfunded mandates and conditions on funding.
  4. Close a constitutional loophole that allows treaties to override established limits on power
  5. Extend free speech consideration to campaign contributions and to cover any medium of communication (including the Internet)
  6. Allow a resolution of three fourths of the states to rescind any federal law or regulation.
  7. Establish term limits for Senators and Representatives.
  8. Provide the President with a line-item veto to balance the budget on any year in which it is unbalanced.
  9. Reinforce the Ninth Amendment by specifying additional rights and by providing a process for any person to prove the existence of an unenumerated right.
  10. Restrict judicial activism by mandating an originalist method of interpretation.

The Bill of Federalism Project has been incorporated as a nonprofit agency in the State of Tennessee.[24]

Personal life

[edit]

Barnett is married to Beth Barnett. Their son, Gary Barnett, attended the Georgetown University Law Center and now works as a prosecuting attorney in Brooklyn, New York. Their daughter, Laura Barnett, lives in Washington, D.C., and works for the Institute for Humane Studies.

Bibliography

[edit]

References

[edit]
[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Randy Barnett

View on Grokipedia
from Grokipedia

Randy E. Barnett is an American legal specializing in and libertarian theory, serving as the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at and director of its Center for the Constitution. Educated at and , Barnett began his career as a in the Cook County State's Attorney’s Office in , where he tried cases before transitioning to academia. He has held visiting professorships at institutions including the , , and , and is recognized for his rigorous defense of constitutional grounded in the original public meaning of the text, which prioritizes individual rights and constraints on federal power. Barnett's scholarly contributions include authoring over a dozen books, such as Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty (2004), which argues for reviving presumptions of liberty inherent in the document's structure, and Our Republican Constitution: Securing the Liberty and Sovereignty of We the People (2016), critiquing in favor of through original meaning. He has argued landmark cases before the U.S. , including Gonzales v. Raich (2005), challenging federal authority over intrastate medical marijuana under the , and served as co-counsel for the in the litigation (NFIB v. Sebelius, 2012). His work has earned awards including a in Constitutional Studies and the Bradley Prize.

Early Life and Education

Childhood and Upbringing

Randy Evan Barnett was born on February 5, 1952, in , , and raised in the adjacent working-class suburb of Calumet City. His parents operated small businesses, immersing him from an early age in the tangible burdens of and interactions that often hindered entrepreneurial efforts. This environment fostered an initial awareness of how state interventions could impede individual initiative and economic self-reliance. Growing up during the era, Barnett encountered widespread draft resistance and anti-war protests, which contributed to his budding distrust of centralized authority and coercive policies imposed without sufficient consent. Personal experiences with bureaucratic inefficiencies, such as permitting delays and tax impositions affecting family ventures, reinforced observations of government's tendency toward overreach rather than facilitation of voluntary exchange. These formative encounters instilled a pragmatic wariness of unchecked power structures. In his teenage years, Barnett's intellectual curiosity turned toward ideas of individual liberty, sparked by encounters with libertarian literature, including the works of , whose emphasis on rational self-interest and opposition to collectivism resonated amid the era's social upheavals. This reading, combined with youthful jobs like driving an , highlighted contrasts between free-market interactions and state-mandated constraints, laying groundwork for his later philosophical commitments without formal academic pursuit at that stage.

Academic Training and Influences

Barnett earned a degree in from in 1974. His undergraduate studies emphasized analytical , providing a foundation in logical reasoning and toward unsubstantiated authority that later informed his legal theories. He subsequently obtained a from in 1977. At Harvard, constitutional scholarship largely adhered to living constitutionalism, which rationalized broad expansions of federal power originating in the [New Deal](/page/New Deal) era by prioritizing evolving societal values over fixed textual constraints. Barnett's training exposed him to alternative frameworks, including natural rights doctrines and nascent originalist critiques that stressed fidelity to the Constitution's original public meaning, prompting a shift from initial governmental to a structured defense of limited authority grounded in historical and textual evidence. This academic milieu cultivated his preference for rigorous, evidence-based interpretation over pragmatic judicial adaptations aligned with progressive expansions of state power.

Professional Career

Prosecutorial Work

From 1978 to 1981, Randy Barnett served as an assistant prosecutor in the Cook County State's Attorney's Office in , trying numerous cases in the circuit courts. In this capacity, he managed prosecutions involving serious offenses, gaining practical insight into the day-to-day administration of , including investigative reviews, witness preparation, and courtroom advocacy. Barnett's experience underscored the expansive discretion afforded to prosecutors in charging decisions, plea bargaining, and sentencing recommendations, which could result in significant variations in outcomes for similar offenses. He encountered high caseload pressures typical of urban prosecutorial offices, where the volume of felonies—exacerbated by rising crime rates in during the late 1970s—often led to resolutions via negotiated pleas rather than trials, with over 90% of cases in Cook County felonies resolving pretrial by the era's standards. These observations highlighted systemic inefficiencies, such as resource strains and the potential for coercive leverage in pleas, contributing to of over-reliance on incarceration amid national imprisonment rates climbing from approximately 200 per 100,000 in 1978 to higher levels by the early . In select cases, Barnett pursued restitution to victims as a component of resolutions, prioritizing compensation over punitive measures alone, which revealed practical limitations in the prevailing retributive model when addressing harms akin to private wrongs. This hands-on work exposed flaws in applying uniform criminal sanctions to diverse offenses, informing recognition of opportunities for liberty-preserving alternatives to blunt state overreach in enforcement.

Academic Roles and Institutions

Randy Barnett held faculty positions at the School of Law and before joining in 2006 as the Patrick Hotung Professor of , where he teaches courses in constitutional law and contracts. At Georgetown, Barnett serves as Faculty Director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, an institution led by him and co-director Stephanie Barclay that sponsors lectures, colloquia, conferences, and fellowships focused on originalist constitutional scholarship. In recognition of his contributions to constitutional studies, Barnett received a in 2008. He has also held visiting professorships at the , , and , extending his influence across elite legal institutions. Barnett's academic roles have positioned him to mentor students and promote originalist jurisprudence through active involvement with the , an organization he credits with fostering open debate on conservative and libertarian legal ideas amid the progressive tilt prevalent in mainstream legal academia. His efforts have helped cultivate a generation of lawyers and scholars challenging dominant living constitutionalism paradigms with rigorous, history-based interpretation.

