Rob Natelson

Information

Biography

Rob has published articles and books on many different parts of the Constitution, and is widely acknowledged to be the country’s leading scholar on the Constitution’s amendment procedure and among the leaders on several other topics.

He is the Independence Institute’s Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence and heads the Institute’s Article V Information Center. He was a law professor for 25 years, serving at three different universities. Among other subjects, he taught Constitutional Law, Constitutional History, Advanced Constitutional Law, and First Amendment. He is also the Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence at the Montana Policy Institute.

Rob is especially known for his studies of the Constitution’s original meaning. His research has carried him to libraries throughout the United States and in Britain, including four months at Oxford. The results have included several breakthrough discoveries.

His publications are too numerous to list; the bibliography below is just a sample. In addition to his articles on the U.S. Constitution, he created the first online guide to “originalist” research (now partly duplicated here); created the database the Documentary History of the Ratification of the Montana Constitution; and in conjunction with his eldest daughter Rebecca, edited the first complete Internet versions of the Emperor Justinian’s great Roman law collection (in Latin).

There are several keys to Rob’s success as a scholar. Unlike most constitutional writers, he has academic training not merely in law or in history, but in both, as well as in the Latin classics that were the mainstay of Founding-Era education. He works hard to keep his historical investigations objective. He also has the benefit of lessons and habits learned in the “real world,” since prior to entering academia he practiced law in two states, ran his own businesses, and worked as a journalist and at other jobs.

For about a decade, Rob had a career in public life in his “spare time.” He created and hosted Montana’s first statewide commercial radio talk show; became the state’s best known political activist; led, among other campaigns, the most successful petition-referendum drive in state history; and helped push through several important pieces of legislation. In June 2000, he was the runner-up among five candidates in the party primaries for Governor.

Today’s academia is not a welcoming place for scholars with free market views. Nevertheless, even academia eventually recognized his extraordinary research achievements.

Rob loves to spend time in the great outdoors, where he enjoys hiking and skiing with his wife and three daughters. He also likes travel, science fiction, and opera. He is active in the Denver Lyric Opera Guild.

Authored Publications

  • Article V: A Handbook for State Lawmakers image

    Article V: A Handbook for State Lawmakers

    First published in 2011, the Handbook is an invaluable guide for state lawmakers who recognize that the states have the power and the duty to rein in a federal government…

+ All Publications by Rob Natelson