Life as a Hedgehog

For most of my career, I was a fox. I wrote about intellectual property and constitutional law. Within constitutional law, my projects were varied. They were usually historical, but there was no particular relationship among them. Move on to the next thing and don't look back--that was my unofficial motto. In recent years, you could say that I wrote more on the Fourteenth Amendment. And I have a special place in my heart for John Bingham. But I would joke with people that I wasn't an expert on anything.

Now I am a hedgehog. At least until the Trump litigation ends. Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment all-day, all-night (as the posts here prove). What's that like? Well, in one sense it feels great being an expert on something. With every other project, there was always a nagging feeling that I didn't understand the source material or was missing something important. With Section Three, that's not the case . There are important arguments about what the materials mean or how we should interpret them, but I have no doubt that I know what the materials are and have read them all. In another sense, though, I'd rather be working on my Youngstown book, which probably will need to hibernate until the Spring. Not because that book is more interesting than a constitutional issue pivotal to the next presidential election, but just because it's different and takes me to an entirely different era and constitutional space.

I can't imagine that I will be a hedgehog again. But I would never have imagined that I would be one now.