Robert Natelson

Robert Natelson

Senior Fellow, Independence Institute

Robert G. “Rob” Natelson 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 author of The Original Constitution: What It Actually Said and Meant (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, second edition, 2010), a Goldwater Institute Senior Fellow as well as a Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence at the Independence Institute. He served as Professor of Law at the University of Montana for a quarter of a century. He is best known for his studies of the Constitution’s original understanding, and for bringing formerly neglected sources of evidence to the attention of constitutional scholars.<br /> <br /> Natelson has been cited 16 times in U.S. Supreme Court decisions since 2013. Parts of Chief Justice Roberts’ 2012 opinion on the “Obamacare” health care law closely tracked his original research on the Necessary and Proper Clause. His academic publications are almost too numerous to list. 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).