Chad Oldfather
Marquette lawprof / State & fed con law, judicial process / Deeply Minnesotan / Out now: Judges, Judging, & Judgment (Cambridge U Press 2025) / Next: Glacial Morainebilly Elegy (placeholder title / about growing up rural in Tim Walz’s neck of the woods)
- Last night, elsewhere in Milwaukee, my wife & I showed up at a restaurant without a reservation. They took our number, said they’d call when a table became available. No trouble, because the only question was whether we’d have to cross a street to find a place just like these. We did not.
- Shoutout to finding new music in the late 80s.
- Reposted by Chad OldfatherTo learn more about states’ powers in this moment, check out our checks on federal overreach pieces, including on state prosecutions of federal officials and on DOJ’s efforts to access state voter rolls (which Bondi raised in her MN letter yesterday) statedemocracy.law.wisc.edu/research-exp...
- Reposted by Chad Oldfather[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Chad Oldfather[Not loaded yet]
- My first year as a prof I wanted to really emphasize a point so I stood on a table in the front of the room as I made it. A couple years later an about-to-graduate student in that class told me that he didn’t remember the point I was making but he definitely remembered me standing on the table.
- Reposted by Chad Oldfather[Not loaded yet]
- I generally agree with this, but I also wonder how much of a convention it actually is. I'd guess that maybe 30-40% of my articles have had a "Part IV" in this sense, and that most or all of my most-cited pieces don't (and to the extent they do, that's not what they're cited for).
- Today, @jocelynsimonson.bsky.social and @ksabeelrahman.bsky.social challenge the idea that law review articles should conclude with a set of actionable prescriptions. This convention, they argue, constrains ambition, sidelines critique, and conflates near-term feasibility with rigor.
- Reposted by Chad Oldfather[Not loaded yet]
- The entire thread is worth your time. The portion around and including this post gets at a point I tried to make in my book - the less common ground within the profession about what the rule of law entails, the less likely we are to be able to sustain the rule of law.
- Yikes
- I wanted to see if it had ever been used elsewhere, so I googled "insensitive to the nuances of human interaction," which a former colleague once used as a way of describing someone as kind of a dick. (It's also applicable to certain interpretive approaches, imo.) Google AI took it personally.
- Reposted by Chad OldfatherThis all seems pretty unbecoming of a FIFA Peace Prize winner
- A 2026 amuse-bouche.
- Hi, I’m Chatterton Falls, Quetico Provincial Park, Ontario.
- Reposted by Chad Oldfather[Not loaded yet]
- Not as bad as it used to be, but I still absolutely hate the ABC/ESPN assumption that TV viewers really want to hear a snippet of marching band between every play.
- Your mileage may vary, but for me the experience of reading Clifford Geertz is an exercise in mumbling "just spit it out, dude" over and over again.
- By my friend/colleague Mike Gousha. Somehow seems relevant this morning. As described by PBS: “The victories and failures of a unique brand of socialism in Milwaukee reduced corruption, improved conditions for workers and cleaned up the environment between 1910 and 1960.”
- Reposted by Chad OldfatherWhen you get the reputation of being the guy with the encouraging words on New Year's Eve, it can start to come through as a little pressure -- what if the situation on the ground is worse than usual? what if people are more scared than they usually are, and with cause? what use are good vibes then?
- Sometimes students applaud at the end of the semester. Maybe even add a “whoo!” There’s often an individual note or two of appreciation. And every now and then one of them gives a little gift that cuts to the core of it all. If you need me I’ll be over here writing footnotes to Karl, as ever.
- Reposted by Chad OldfatherWhen and if sane and honest people ever again control the U.S. government, one of the first things they should do is enact a tax on large accumulations of wealth. robertreich.substack.com/p/if-the-market-wer…
- “Part of the town myth has held that the town-bred boy was somehow purer in body and spirit, more protected from dark knowledge than his city counterpart. The opposite was true. The city probably knows no vice that was not invented by the country.”
- Reposted by Chad OldfatherIt has been a bracing moment for American federalism, with both unprecedented efforts to extend executive control over state and local govts, novel forms of subnational resistance. Where is federalism going? Paul Nolette and I have edited a new issue of Publius on that question. Short thread:
- Reposted by Chad OldfatherExtremely funny to call the pope “holier-than-thou”
- Reposted by Chad Oldfather[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Chad Oldfather[Not loaded yet]
- The always-brilliant Elizabeth Nelson on one of my favorite albums of all time. (My one attempt to see the original Bash & Pop lineup was thwarted by the fact that a guy I was with-despite him being 30 and prematurely gray-couldn’t get into First Ave because he forgot his ID. Maybe kinda fitting?)
