Frank H. Buckley

Francis "Frank" Herbert Buckley is a foundation professor at George Mason University School of Law where he has taught since 1989. Before then he was a visiting Olin fellow at the University of Chicago Law School. The book argues that the Framers, at their Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, sought to give America something closer to Congressional (or parliamentary) than presidential government, and that the former is a superior form of government. Buckley argues that America has now moved to a form of strong presidential government. Rule of law: Buckley edited The American Illness: Essays on the Rule of Law (Yale U.P., 2013), to which he contributed three chapters. He suggests that "America's lowered rankings among multinational corporation CEOs as a place to do business is due to a hubris that doesn't consider America's inevitable relative decline in a globalized market." Laughter: Buckley's The Morality of Laughter (U. Michigan P., 2003), argues for a superiority theory of laughter, in which there is always a butt to our laughter whose faults it seeks to correct. A review in the Wall Street Journal stated that Buckley "is clearly a witty man, and wit, as he shows, redeems a great deal. The Morality of Laughter is a serious contribution to social and moral philosophy masquerading as an entertaining anatomy of an underappreciated human resource." Transportation: In 2013 Buckley wrote a column in The Wall Street Journal opposing bike lanes on King Street in Alexandria, Virginia. Despite this, the lanes were approved by a unanimous City Council vote. In 2014, he characterized his neighbors who supported the bike lanes as "Vichyite collaborators". In 2016, he characterized federal funding for bicycle and pedestrian improvements as worse ("the muck goes deeper, however") than government lobbyists. Contract theory and free bargaining: Buckley's Fair Governance: Paternalism and Perfectionism was published by Oxford U.P. in 2009. In it he discusses arguments for and against paternalism (restrictions on the legal capacity to bargain) and perfectionism (the enforcement of morals). Buckley's Just Exchange: A Theory of Contract (Routledge, 2005) "fills a prominent hole in the literature, explaining economic terms and jargon with welcome clarity". The Fall and Rise of Freedom of Contract (Duke U.P., 1999), which Buckley edited, describes how free contracting, under attack during much of the 20th century, has revived with the assistance of the law-and-economics movement. "These original papers by some of the most distinguished North American law-and-economics scholars make a strong case for the virtues of contractarianism across a wide spectrum of legal specialties, including contract law, tort law, family law, bankruptcy, and private international law." When teaching in Canada, Buckley co-authored casebooks on Sales and Sales Financing and Corporations: Principles and Policies. The rise of Trump: Buckley published The Republican Workers Party: How the Trump Victory Drove Everyone Crazy, and Why It Was Just What We Needed (Encounter Books, 2018). He describes the birth of a new Republican Party. Jonah Goldberg describes the GOP today as no longer driven by ideology but is rather a coalition. This change, from an ideological party to a political coalition is what Buckley explains. He refers to a work created by the Voter Study Group in 2017, "Political Divisions in 2016 and Beyond: Tensions Between and Within the Two Parties", to explain this new coalition.

Speeches Buckley and his wife Esther Goldberg wrote candidate Donald Trump's major foreign policy speech delivered at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) convention on March 21, 2016. He was also a contributing speechwriter to Donald Trump Jr's July 19 address to the 2016 Republican National Convention, and defended Trump against accusations of having misappropriated phrases from Buckley's published work.

Controversy In May 2022, Buckley came under criticism for a tweet in which he referred to Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor as a "stupid Latina". He apologized the next day and deleted his twitter account.

Personal life Buckley lives in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife, Esther Goldberg. They have one daughter.

According to National Review, he is unrelated to conservative author William F. Buckley Jr.

Publications (1995) Corporations: Principles and policies (2003) The Morality of Laughter (2004) Just Exchange: A Theory of Contract (The Economics of Legal Relationships) (2009) Fair Governance: Paternalism and Perfectionism

(2015) The Once and Future King: The Rise of Crown Government in America (2017) The Republic of Virtue: How We Tried to Ban Corruption, Failed, and What We Can Do About It (2017) The Way Back: Restoring the Promise of America (2018) The Republican Workers Party: How the Trump Victory Drove Everyone Crazy, and Why It Was Just What We Needed (2020) American Secession: The Looming Threat of a National Breakup (2021) Curiosity: And Its Twelve Rules for Life (2022) Progressive Conservatism: How Republicans Will Become America's Natural Governing Party