Philosophical Foundations

Natural Rights Theory

Barnett conceives natural rights as a political framework derived from the observable necessities of and in society, rather than from abstract moral imperatives or egalitarian postulates. Employing a "given-if-then" reasoning structure, he argues that, given the empirical reality of scarce resources and individual agency, if societies aim to maximize human flourishing—understood as the pursuit of happiness through productive exchange—then individuals must presumptively possess liberties to acquire, use, and transfer resources without interference, subject only to restitution for harms caused to others. This approach prioritizes causal mechanisms observable in , such as voluntary coordination yielding greater and than centralized directives, over ideologically driven redistribution that disrupts incentives and leads to empirically documented inefficiencies and conflicts. Central to Barnett's theory are presumptive liberties—negative rights entailing freedom from coercion unless justified by the need to prevent aggression or enforce restitution—which emerge from consent-based social practices rather than state-granted positives. In works like The Structure of Liberty (1998), he posits that these form the baseline for legitimate , where individuals retain over their persons and possessions unless they voluntarily alienate them in contracts or submit to rules for mutual benefit. Historical traditions, for instance, empirically constrained by recognizing and property as preconditions for peaceful association, evidenced in practices like and remedies that predated and limited monarchical expansions. This consent-oriented foundation rejects rights as inventions of , insisting instead on their role in channeling human action toward coordination without presupposing unattainable equality of outcomes. Barnett integrates Lockean emphasis on as an extension of —rooted in labor-mixing with unowned resources under conditions of sufficiency for others—with Hayekian insights into decentralized knowledge generation, arguing that natural rights facilitate the "" of extended order by protecting trial-and-error processes against top-down impositions. Unlike redistributive norms in modern , which he critiques for ignoring causal evidence of disincentivizing production and fostering dependency—as seen in welfare expansions correlating with stagnation in affected economies—these rights empirically constrain expansive authority by requiring justifications for any deviation from liberty's default. Thus, natural rights theory, for Barnett, serves as a bulwark against policies that prioritize abstract justice over the concrete dynamics of human interdependence.

Libertarian Constitutionalism

Barnett's libertarian constitutionalism frames the U.S. Constitution as a consent-based instrument legitimized by its alignment with natural rights and , designed to constrain government to functions that secure rather than redistribute or paternalize. This rejects to legislative preferences, insisting instead on to the document's original meaning as ratified, where federal powers were enumerated to prevent the sort of centralized authority criticized by Anti-Federalists during the 1787–1788 debates. Central to this approach is the presumption of liberty, which requires courts to invalidate laws presumptively unless the government proves they advance a genuine public good—defined as widespread and nondiscriminatory benefits—without excessive infringement on retained rights, thereby restoring clauses like the Necessary and Proper Clause to their limiting role. Unlike the prevailing presumption of constitutionality that emerged post-1937, enabling unchecked expansions, Barnett's model enforces rigorous justification, drawing from founding-era understandings that prioritized individual autonomy over collective ends. Barnett contrasts this with progressive constitutionalism's adaptation of the document into a welfare-state enabler, where assurances of limited, delegated powers—evident in assurances against implied expansions—were supplanted by interpretations validating regulatory overreach as serving evolving social goods. He argues such shifts undermine the Constitution's republican , as the original framework tolerated only within strict bounds to protect against factional tyranny, not to facilitate open-ended redistribution. Within this liberty-enforcing structure, Barnett extends principles to , favoring restitution—compelling offenders to compensate victims directly—over retributive punishment, which he views as inefficient and rights-violating. Empirical studies support this, showing initiatives incorporating restitution achieve small but significant reductions in general compared to traditional retributive incarceration, with meta-analyses reporting effect sizes indicating lower reoffending rates. This aligns constitutional limits with causal efficiencies, minimizing state coercion while maximizing victim recovery and societal deterrence.

Originalist Jurisprudence

Critique of Living Constitutionalism

Barnett contends that living constitutionalism, by positing that the Constitution's meaning evolves with societal values and circumstances, undermines judicial fidelity to the document's fixed public meaning at , allowing judges to substitute preferences for textual constraints. This approach, he argues, facilitates that erodes the , particularly through deference to legislative expansions of authority post-1937, when the Supreme Court upheld measures following the court-packing threat, marking a departure from pre- limits on federal economic regulation. Such rulings, including the 1942 decision in Wickard v. Filburn extending the to aggregate intrastate activities, exemplified how non-originalist adaptation justified unchecked federal growth, enabling the administrative state's proliferation by blurring lines between legislative, executive, and judicial functions. Empirically, Barnett links living constitutionalism's permissive framework to tangible erosions of liberty, including the exponential rise in federal regulatory burdens—from under 3,000 pages in the Federal Register in 1936 to over 80,000 annually by the —and increased litigation over vague, evolving standards that invite judicial policymaking rather than enforcement of enumerated limits. This causal chain traces to precedents prioritizing "evolving standards of decency" over original constraints, fostering an administrative apparatus that imposes trillions in annual compliance costs while diminishing state sovereignty and individual rights protections embedded in the Constitution's structure. Critics of often decry it as rigid, yet Barnett counters that living constitutionalism's indeterminacy invites subjective judicial overrides of democratic processes without textual warrant, as seen in expansive interpretations deferring to agency rulemaking unbound by Article I's legislative vesting. In contrast, Barnett defends originalism as a truth-seeking methodology that restores the Constitution's anti-majoritarian checks—such as enumerated powers and federalism—by anchoring interpretation to verifiable historical practices, thereby curbing the administrative overreach that living constitutionalism sustains through adaptive rationales. This fidelity to original public meaning, he maintains, prevents the causal drift toward centralized power observed since the 1937 constitutional pivot, where courts abandoned presumptions against overbroad federal enactments in favor of deference that perpetuated liberty contractions.

