This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, September 20th, 2010.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The privileges or immunities clause of the 14th Amendment has not had a good century,

even though it is meant to protect us all against state violations of our

individual rights, it has essentially been read out of the Constitution, but rumors of

the death of privileges or immunities may have been greatly exaggerated.

Josh Blackman is president and co-founder of the Harlan Institute, we spoke last week on

Constitution Day.

He co-authored the article on privileges or immunities in the latest edition of the Cato Supreme Court review.

This was an odd case in one respect because it produced a plurality opinion, describe that and what it means for this case.

Five justice did not sign on to the final opinion.

All five justices, that was Chief Justice Roberts, Scalia, Alito, Kennedy, and Thomas all voted

to say that the Chicago gun law was unconstitutional, there was no single five vote block

that agreed on the rationale.

What happened was four votes, where Kennedy, Roberts, Scalia, and Alito said it's unconstitutional

because of the Due Process Clause.

Thomas by himself said that it was unconstitutional because it violated the 14th Amendment's

privileges or immunities clause.

So because there's no single rationale that has five votes, someone of a paradox, and that

there's no real clear holding of why this case is decided the way it is,

and that's an interesting aspect of a plurality.

So in this particular case, because Thomas wrote his sort of, I guess it's not a...

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