The Volokh Conspiracy is a group law blog whose contributors and platform are described across several episodes of The Bob Zadek Show. Host Bob Zadek treats it as a fixture of his own reading and as the principal channel through which his guests’ writing reaches the public, and guests who blog there use their closing minutes on the program to tell listeners how to find it.
Naming and spelling
Guests spell the blog’s name for listeners. Ilya Somin told the audience the blog is at the Washington Post website and that Volokh is spelled V-O-L-O-K-H, adding that Googling “Volokh Conspiracy” will find it Ilya Somin on Democracy and Political Ignorance (2016). Eugene Volokh, whose surname supplies the name, gave the same spelling and said that if you search for that name you will find his blog Criminal Memes: The Ballad of Ricky Vaughn (2021).
Volokh also explained the name’s origin. He said “conspiracy” is a little joke, on the reasoning that anyone who really had a conspiracy would hide it rather than publicize it, and he tied the word to the “vast right-wing conspiracy” that Hillary Clinton had been talking about in the late ’90s Criminal Memes: The Ballad of Ricky Vaughn (2021).
Where it has been hosted
The excerpts record the blog at more than one address over time. In the 2016 episode, Somin directed listeners to the Volokh Conspiracy blog at the Washington Post website Ilya Somin on Democracy and Political Ignorance (2016). By the 2019 episode, Zadek introduced Somin as a blogger whom he read every morning at the Volokh Conspiracy at Reason.com How to Create a Legitimacy Crisis (2019). In that same episode Somin, in his closing remarks, said people can follow his writing at the Volokh Conspiracy blog, spelled V-O-L-O-K-H, located on the Reason magazine website How to Create a Legitimacy Crisis (2019).
The 2020 episode has Zadek describing the blog as published through Reason, the Reason Foundation, and as available without charge Eight-Dimensional Chess (2020). In 2021, Volokh said the blog is hosted right now at the Reason magazine site but that “we’re independent” Criminal Memes: The Ballad of Ricky Vaughn (2021). Somin, in the August 2021 episode, said he writes regularly for the Volokh Conspiracy blog on the Reason magazine website and that all of what he writes there is available for free Hard Questions About Asylum and Afghanistan (2021).
Contributors named in the excerpts
The excerpts identify several people connected to the blog. Zadek called Eugene Volokh the creator, co-creator and co-blogger of The Volokh Conspiracy, and described him as a law professor teaching free speech law among other topics at UCLA School of Law who had also been a computer scientist Criminal Memes: The Ballad of Ricky Vaughn (2021). Zadek said he does not start his day without reading Eugene Volokh’s blog, which he said is published every day and is available without charge Eight-Dimensional Chess (2020).
Ilya Somin is identified as a blogger at the blog in the 2016 episode, where Zadek asked how listeners could follow his daily writing Ilya Somin on Democracy and Political Ignorance (2016). In 2019 Zadek introduced Somin as a professor of law at George Mason University School of Law, a blogger he read every morning at the Volokh Conspiracy at Reason.com, an expert on constitutional law, and the author of Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter How to Create a Legitimacy Crisis (2019). In 2021 Somin said he writes regularly for the blog Hard Questions About Asylum and Afghanistan (2021).
Josh Blackman is described by Zadek as a frequent daily blogger at The Volokh Conspiracy, alongside his positions as a constitutional law professor at the South Texas College of Law in Houston, an adjunct scholar at Cato, and president of the Harlan Institute Eight-Dimensional Chess (2020). David Bernstein is described by Zadek as a Foundation Professor of Law at George Mason University and a blogger at the Volokh Conspiracy, and as the author of Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America 5 Questions for David Bernstein on Racial Classification (2022).
How the blog describes itself
Volokh gave the blog’s own account of its politics in the 2021 episode. He said that “we are libertarian-leaning in many ways, but we’re not doctrinally libertarian,” and that “we just try to call things as they are, as we understand them to be” Criminal Memes: The Ballad of Ricky Vaughn (2021). He also told listeners they could follow the blog by going on Reason or following it on Twitter or Facebook or on Parler Criminal Memes: The Ballad of Ricky Vaughn (2021).
Zadek’s own characterizations are consistently promotional. He called the blog a must-read, said it is literally more important to most Americans these days than reading the daily newspaper, and credited it with giving more objective and deeper insight into what is going on in the country Eight-Dimensional Chess (2020). In the 2021 episode he described it as a daily blog that is must-reading every morning for him, covering the law in depth, easily readable, and accessible to lawyers, law scholars and laypeople alike Criminal Memes: The Ballad of Ricky Vaughn (2021).
Across episodes
The topic recurs across five episodes spanning 2016 to 2022, and the excerpts show one clear change: the blog’s stated host moves from the Washington Post website in 2016 to Reason.com and the Reason magazine website from 2019 onward, with Volokh in 2021 describing the blog as hosted at Reason but independent. The other development the excerpts support is the roster of contributors named on air, which grows from Somin in 2016 to include Blackman in 2020 and Bernstein in 2022. No excerpt shows the guests disputing one another about the blog, and the treatment of its purpose — a free, daily, widely readable law blog — is consistent throughout.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state when the blog was founded, who its full roster of bloggers is, or what any particular post argued. They do not explain the terms of its relationship with the Washington Post or with Reason, or when any move between them occurred. Nothing in the excerpts describes the blog’s editorial process, its readership figures, or any controversy involving it. The account here is limited to what guests and the host said about the blog on air.