Judicial Restraint and Presumption of Liberty

Barnett proposes a presumption of liberty as a rule of constitutional construction to enforce the original meaning of the Constitution's limits on government power. Under this approach, when the text's meaning is indeterminate, courts interpret provisions in the manner that presumes retained rights of the people unless the government demonstrates that a restriction is both necessary and proper to achieve a legitimate end within enumerated powers. This extends the protective presumption applied to freedoms like speech under the First Amendment to all background rights protected by the Ninth Amendment and the structure of limited government. This framework represents a paradigm shift from the post-New Deal deference to legislative enactments, where courts traditionally presumed statutes constitutional and placed the burden on challengers to prove otherwise. Barnett argues that such deference undermines the Constitution's design as a law of enumerated powers, effectively inverting the Framers' intent by treating liberty as the exception rather than the rule. Instead, the presumption reverses this dynamic, requiring the government to bear the evidentiary burden of justification using objective historical evidence, rather than subjective judicial balancing of policy interests. In applying the presumption to the , Barnett contends that courts must assess whether a federal was understood at —based on contemporaneous evidence like and convention debates—to fall within Congress's authority over interstate commerce, such as and , excluding intrastate activities like or absent clear textual warrant. This method prioritizes verifiable grounded in ratification-era practices over modern rational-basis review, which often upholds expansions of federal power by deferring to legislative findings without rigorous historical scrutiny. Barnett's advocacy for this liberty-default approach has influenced originalist scholarship and judicial discourse, fostering a view of restraint that actively polices federal overreach rather than passively yielding to majoritarian outputs. Critics from progressive perspectives decry it as enabling regulatory "loopholes," but Barnett maintains it restores fidelity to the Constitution's liberty-preserving structure, as evidenced by its alignment with enumerated-powers skepticism in contemporary .

Constitutional Interpretations

Ninth Amendment and Unenumerated Rights

Barnett maintains that the Ninth Amendment protects unenumerated natural rights retained by the people, serving as a textual declaration that federal power is limited not only by enumerated powers and rights but also by preexisting liberties too numerous to list exhaustively. According to his originalist interpretation, the Amendment's clause—"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people"—establishes a presumption of liberty, requiring the government to justify any infringement on unenumerated rights rather than presuming validity for its actions. This view aligns with the natural rights paradigm at ratification, where rights were understood as antecedent to government authority, enforceable through the Constitution's original public meaning without needing explicit enumeration. The Amendment's adoption addressed specific historical concerns raised by Anti-Federalists during the ratification debates, who feared that specifying certain rights in a could imply those were the sole protections against federal overreach, potentially disparaging retained liberties. proposed the Ninth to mitigate this risk, drawing on precedents in state constitutions and declarations of rights; for instance, the Declaration of Rights of affirmed that "the have a right to... all other privileges and immunities... which are not... denied... or disparaged" in the . Similarly, Virginia's 1776 Declaration preserved rights not expressly relinquished, reflecting empirical practices in at least seven pre-1787 state instruments that safeguarded unenumerated privileges against legislative encroachment. Barnett's examination of thirteen historical sources, including assurances and Madison's notes, supports this as evidence of an individual natural rights model over alternatives like state-law incorporation, which he deems inconsistent with the text's federalist focus on retained . Barnett challenges longstanding dismissals of the Ninth Amendment as non-justiciable, particularly Robert Bork's characterization of it as an "inkblot" obscuring unknowable content and thus unworthy of judicial enforcement. He contends this portrayal is ahistorical, ignoring the Amendment's deliberate wording and ratification-era intent to constrain national authority by affirming a "sea of individual rights" surrounding limited "islands of government powers," thereby preventing federal supremacy from normalizing encroachments on unenumerated liberties. Through works like his article "Reconceiving the Ninth Amendment" and subsequent scholarship, Barnett has contributed to an originalist revival since the 1980s, shifting debate from evasion to substantive analysis and underscoring the Amendment's role in upholding causal limits on legislative discretion rooted in retained rights.

Fourteenth Amendment's Original Meaning

In The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment: Its Letter and Spirit (2021), co-authored with Evan D. Bernick, Randy Barnett argues that the amendment's core provisions—particularly the —were designed to nationalize protections for fundamental civil rights against state infringement, drawing on antebellum understandings of and . The , Barnett contends, incorporates the retained by the people under the Ninth Amendment, making them enforceable federally following the , which the amendment aimed to constitutionalize. This interpretation rests on primary sources from the 39th (1866–1867) and ratification debates (1866–1868), including speeches by Representative , who drafted key language, emphasizing "privileges or immunities" as encompassing natural rights like those articulated in Corfield v. Coryell (1823), such as the right to pursue lawful callings and personal security. Barnett rejects the Supreme Court's narrow construction in the Slaughter-House Cases (1873), which confined the clause to a limited set of national citizenship rights, as a departure from this original intent, unsupported by the historical record and influenced by post-Reconstruction political pressures to curtail federal oversight of states. Evidence from dissenting opinions, such as Justice Bradley's 1871 letter and his Slaughter-House dissent, aligns with broader framers' views that the clause protected economic liberties and common-law rights against arbitrary state laws, rather than merely formal citizenship attributes. Barnett supports this with congressional records showing Republican framers' intent to override Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) by securing republican citizenship and vetoing state "Black Codes" that abridged freedoms, thereby reviving Ninth Amendment presumptions of retained rights on a national scale. The , in Barnett's analysis, complements this by mandating substantive review of state enactments for rationality and fidelity to rights-protecting ends, while the imposes affirmative obligations on states to safeguard citizens' liberties equally, prioritizing individual autonomy over redistributive or collective impositions. This framework, grounded in abolitionist constitutionalism's debates against slave-power defenses of state sovereignty, counters egalitarian reinterpretations that subordinate personal rights to majoritarian policy, instead enforcing a of liberty derived from the amendment's text and 1866–1868 context. Historical primary sources, including Bingham's revisions to equate privileges with pre-existing constitutional guarantees, underscore that the amendment elevated individual rights as trumps against state majorities, not vehicles for expansive welfare mandates.

