27 Facts About Randy Barnett

Randy Evan Barnett was born on February 5,1952 and is an American legal scholar.

Randy Barnett 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.

In 2004, Barnett argued the medical marijuana case of Gonzalez v Raich before the US Supreme Court.

Randy Barnett was born on February 5,1952, in Chicago, Illinois, to a Jewish family.

Randy Barnett was raised in Calumet City, Illinois, while attending synagogue in Hammond, Indiana, where he was president of the local Aleph Zadik Aleph chapter and received his bar-mitzvah.

Randy Barnett then returned to Chicago and worked as an Illinois state prosecutor for Cook County, Illinois.

In 1993, Randy Barnett was hired as a professor of law at the Boston University School of Law.

In 2006, Randy Barnett left Boston and began teaching at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he currently remains.

Randy Barnett calls his theory "the liberal conception of justice" and emphasizes the relationship between legal libertarianism and classical liberalism.

Randy Barnett 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.

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

Randy Barnett's side 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.

Randy Barnett was involved in the famous Affordable Care Act case National Federation of Independent Business v Sebelius.

Randy Barnett has done work on the theory of the United States Constitution, culminating in his books Restoring the Lost Constitution and Our Republican Constitution.

Randy Barnett argues for an originalist theory of constitutional interpretation and for constitutional construction based on a presumption of liberty, not popular sovereignty.

Randy Barnett focuses on the history and original meaning of the Second and Ninth Amendments to the United States Constitution.

Randy Barnett 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.

Randy 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.

Randy 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.

Randy Barnett has indicated that the case of Bolling v Sharpe 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.

Randy Barnett's reading of Lysander Spooner was instrumental in changing his constitutional theory.

In February 2025, Randy 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.

Randy 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.

Randy Barnett's proposal has received interest from many politicians and academics, even those who do not share his libertarian beliefs.

Randy 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 Randy Barnett had received in response to the previous draft.

The document is an expansion of an earlier 'Federalist Amendment' that Randy Barnett composed as part of an article he wrote in the Wall Street Journal.