E-mail:
Jack Balkin: jackbalkin at yahoo.com
Bruce Ackerman bruce.ackerman at yale.edu
Ian Ayres ian.ayres at yale.edu
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Mary Dudziak mary.l.dudziak at emory.edu
Joey Fishkin joey.fishkin at gmail.com
Heather Gerken heather.gerken at yale.edu
Abbe Gluck abbe.gluck at yale.edu
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Gerard Magliocca gmaglioc at iupui.edu
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Linda McClain lmcclain at bu.edu
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Deborah Pearlstein dpearlst at yu.edu
Rick Pildes rick.pildes at nyu.edu
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Richard Primus raprimus at umich.edu
K. Sabeel Rahmansabeel.rahman at brooklaw.edu
Alice Ristroph alice.ristroph at shu.edu
Neil Siegel siegel at law.duke.edu
David Super david.super at law.georgetown.edu
Brian Tamanaha btamanaha at wulaw.wustl.edu
Nelson Tebbe nelson.tebbe at brooklaw.edu
Mark Tushnet mtushnet at law.harvard.edu
Adam Winkler winkler at ucla.edu
Last week, I joined 40 other scholars in a letter published here, explaining why there's no serious question that Kamala Harris is constitutionally eligible to be elected Vice President. In a post on the Originalism Blog provocatively entitled "Originalism Is Our Law (At Least When It Suits Us)," Mike Ramsey concurred with the bulk and conclusion of our letter. Professor Ramsey also, however, accused at least some of us of inconsistency, in that we're “prominent originalism critics" and yet we signed a letter that relies upon what Ramsey calls "originalist arguments.”
In a post this morning over at Dorf on Law, Mike Dorf and I explain that, contrary to Professor Ramsey's reading, our letter doesn't rely exclusively on the "original public meaning" of the constitutional text--indeed, our letter doesn't rely on textual "meaning" at all. To be sure, the letter does (in part) invoke pre- and early constitutional understandings of whether persons born in the United States to foreign nationals are "natural born citizens" eligible for the presidency (and thus to be elected Vice President, too). As Mike and I explain, however, that quite ordinary, common inquiry into early understandings of how the Constitution should operate isn't at all inconsistent with the critique of contemporary "originalism" that many of the letter's signatories have made.