Commerce Clause Limitations

Barnett maintains that the original public meaning of the , as ratified in 1788, limits congressional authority to regulating the "trade and exchange" of goods, including their transportation across state lines, but excludes , , or other productive activities that do not inherently involve such exchange. This interpretation aligns with founding-era dictionaries, including Samuel Johnson's 1785 definition of commerce as "intercourse; exchange of one thing for another; trade; traffick," and Webster's as "an exchange of goods," as well as consistent usage in —where commerce is repeatedly distinguished from and manufactures—and in ratification debates across states like (19 references) and (74 references), all denoting narrow trade-focused powers. The clause's framers and ratifiers understood "to regulate " as prescribing rules to facilitate or standardize interstate exchanges, such as removing discriminatory tariffs or barriers, rather than granting plenary control over economic activities with indirect effects. Evidence from the Constitutional Convention records 34 instances of "" limited to , Madison's proposal to promote "agriculture, , trades and manufactures" as distinct categories, and Hamilton's No. 11 emphasizing as "unrestrained intercourse between the States" to advance mutual , underscoring the federalist intent to preserve state over local production while addressing interstate frictions. Barnett criticizes (1942) as a pivotal departure from this original meaning, where the Court invoked the "aggregation principle" to sustain regulation of a farmer's home-consumed based on its hypothetical aggregate impact on interstate markets, effectively erasing the commerce-production distinction and enabling boundless federal incursions into intrastate affairs. This shift, he argues, inverted the clause's purpose—from preventing state parochialism to empowering national overreach—and laid the groundwork for the administrative state's expansion, where doctrines like substantial effects justify regulating virtually any activity under the guise of interstate influence, thereby diluting enumerated limits and state autonomy. To restore constitutional bounds, Barnett proposes confining Commerce Clause power to activities with direct interstate effects, such as cross-border transactions, excluding purely local endeavors even if scalable nationwide, which would reinvigorate by reserving intrastate regulation—including , production quotas, and local markets—to the states as originally intended.

Reform Proposals

Repeal Amendment

Barnett proposed the as a constitutional mechanism to empower state legislatures to override specific federal laws or regulations, thereby checking the expansion of the without relying on judicial intervention. The amendment's text states: "Any provision of law or regulation of the may be repealed by the several states, and such repeal shall be effective when the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states approve resolutions for this purpose that particularly describe the same provision or provisions of law or regulation to be repealed." Under this framework, resolutions from 34 state legislatures would suffice to nullify targeted federal enactments, with retaining the ability to reenact the same provision via simple majority vote, creating a iterative check akin to a legislative . This proposal directly confronts the erosion of the non-delegation doctrine, where has delegated extensive authority to administrative agencies since the 1930s, leading to an explosion in federal regulations—exceeding 185,000 pages in the by 2010—often insulated from direct legislative oversight. Barnett argues that judicial deference, such as under Chevron doctrine, has failed to constrain this delegation, allowing agencies to exercise discretionary power beyond original constitutional limits. By shifting repeal power to states, the restores accountability to elected representatives at the state level, whose collective body—thousands of legislators—better reflects dispersed knowledge and local interests than the 535 members of , deterring frivolous repeals through the high threshold while enabling reversal of bureaucratic overreach, as seen in expansions like IRS under major legislation. Grounded in the original constitutional design, the Repeal Amendment revives states as co-sovereigns checking federal authority, paralleling pre-17th Amendment practices where state legislatures selected senators to enforce state interests. Barnett contends this addresses post-1913 shifts, including the 16th and 17th Amendments, which centralized fiscal and representational power, contributing to unchecked federal growth without equivalent structural restraints. Empirically, it counters the regulatory state's insulation from electoral consequences, where agency rules evade the and presentment required for statutes, potentially forcing to draft more precise delegations or face state nullification. Critics, including some constitutional scholars, have raised concerns over potential instability or favoritism toward state majorities, but Barnett maintains the mechanism's policy-neutral application—targeting any federal provision—aligns with 's causal role in limiting centralized abuse.

Bill of Federalism

The Bill of Federalism is a set of ten proposed constitutional amendments drafted by Randy E. Barnett in 2009 to restore the original federal-state balance eroded since the Progressive Era through judicial and legislative expansions of national authority, such as broad interpretations of the . These amendments aim to devolve regulatory and fiscal powers back to states, enabling localized experimentation and competition that historically fostered policy innovations and rights protections unattainable under uniform federal mandates. By constraining federal overreach, the proposal counters the of centralized policymaking, where diffused national costs incentivize expansive interventions disconnected from local accountability, as evidenced by post-New Deal growth in federal spending from 7% of GDP in 1930 to over 20% by 2009. Central to the Bill are provisions devolving powers enumerated in Article I, Section 8, by limiting Congress's commerce authority to genuine interstate activities, excluding intrastate production or emissions absent wartime exigencies, thereby reversing precedents like Wickard v. Filburn (1942) that enabled regulation of local agriculture. Amendment Three prohibits unfunded mandates and conditional spending that infringe state sovereignty, such as highway funds tied to speed limits, drawing from Federalist debates where Madison warned against federal inducements coercing state compliance beyond enumerated powers. Similarly, Amendment Four curbs treaty powers to prevent circumvention of domestic limits, ensuring international agreements do not expand legislative reach into state matters, consistent with original understandings that treaties bind only external conduct. Nullification mechanisms feature in Amendment Six, allowing three-quarters of states to nullify federal laws or regulations exceeding constitutional bounds, providing a structural check akin to the Senate's original state-equal representation and echoing Anti-Federalist calls for state vetoes to prevent tyranny, as in the Ratifying Convention of 1788. Spending limits appear in Amendment Eight, mandating balanced budgets with presidential authority for deficits, and Amendment One, which caps tax hikes at three-fifths approval and phases out income taxes in favor of uniform sales taxes, reducing federal revenue dependency that ballooned from $4 billion in to trillions annually by 2009. These measures mitigate by aligning fiscal incentives with state-level accountability, where from interstate tax competition shows lower burdens correlating with higher growth rates, as states like outperformed high-tax counterparts in GDP expansion from 2000-2008. Historically, federalism's yielded successes such as state-level abolitionist laws preceding national and varied regimes spurring 19th-century economic diversification, outcomes undermined by centralized uniformity that stifles . Barnett's framework, invocable via Article V conventions applied individually per amendment, prioritizes ratification by three-fourths of states to ensure broad consensus against elite-driven centralization.