- I go back and forth on this.
- Along the same lines, I have a very clear memory of first pulling this beauty off the shelf in the UVA law library:
- Reposted by Chad OldfatherIt is newsworthy that the president of the United States is increasingly verbally abusive of women reporters and he should be asked about it.
- Reposted by Chad OldfatherThank you @lsolum.bsky.social and Mike Ramsey for noting my post. As noted below, I don’t think Mike’s suggested approach squares with text, history, or an independent Fed.
- Philip Hamburger (and Christine Kexel Chabot) on Executive Removal Power Michael Ramsey – The Originalism Blog originalismblog.com/philip-hambu...
- Very much worth a read.
- I've saved (most of) my annoyingness on here recently for my Judging book. But before I wrote that I wrote a different, memoir-y sort of book about being a horse dad. And just now came across this very nice review of it. So sharing 'cuz maybe you need a gift idea for the horse person in your life.
- Today I spoke to a judge I'd never met who read my book and said it "scratched an itch" that he and a lot of other judges are feeling. It also ties together a lot of ideas in ways that legal academics should find interesting. And it made for a fine primary text this semester. Maybe worth a look?
- Not to disagree, but just to offer a small counterexample. I had one of the most engaged classes I've ever taught. Second- and third-year law students at 3:30 is often a recipe for a slog. This group was lively, engaged, and eager to think - in a "perspectives" class intended to foster just that.
- Reposted by Chad OldfatherHello! @adamsopko.bsky.social and I have been working on a proposal to charter an AALS Section on State Constitutional Law. We believe that such a section is long overdue and that it is urgent to foster scholarly community and support in a growing discipline. Links to support this effort below: ⬇️
- This is a super interesting observation. I’m not sure there are many places left like the one I grew up in, where it was rare to encounter a stranger at all. But most non-city stranger interactions are very structured & the friendliness built into them doesn’t often extend into other interactions.
- It was a crap shoot after this, but the top three were never in doubt. Give ‘em each a listen if you never have.
- Five most recent: James McMurtry Dry Cleaning Japanese Breakfast The Silos Dehd
- Absolutely this. Goes for any kind of creative person.
- Reposted by Chad OldfatherI once asked a bookseller at a large indie store how many people would have to buy a book for it to get the attention of the store buyer and cause an additional order and they said: Three.
- Todd Snider's death got me reflecting on the thread connecting my favorite songwriters. Elizabeth Nelson (as usual) captures it pretty well in this tremendous piece on the 'Mats. Call it an empathetic sensibility, a concern for the outcasts and marginalized, expressed with a poet's feel for words.
- Thanks so much to GQ for publishing my liner notes for the new Replacements 'Let It Be' boxset, out on Friday. Extra special thanks to Jessica Hopper, Patterson Hood and Brian Paulson for their extraordinary insights. What an absolute joy this project has been to work on. www.gq.com/story/when-t...
- Flashback to that couple-year period where the sign at a local Burger King just said “Ew.”
- This is solid and relatable marketing.
- Reposted by Chad OldfatherWhat a photograph. “Nearly two dozen arrested as faith leaders protested outside a federal immigration facility near Chicago…” Arrested large amounts of peaceful clergy face first on pavement is a pretty good sign you’re not the good guys in the story. www.reuters.com/legal/govern...
- Christgau captured the magic of Todd Snider well. RIP, Todd.
- I'm very sorry to report that the great alt-country singer-songwriter Todd Snider has died at 59 of undiagnosed walking pneumonia. I stick by what I wrote about him in 2012. www.robertchristgau.com/xg/bn/2012-0... Here's Rolling Stone's coverage. www.rollingstone.com/music/music-...
- There's lots of uncertainty in the world these days, but I can report that one thing remains constant: No matter which variation of decisionmaking/decision making/decision-making one has used in a draft, one's publisher will, as a matter of inflexible policy, insist on a different variation.
- Reposted by Chad Oldfather[Not loaded yet]
- Prince used to do impromptu shows at Paisley Park. Total word of mouth affairs, but you knew it was gonna be a late night. One night I had good info that a show was gonna happen. But some work thing the next day seemed more important. Bad call. Also, missing Tom Waits.
- "My main job this morning is to point out to you that it is not yet too late to withdraw." I gave my section of 1Ls their first taste of the law-school classroom this morning. Doing that always reminds me of Karl Llewellyn's 1957 introductory lecture, which is worth a listen:
- If you’re looking for rules to live by, allow me to suggest “Stop at every lemonade stand.” (Photo at a distance to respect the privacy of the grandmother helping her two young granddaughters sell lemonade to raise money for Milwaukee public schools.)
