Dorf on Law

When President James Monroe articulated what came to be known as the Monroe Doctrine, the United States lacked the kind of naval power that would have been necessary to give it teeth. Thus, unsurprisingly, at no point during Monroe's presidency did the United States engage in substantial military action outside the territory of the United States. Perhaps more fundamentally, in the pre-Civil War era, the Monroe Doctrine was not intended or understood as a ground for the U.S. intervening in the domestic governance of foreign sovereigns in the Western hemisphere. Rather, it was a warning to European powers--especially Spain and France--that they ought not so intervene. Why not? Monroe and the U.S. had multiple concerns. There was some fear that a buildup of Spanish power could eventually threaten U.S. sovereign territory. There were also economic interests. Independent countries in the western hemisphere would trade more freely with the United States than would colonial holdings of Eu...

[Note to readers: I am of course aware of the Trump administration's attack on Venezuela, capture of Maduro, and suggestions that further military operations could follow in order to occupy and "run" the country. DoL will include discussion of the legal and other issues raised thereby in short order. However, I wrote most of today's essay and accompanying Verdict column on Friday of last week, so it addresses different topics. I offer that as an explanation, not an apology. One of the unsettling aspects of our current reality is how one can barely focus on anything for more than a few hours because the president and his administration generate a new crisis and/or scandal at least daily. Think of today's essay as part of an effort to push back against this phenomenon.] ---------- During the last few weeks, I used my time off from teaching and blogging to work on a law-review-length paper, grade exams, visit with family, and do a bit more pleasure reading than more ...

Note to readers: As I explained in my "Note to readers" in the column below, I used my Dorf on Law  slot on March 17 of this year to take a personal sanity break from talking nonstop about the political dystopia in the US.  December 30 seems like a good time to do the same. I wish everyone a Happy New Year, full of pleasant surprises and possibly even some turns toward sanity in the United States and the world.   Age, Race, Music, and Canada-US Tensions By Neil H. Buchanan - March 17, 2025 [Note to readers: I am taking a day off from immersing myself in the ongoing insanity of US politics.  Instead, I decided to write about an issue that has somewhat less political valence than most topics.  As the first half of the column below demonstrates, however, "somewhat less" is not even close to "none."]   As they were settling into their seats for our first class meeting after the Super Bowl last month, I asked my students at the Universi...

2025 is almost in the books and it cannot end quickly enough. Our country has descended into a nation that looks more like Biff’s domain from Back to the Future II than the nation I used to know and love. Personally, a few weeks ago a scary 95% blocked artery to the heart (now fixed) made me reflect on my own life in beneficial ways. I am incredibly grateful for my family and my friends. In the end, they matter the most, of course. I am 67 and have been teaching and writing about constitutional law for over half my life. I have said much of what I want to about the Court (that isn’t one) and the menace who currently sits in the White House.  But I hope to continue stirring up trouble for at least a few more years. I’ll start right now as this crushing year comes to an end. Our country is facing far more severe crises than our awful Supreme Court. But most of those problems are beyond my professional expertise. The current terrible state of constitutional law is, however, my wh...

We here at DoL are enjoying the holidays, so I'm posting the following classic column from a little over a year ago. It originally ran under the headline "Losing the War on Christmas But Winning the Battle for the Culture? A pre-Thanksgiving Reflection." As you'll see, the theme is that despite its political power, the right is not winning the culture war. I think it mostly holds up well. For example, Donald Trump's characteristically heavy-handed and self-aggrandizing efforts to seize control of national culture by rebranding the Kennedy Center in his own image have mostly led to a flight of talent. However, there is one way in which I must concede the right is winning: its scapegoating of and attacks on transgender Americans has seeped into liberal/left rhetoric and policies . Now here's the rerun: -------------------------------- Losing the War on Christmas But Winning the Battle for the Culture? A pre-Thanksgiving Reflection Although Thanksgiving is still...

My latest Verdict column assesses President Trump's proposal to use tariff revenue to fund $2,000 payments to Americans earning under $100,000. I chose to write about this topic now because last week Trump claimed, falsely, that payments of $1,776 to U.S. military service members were being funded by tariffs, when in fact the money comes from a supplemental housing fund appropriated by Congress as part of the "Big Beautiful Bill" it enacted over the summer. That fund is taken from general revenues, not from tariffs in particular. After parsing the legality of Trump's other plan to spend tariff revenue on rebates to the American public, I offer various reasons why it's a bad idea. Among those reasons is the reasonable likelihood that the Supreme Court will invalidate the tariffs as not authorized by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. If so, and if rebate checks (or their refundable tax credit equivalent) have already gone out, that would create a fis...

With two weeks of holiday disruptions (and, one hopes, loads of joy and love) ahead of us, I expect this to be my last new  Dorf on Law  column of 2025.  I have decided to use this space to return to a topic that I discussed in two columns last month: " It Matters That the Extremely Close 2024 US Election Results Were Not Due to 'the Economy'" (November 4), and " 'Affordability Issues': Did Democrats Land on a Good Strategy for a Bad Reason? " (November 7). Why go back to what is in some ways the oldest of old news, with possibly nothing good to come from brooding over the whole mess yet again?  After all, no matter how it happened, Donald Trump ended up back in the Oval Office, and we are where we are today.  And "where we are" includes, for me, having only minutes ago received a "Here's to healthy holidays" email from Medicare, signed by ... Dr. Oz!!  Notably, he did not say Merry Christmas, so I guess the War on Christmas ...

This evening (from 6 to 8 pm Eastern time), I'll be giving a talk about birthright citizenship at the Tompkins County Public Library.  It also airs live on the library's YouTube channel and thereafter lives as a recording on the same page. Tonight's talk is part of the library's "Rights to Know" series. I gave another talk  in the series--on the Bill of Rights--earlier this fall. These talks are intended for a general audience, so regular readers of this blog might find them too basic for them. Nonetheless, as with all of my efforts to speak to non-lawyers, I try to provide sufficient background to make the subject matter comprehensible without dumbing down--to simplify without over-simplifying. Often when I write a blog post in anticipation of giving a lecture or speaking on a panel, I offer a summary of my remarks to help me formulate and organize them. I don't need to do so here because sent the library my PowerPoint slides, but I'll do so below b...