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Professor Rappaport is Darling Foundation Professor of Law at the University of San Diego, where he also serves as the Director of the Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism. Professor Rappaport is the author of numerous law review articles in journals such as the Yale Law Journal, the Virginia Law Review, the Georgetown Law Review, and the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. His book, Originalism and the Good Constitution, which is coauthored with John McGinnis, was published by the Harvard University Press in 2013. Professor Rappaport is a graduate of the Yale Law School, where he received a JD and a DCL (Law and Political Theory).

March 13, 2019|Gouverneur Morris, Preamble, The Preamble

Gouverneur Morris on the Preamble to the Constitution

by Mike Rappaport|5 Comments

Image: Todd Taluman Photography / Shutterstock.com

While people set great store on the Preamble’s “We the People of the United States,” other versions of the Preamble might have had the same effect.

March 6, 2019|Committee on Style, Gouverneur Morris, Originalism

Gouverneur Morris’s Rewriting of the Constitution

by Mike Rappaport|8 Comments

George Washington speaks at the Constitutional Convention (Everett Historical/Shutterstock.com).

Gouverneur Morris penned the final draft of the Constitution and he changed many of the provisions in important ways.

March 1, 2019|Enumerated Powers, Originalism, Preamble, We the People

The Relevance of the Preamble to Constitutional Interpretation

by Mike Rappaport|127 Comments

The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution (David Smart/Shutterstock.com).

The Preamble to the Constitution has an important but limited function in constitutional interpretation.

February 15, 2019|Certification, occupational licensing, Reciprocity

Completely Unjustified Occupational Licensing

by Mike Rappaport|4 Comments

Image: Basyn/Shutterstock.com

Requiring people to apply from scratch to get a new license when they move from one state to another is unjustified

February 13, 2019|helping the poor, Income equality, John Rawls, The Difference Principle

Helping the Poor versus Reducing Inequality

by Mike Rappaport|18 Comments

Image: Hyejin Kang / Shutterstock.com

It is not income equality, but making the poor better off that is an important value for government policy.

February 8, 2019|Mueller Investigation, Perjury, Process Crimes

Process Crimes and the Mueller Investigation

by Mike Rappaport|6 Comments

Close-up photo of Department of Justice headquarters entrance (Two Bridges Photography/Shutterstock.com)

One need not believe that process crimes are unimportant to conclude that they fail to demonstrate wronging in Trump Administration.

February 5, 2019|High implicit marginal tax rates, Means tested programs, The importance of work

Means-Tested Welfare and the Disincentive to Work

by Mike Rappaport|4 Comments

Placard at a supermarket in Muncie, Indiana advertising the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in January 2018 (Jonathan Weiss/Shutterstock.com).

Means tested government programs with high implicit marginal tax rates are bad public policy.

January 30, 2019|Chief Justice Marshall, John Fabian Witt, Originalism

Why Supreme Court Judging Is Not Necessarily Partisan

by Mike Rappaport|6 Comments

The U.S. Supreme Court, Washington, DC (Image: bakdc / Shutterstock.com).

Originalist justices need not be understood as deciding cases based on their political party.

January 24, 2019|jonathan gienapp, Originalism, Parchment Barriers, Second Creation

Parchment Barriers and the Determinateness of Constitutional Text

by Mike Rappaport|4 Comments

U.S. Constitution (Festa/Shutterstock.com)

Jonathan Gienapp's new book falsely sees the Framers' criticisms of parchment barriers as evidence that the Constitution did not have a fixed meaning.