Supreme Court Advocacy

Gonzales v. Raich (2005)

Randy E. Barnett argued on behalf of respondents Angel Raich and Diane Monson in Gonzales v. Raich before the on November 29, 2004. The case examined whether the federal of 1970 exceeded Congress's authority by prohibiting the intrastate cultivation and non-commercial use of medical marijuana, which was authorized for seriously ill patients under California's Compassionate Use Act of 1996. Barnett contended that such activity constituted a distinct "class of activity" that was wholly intrastate, non-economic, and isolated from any interstate market by state enforcement mechanisms, including patient identification cards. Barnett distinguished the case from Wickard v. Filburn (1942), emphasizing that Wickard involved commercial wheat production within a comprehensive federal regulatory scheme for an interstate market, whereas Raich and Monson's homegrown plants for personal medicinal use reduced demand on illicit markets without aggregate economic effects justifying federal intrusion. Drawing on United States v. Lopez (1995) and United States v. Morrison (2000), he advocated limits on Commerce Clause power to economic activities substantially related to interstate commerce, proposing that federal regulation here was not essential to the broader Controlled Substances Act and violated originalist constraints on enumerated powers by eroding state sovereignty over local matters. On June 6, 2005, the ruled 6-3 against the respondents, with Justice Stevens's majority opinion applying Wickard's aggregation principle to deem homegrown marijuana's potential effects on interstate markets sufficient for federal regulation, despite its non-commercial nature. Justice Thomas dissented, arguing the decision nullified textual limits on congressional power and original understandings of "commerce" as mercantile exchange. In post-decision analysis, Barnett critiqued the ruling for enabling unchecked federal overreach, criminalizing state-legal medical use relied upon by patients in ten states, and dashing federalism's restorative potential, thereby harming individual liberty and state experimentation without advancing . His efforts underscored originalist challenges to expansive doctrine, fostering subsequent scholarly scrutiny of the substantial effects test.

District of Columbia v. Heller (2008)

Randy Barnett served as counsel on the amicus curiae brief filed by Academics for the Second Amendment in District of Columbia v. Heller, supporting Dick Heller's challenge to the District's handgun ban and functional firearm prohibition. The brief, co-authored by Barnett and other scholars including Joseph Olson and Glenn Harlan Reynolds, contended that the Second Amendment's operative clause—"the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed"—protected an individual right unconnected to militia service, drawing on originalist textualism to counter prevailing collectivist interpretations that limited the right to organized militia contexts. Barnett's arguments emphasized founding-era historical practices of arms-bearing for personal self-defense, citing evidence such as colonial laws requiring households to maintain arms for individual protection and state constitutional provisions predating the Second Amendment that explicitly recognized self-defense as a core purpose of the right. This empirical foundation debunked the militia-only view by demonstrating widespread civilian possession and carry of firearms for private confrontations, as reflected in 18th-century dictionaries defining "bear arms" to encompass non-military self-defense usages alongside martial ones. Justice Antonin Scalia's majority opinion aligned closely with this paradigm, rejecting the dissent's operative-prefatory clause conflation and affirming the Amendment's protection of law-abiding citizens' right to possess operable handguns in the home for self-defense. The 5-4 decision marked a pivotal restoration of the Second Amendment as an enforceable enumerated right against federal overreach, invalidating the District's near-total ban on ownership and its requirement to render shotguns and rifles inoperable. This ruling laid groundwork for subsequent cases extending protections, including McDonald v. Chicago (2010) for incorporation via the Fourteenth Amendment and public-carry challenges resolved in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022), where historical analogues from the founding and Reconstruction eras supplanted means-end scrutiny in favor of original public meaning analysis.

NFIB v. Sebelius (2012)

Randy Barnett contributed significantly to the constitutional challenge against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) in NFIB v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. 519 (2012), by developing and popularizing originalist arguments that the exceeded Congress's enumerated powers under the . He contended that the mandate improperly regulated inactivity—failure to purchase —rather than voluntary economic activity, marking an unprecedented expansion of federal authority beyond regulating existing . This activity/inactivity distinction, rooted in the original meaning of the as limited to interstate exchanges, was rejected by lower courts but ultimately persuaded five justices, including Chief Justice Roberts, who held that Congress cannot compel individuals to become active in under that power. Barnett's scholarship emphasized that upholding the mandate under the Commerce or Necessary and Proper Clauses would erode the constitutional presumption of liberty by allowing Congress to regulate any decision with aggregate economic effects, effectively creating a general police power absent from the enumerated powers. He argued this violated first principles of limited federal authority, as the Framers intended the Clause to prevent state trade barriers, not to mandate participation in markets. Although the Court upheld the mandate as a constitutional tax, its rejection of the commerce-based justification preserved doctrinal limits, validating Barnett's critique that progressive mandates overlook causal constraints on federal coercion. In parallel, Barnett supported arguments against the ACA's expansion as coercive of states, exceeding Congress's Spending authority by threatening to withhold all existing funds for non-compliance. The Court agreed in a 7-2 ruling, invalidating the expansion's coercive terms as violating principles of and state sovereignty, a partial victory that reinforced anti- doctrines from earlier cases like . This outcome highlighted systemic overreach in federal mandates, aligning with Barnett's broader advocacy for originalist boundaries that prioritize enumerated limits over policy-driven expansions of power.

