ZadekpediaNorthwestern University enters The Bob Zadek Show chiefly as an affiliation: the institution where several law and economics scholars named or interviewed on the program teach.
Gail Heriot and the term-limits proposal
In a discussion of structural fixes to the judiciary, Bob Zadek proposed limiting all federal justices and judges to ten-year terms subject to reappointment and reconfirmation, rather than life tenure, arguing that life tenure was meant to remove judges from the politics of the day but that judicial appointment is already highly politicized. Gail Heriot responded with a counter-proposal: an article in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy by two Northwestern University law professors, Jim Lindgren and Steven Calabresi, suggesting eighteen-year terms not subject to reappointment Gail Heriot on the Significance of Justice Scalia’s Passing (2016). Heriot said she preferred that to Zadek’s ten-year renewable model because the last thing one wants in a Supreme Court justice is for them to play to Congress in order to be reappointed, which she called the opposite of what is wanted in Supreme Court independence.
Heriot added that staggered terms would be wanted so that each president may get one or two appointments. She identified downsides: Supreme Court justices tend to be capable people with a lot of talent, and if told at, say, 68 or 70 or even 75 that their careers were ending, many would still be looking for a job, something like university president; she did not want justices playing to persons they think are likely to be their future employers, like major universities. She said the idea may net out positively and is basically sound. She also suggested that justices who know they will not be able to stay as long as they can live may be more careful to create laws that are not simply questions of the discretion of the justices, more likely to do what Scalia tried to do and limit the power of the court.
Tom Palmer and the environmental-policy chapter
In a segment on environmentalism and property rights, Tom Palmer said that Lynne Kiesling from Northwestern University wrote a chapter he commissioned for Self-Control or State-Control?, focusing on environmental policy and regulation Dr. Tom Palmer on Self Control vs. State Control (2017). Palmer said Kiesling shows that institutions of human life—which he noted are part of government—such as the rules of property and contract enable people to be more responsible for their behavior. He argued it is not a choice between regulated and unregulated markets because all markets are regulated, by the rule of law, the establishment of property rights, responsibility for one’s behavior and tort law, and that the question is whether to use those institutions or give unaccountable or barely accountable bureaucrats discretionary power to change the rules and rejigger things so that rules become impossible to follow.
In the same episode’s welfare-state discussion, Palmer listed the book’s contributors and described Kiesling, again identified with Northwestern University, among the authors he assembled Dr. Tom Palmer on Self Control vs. State Control (2017). He placed her alongside Jeffrey Miron of the Harvard University economics faculty and said the essays address the relationship between personal freedom and personal responsibility, which he said must be understood as a bundle because you cannot have only one without losing it. He also credited Lisa Conyers with a chapter on the nanny state, which Zadek called wonderful and which Palmer called one of the more powerful ones, based on interviews with people trapped in or formerly in the welfare state; Palmer said the system makes it very difficult to get out once in it, and gave the example of a person on rental assistance and food stamps who inherits an automobile and becomes disqualified for exceeding an asset threshold.
John McGinnis, Northwestern law professor
Northwestern recurs as the academic home of John McGinnis across a later episode. In the host’s framing, McGinnis is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, was editor of the Harvard Law Review, and now teaches con law at Northwestern University, which Zadek called great insight into the academy and its effect and how it is populated Here Comes the Storm (2019). Zadek said much has been written that about 75% or 80%—informal calculations—of the academy are registered Democrats or tend to be Democratic-leaning, so that teaching at the college level gives students a biased view of American history, politics and economics. Zadek said socialism as a concept has been dumbed down and kind of means free stuff, that the history of socialism is that it is free but there is also no stuff to go around, and that it is hard to find much classic socialism in Bernie Sanders or Kamala Harris.
McGinnis agreed that one might say they are really extreme redistributionists rather than socialists, kind of socialist in the sense that Sweden once was, but said that on some issues what they want to do to healthcare is really to have a lot of government control of the means of producing healthcare, which he called a kind of socialist idea: the government in charge of insuring, and ultimately deciding what is paid for, which he said goes beyond redistribution and free goods and is likely to lead to much less innovation and much less good quality healthcare Here Comes the Storm (2019). He contrasted that with Obamacare, of which he said he is not a fan and which he called largely redistributionist, and said Kamala Harris was flummoxed by a question because the bill she sponsored would get rid of all private insurance.
Zadek later reintroduced McGinnis as a professor of law at Northwestern University, a professor of constitutional law, and said they were discussing McGinnis’s blog “The Gathering Storm for Classical Liberalism” Here Comes the Storm (2019). On criminal justice reform, Zadek said he takes hope from the bipartisan movement and the First Step Act, noting Rand Paul and Cory Booker joined forces and that Donald Trump signed the bill, deserving some credit; McGinnis gave some credit but said most presidents would have signed it, called it a core function of government, noted harsh penalties responded to crime increases in the 1970s and 1980s, and said the most important thing is to punish criminals with certainty Here Comes the Storm (2019).
Across episodes
Three episodes touch Northwestern University: the Heriot episode, which names two Northwestern law professors and their eighteen-year term proposal; the Palmer episode, which names Lynne Kiesling as a Northwestern contributor on environmental policy; and the McGinnis episode, which identifies him as a Northwestern law professor. The episodes show no development or change in how the university is treated; in each it is an affiliation or a credential rather than a subject of argument.