David O. Stewart

In an innovation some have denounced as unconstitutional, a recent Maryland statute attempts to evade the electoral college system. The Maryland law will award the state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate with the most popular votes nationwide — so long as a majority of electoral votes will be cast in the same fashion. Those…

In the political brawl over whether half a million people in the District of Columbia may have a voting representative in Congress, both sides claim support from the Constitution. Opponents insist that such representation would run afoul of the statement that representatives shall be chosen by “the People of the Several States.” District residents, the…

Impeach the bastard! For the last two generations that cry has been directed at many top officials, from Chief Justice Earl Warren in the 1950s to President George W. Bush today. Two of the last seven presidencies have struggled with a serious impeachment effort. With Congress and the Presidency soon to be held by different…

Over the objections of state governors from both parties, Congress and the President have taken greater control for Washington over state National Guards. The new statutory provision — which took effect two weeks ago — begins to alter the balance struck at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 over who controls state “militias” (now called the…

Just signed into law by President Bush today, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 denies the habeas corpus writ to many of those seized by the government in its War on Terror, preventing them from challenging their detention in court. By combining benighted public policy with insensitivity to individual rights, that provision totally ignores the…