Publications and Intellectual Output

Books and Monographs

Barnett's monographs systematically defend natural rights-based through historical evidence and , emphasizing empirical constraints on state power derived from the Constitution's original public meaning. The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the , published by in 1998, posits that justice requires a legal order maximizing individual while enabling social cooperation, contrasting this framework with perfectionist and egalitarian alternatives by examining historical precedents and logical prerequisites for legitimate . Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty, issued by Princeton University Press in 2004, contends that the Constitution's original design presumes liberty absent clear textual authorization for restrictions, advocating recovery of "lost" provisions like the Ninth Amendment's unenumerated rights and the Tenth Amendment's federalism limits through originalist interpretation supported by ratification debates and early judicial practice. Our Republican Constitution: Securing the Liberty and Sovereignty of We the People, released by Broadside Books in 2016, traces the framers' republican vision of retained individual rights ("rights-retaining" sovereignty) against a later "democratic" gloss emphasizing popular will over fixed limits, drawing on founding-era texts to argue for judicial enforcement of enumerated powers and protections. Co-authored with Evan D. Bernick, The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment: Its Letter and Spirit (, 2024) reconstructs the amendment's 1866-1868 drafting and history to affirm its incorporation of principles—equal natural rights and consent-based government—while critiquing expansions and proposing textual fidelity to curb modern judicial overreach. A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist (Encounter Books, 2024) chronicles Barnett's evolution from Chicago prosecutor in the 1970s to constitutional scholar, integrating personal anecdotes with reflections on originalism's empirical foundations amid encounters with progressive legal academia.

Scholarly Articles and Essays

Barnett's early scholarly "Restitution: A New Paradigm of ," published in in 1977, critiques the conventional punitive framework of by proposing a restitutive model grounded in and victim compensation rather than state-imposed retribution. This approach challenges the entrenched distinction between crimes and torts, arguing that both involve violations warranting restitution, thereby questioning the normalization of coercive punishment as the default response to interpersonal harms. The draws on empirical observations of failing deterrence and rehabilitation paradigms to advocate for a paradigm shift toward market-like incentives for prevention and private enforcement mechanisms. In subsequent articles, Barnett targeted federalism doctrines, as in "Three Federalisms," published in Loyola University Chicago Law Journal in 2001, which delineates three conceptions of federalism—enumerated powers, reserved rights, and police powers—and critiques expansive interpretations that erode state autonomy through majoritarian federal overreach. This piece uses historical textual analysis to argue that constitutional structure presumes limits on national authority, countering precedents that prioritize collective democratic preferences over divided powers. Barnett contributed to symposia critiquing judicial deference to majoritarian outcomes, notably in his 2002 essay "Is the an 'Activist' Court? The Cases," part of a symposium on conservative , where he marshals data from post-New Deal rulings to demonstrate that restraint, not activism, characterized the Court's narrowing of federal regulatory scope. The analysis refutes accusations of counter-majoritarian overreach by showing how deference to legislative expansions had deviated from original constraints, substantiated by case counts revealing over 11,000 federal statutes invalidated under broad commerce interpretations before Rehnquist-era corrections. More recent essays, such as the 2024 SSRN "Coping With A Court One Disagrees With," co-authored with Josh Blackman, address pedagogical challenges in amid evolving , employing empirical reviews of voting patterns and dissent rates to question reliance on as an unassailable doctrine. The paper highlights quantifiable divergences, including a 2023 term where originalist justices dissented in 25% of cases on structural issues, to argue for transparent critique of majority opinions without undermining institutional legitimacy. Similarly, Barnett's contributions in Supreme Court Economic Review, such as "The Original Meaning of the Judicial Power" (2005), leverage Founding-era evidence to defend against claims of extra-constitutional invention, emphasizing textually derived checks on legislative majorities.

Media Appearances and Films

Barnett has featured in several documentaries elucidating constitutional principles, including PBS's Constitution USA with Peter Sagal (2013), where he discussed federalism and the limits of federal power, and A More or Less Perfect Union (2011) hosted by Judge Douglas Ginsburg, which examined the Constitution's original design and amendments. These appearances allowed Barnett to present originalist interpretations of enumerated powers and natural rights to general audiences, countering expansive readings prevalent in mainstream legal commentary. As a regular contributor to Reason magazine and its video platform, Barnett has engaged in debates and interviews on libertarian originalism, such as a 2018 Soho Forum debate defending originalism against living constitutionalism and a 2016 discussion on the Republican nominee's implications for constitutional fidelity. In a February 2025 Reason interview, he analyzed the constitutional bounds of executive actions like those proposed by the Department of Government Efficiency, emphasizing textual limits over policy-driven expansions. Barnett frequently appears on podcasts to explore the synthesis of originalism and libertarian thought, including a May 2025 episode of the unSILOed detailing how these frameworks reshaped legal and advocacy. Other notable discussions include a July 2024 Federalist Society on the evolution of from his memoir A Life for and an August 2024 + Leadership segment on natural rights and the Ninth Amendment's role in limiting government. These formats have enabled empirical defenses of presumptive , reaching audiences skeptical of elite academic consensus on progressive constitutional evolution.

