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Welcome To The New Originalism: A Comment On Jack Balkin’S Living Originalism, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this short piece for a symposium on Jack Balkin's new book, Living Originalism, I welcome Jack Balkin into the originalist camp. I discuss how and why a nonoriginalist can become an originalist. By discussing how I eventually became an originalist at the end of the last century, I hope to shed some light on what exactly is so remarkable about Jack Balkin’s move. After discussing the appeal of the New Originalism that account for Balkin's originalist move, I conclude by offering a cautionary note about the use of "underlying principles in Balkin's "text and principle" approach, which in certain …