Reception and Legacy

Achievements and Influence on Originalism

Randy Barnett advanced the revival of through his development of a liberty-centric interpretive that emphasizes the original public meaning of constitutional text while incorporating a presumption against government power expansions beyond enumerated limits. In Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty (2004), he contended that constitutional legitimacy derives from securing via individual rights protections, influencing subsequent originalist scholarship by bridging with natural rights theory. His framework has been recognized for restoring focus on "lost" clauses like the Ninth Amendment, promoting interpretations that constrain federal overreach. As Director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution since its establishment, Barnett has institutionalized originalist education and research, organizing annual lectures, symposia, and programs such as the originalism bootcamp for law students, which immerses participants in historical and textual analysis. These initiatives have mentored emerging scholars and practitioners, contributing to a broader shift in legal academia toward empirical historical methods over living constitutionalism. His prolific output, including over 100 scholarly articles and essays, has elevated 's intellectual rigor, with works frequently referenced in judicial opinions and academic debates. Barnett's engagement with the has amplified originalism's influence among legal professionals, through keynote addresses, panels, and publications that foster rigorous debate on constitutional limits to power. For his contributions, he received the in Constitutional Studies and the Bradley Prize in , awards acknowledging his role in reinvigorating fidelity to the Constitution's original design. These efforts have empirically bolstered originalism's adoption in , evidenced by its growing acceptance in reasoning favoring textual constraints on .

Criticisms from Progressive and Conservative Perspectives

Progressive critics have faulted Barnett's constitutional paradigm for subordinating democratic to a presumption of , arguing it delegitimizes regulatory interventions deemed essential for social welfare and equality. In a of Our Republican Constitution, scholars contend that Barnett's framework echoes anti-Progressive sentiments by elevating individual rights over collective sovereignty, potentially enabling unchecked that exacerbate inequality and . Similarly, analyses of his work portray libertarian-leaning as dismissive of Progressive-era expansions of federal power, which critics credit with curbing corporate excesses and protecting vulnerable populations from harms. Barnett and aligned scholars rebut such charges by citing empirical evidence of regulatory overreach's causal costs, including studies documenting how stringent federal rules under the Commerce Clause have stifled economic growth; for example, a 2013 analysis estimated that compliance with major regulations imposes annual costs exceeding $2 trillion, equivalent to 12% of GDP, often without commensurate benefits in health or safety outcomes. Data from deregulatory episodes, such as the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, further illustrate reduced fares and increased access post-intervention, countering narratives of inevitable deregulation-induced harm by demonstrating competition's role in lowering consumer prices by up to 40% in affected sectors. These responses prioritize observable incentives and unintended consequences over ideological commitments to state expansion, highlighting instances where judicial deference has permitted agencies to exceed enumerated powers, as in expansive interpretations invalidated in cases like Lopez (1995). From conservative viewpoints, Barnett's natural originalism draws fire for prioritizing abstract liberties over historical traditions, , and communal order, risking a libertarian drift that undermines the Constitution's republican character. Reviewers argue his historical narrative "fudges" Founding-era emphases on duty and , as in of , by retrofitting natural supremacy that could erode deference to legislative intent and cultural precedents. Critics within traditionalist circles further caution that his advocacy for judicial engagement invites subjective , diverging from restraint-oriented and potentially conflicting with common-good by sidelining sovereignty's popular dimensions. Barnett addresses these by reaffirming originalism's textual fidelity to the Constitution's liberty-securing presuppositions, evidenced in debates where delegates invoked natural rights to constrain federal overreach, as documented in The Federalist Nos. 84 and 78. He contends that causal fidelity to original constraints prevents the executive and legislative accretions observed in 20th-century expansions, such as precedents, which deviated from enumerated limits without textual warrant, thereby preserving republican balance over unchecked majorities or traditions unmoored from -era understandings. This approach, per Barnett's replies, avoids both progressive democracy-worship and conservative by grounding legitimacy in verifiable constitutional modalities rather than evolving norms.

Personal Life

Family and Relationships

Randy Barnett is married to Beth Barnett. Public records and biographical mentions indicate the couple has adult children, including a son who pursued legal studies, though specific details remain private. Barnett maintains discretion regarding family matters, with limited verifiable information available beyond these basics. This approach to privacy aligns with his broader emphasis on individual autonomy, where protections for personal relationships, including familial ones, stem from foundational rights against arbitrary interference.

Hobbies and Extracurricular Activities

Barnett developed an early interest in music through participation in his high school band room, where he learned the virtues of commitment to excellence and the role of in personal growth. This experience, alongside academic influences, shaped his appreciation for individual achievement in non-coercive pursuits. Beyond academia, Barnett has engaged in libertarian extracurricular activities, notably joining the board of directors of the Center for Libertarian Studies during his time at in the late 1970s. He frequently traveled to to participate in the organization's annual conferences, immersing himself in discussions on libertarian theory and application. These involvements underscore a sustained dedication to advancing liberty-oriented ideas through and intellectual exchange, distinct from his scholarly and legal work.

References

  1. https://www.law.georgetown.edu/faculty/randy-e-barnett/
  2. http://www.randybarnett.com/biography
  3. https://www.cato.org/people/randy-barnett
  4. http://www.randybarnett.com/publications-1
  5. https://www.oyez.org/advocates/randy_e_barnett
  6. https://supremecourthistory.org/supreme-court-historical-society-events/2021-1110-original-meaning-of-the-14th-amendment/
  7. https://www.bradleyfdn.org/prizes/winners/randy-e.-barnett
  8. https://rlo.acton.org/archives/125849-randy-e-barnett-a-principled-commitment-to-the-truth.html
  9. https://www.cato.org/multimedia/events/life-liberty-making-american-originalist
  10. https://www.law.georgetown.edu/news/a-life-for-liberty-professor-randy-barnett-chronicles-the-making-of-an-american-originalist-in-new-memoir/
  11. https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2339&context=facpub
  12. https://www.randybarnett.com/s/consenttheory.pdf
  13. https://www.griffinnewspaper.com/post/randy-barnett-on-colleges-and-the-constitution-scholars-and-students
  14. https://tfas.org/news/unpacking-originalism-natural-law-natural-rights-and-the-ninth-amendment-with-randy-barnett/
  15. https://no86.fedsoc.org/posts/why-be-an-originalist
  16. https://reason.com/1985/02/01/cross-examining-the-law/
  17. http://angeljustice.org/angel/Randy_E._Barnett.html
  18. https://www.law.georgetown.edu/constitution-center/
  19. https://reason.com/people/randy-barnett/
  20. https://fedsoc.org/bio/randy-barnett
  21. https://www.theusconstitution.org/news/conquerors-of-the-courts/
  22. https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1861&context=facpub
  23. https://www.libertarianism.org/media/video-collection/randy-e-barnett-compatibility-hayek-natural-rights
  24. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-structure-of-liberty-9780198700920
  25. https://www.cato.org/books/restoring-lost-constitution
  26. https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/Intellectual_Life/ltw_barnett.pdf
  27. https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/1251/
  28. https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/1558/
  29. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/17488958231215228
  30. https://digitalcommons.du.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1045&context=etd
  31. https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1067&context=schmooze_papers
  32. https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/1194/
  33. https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4202&context=flr
  34. https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/policy-report/2004/1/barnett.pdf
  35. https://mandiner.hu/kulfold/2019/07/the-administrative-state-and-the-deep-state-both-result-in-problems-conversation-with-professor-randy-barnett
  36. https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/2450/
  37. https://www.independent.org/wp-content/uploads/tir/2005/07/tir_10_1_6_sandefur.pdf
  38. https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/real-judicial-restraint
  39. https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3396&context=clr
  40. https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/842/
  41. https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691159737/restoring-the-lost-constitution
  42. https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674295537
  43. https://www.hup.harvard.edu/file/feeds/PDF/9780674295537_sample.pdf
  44. https://ndlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1.-Barnett-Bernick.pdf
  45. https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1842&context=facpub
  46. https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/835/
  47. https://www.cato.org/events/original-meaning-fourteenth-amendment-its-letter-spirit
  48. https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/context/facpub/article/1504/viewcontent/barnett_commerce_clause.pdf
  49. https://fedsoc.org/commentary/videos/wickard-v-filburn-the-aggregation-principle-congressional-power-no-86
  50. https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/supreme-court-review/2016/9/2016-supreme-court-review-chapter-1.pdf
  51. https://www.cato.org/commentary/case-repeal-amendment
  52. https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1835&context=facpub
  53. https://www.cato.org/commentary/who-afraid-repeal-amendment
  54. https://www.forbes.com/2009/05/20/bill-of-federalism-constitution-states-supreme-court-opinions-contributors-randy-barnett.html
  55. https://www.uvu.edu/ccs/docs/why_federalism_matters.pdf
  56. https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/47/
  57. https://www.supremecourt.gov/pdfs/transcripts/2004/03-1454.pdf
  58. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/545/1/
  59. https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/articles/DC_v_Heller.pdf
  60. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZO.html
  61. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/02/17/randy-barnett-antonin-scalia-new-originalism-heller-second-amendment-column/80450446/
  62. https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/434/
  63. https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/how-obamacare-survived-five-years-of-constitutional-challenges
  64. https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/509/
  65. https://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-video/randy-barnett-evaluates-supreme-courts-obamacare-ruling
  66. https://fedsoc.org/case/nfib-v-sebelius
  67. https://davidlat.substack.com/p/a-life-for-liberty-law-professor-randy-barnett
  68. https://www.harpercollins.com/products/our-republican-constitution-randy-e-barnett
  69. https://www.encounterbooks.com/books/a-life-for-liberty/
  70. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/2379899
  71. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/292043
  72. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Restitution%253A-A-New-Paradigm-of-Criminal-Justice-Barnett/f99ba89e6b3c5c52f85bff562ba615bcb9c9e1a1
  73. https://lawecommons.luc.edu/luclj/vol39/iss2/2/
  74. https://harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/forvol126_barnett.pdf
  75. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4954176
  76. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/scer.12.3655319
  77. https://www.pbs.org/show/constitution-usa-peter-sagal/
  78. https://reason.com/video/2018/06/22/randy-barnett-originalism-constitution/
  79. https://reason.com/video/2016/08/15/randy-barnett-on-trump-scotus-and-the-fu/
  80. https://reason.com/podcast/2025/02/20/randy-barnett-how-legal-is-trumps-agenda/
  81. https://www.unsiloedpodcast.com/episodes/randy-e-barnett
  82. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4zZN6zUy4U
  83. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7whjsV513Xw
  84. https://tfas.org/podcast/unpacking-originalism-natural-law-natural-rights-and-the-ninth-amendment-with-randy-barnett/
  85. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPkTbLfLFms
  86. https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/36/
  87. https://tfas.org/news/tfas-professor-receive-prestigious-bradley-prize/
  88. https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/context/facpub/article/3018/viewcontent/Barnett__The_Letter_and_the_Spirit__107_Geo._L.J._1__2018_.pdf
  89. https://fedsoc.org/fedsoc-review/book-review-our-republican-constitution-securing-the-liberty-and-sovereignty-of-we-the-people
  90. https://constitutionalcommentary.lib.umn.edu/article/randy-barnetts-critique-of-democracy-and-john-marshall/
  91. https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/1133/
  92. https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=concomm
  93. https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2016/07/fudging-founding-randy-barnett.html
  94. https://lawliberty.org/dissenting-from-natural-rights-nationalism-a-reply-to-randy-barnett/
  95. https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/why-bother-originalism-review-our-republican-constitution
  96. https://www.standupwithus.org/records/bradleyfdn.org/GRANTS/2014/2014%2520BRADLEY%2520PRIZES/2014%2520BP%2520Winners%2520contact%2520info.doc
  97. https://nationalpublicdata.com/people/b/beth-barnett/
  98. https://reason.com/2024/09/27/a-life-for-liberty/
  99. https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2025/06/randy-barnett-life-liberty-chuck-chalberg.html
  100. https://www.independent.org/tir/2024-fall/a-life-for-liberty/
  101. https://lawliberty.org/libertarianism-updated/
Add your contribution
Related Hubs
User Avatar
No comments yet.