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Ilya Somin is Professor of Law at George Mason Ä¢¹½AV and the B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute. His research focuses on constitutional law, property law, democratic theory, federalism, and migration rights. He is the author of(Oxford Ä¢¹½AV Press, revised and expanded edition, 2022),  (Stanford Ä¢¹½AV Press, revised and expanded second edition, 2016), and  (Ä¢¹½AV of Chicago Press, 2015, rev. paperback ed., 2016), coauthor of  (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and co-editor of  (Cambridge Ä¢¹½AV Press, 2017). Democracy and Political Ignorance has been translated into Italian and Japanese.

Somin’s work has appeared in numerous scholarly journals, including the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Northwestern Ä¢¹½AV Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Critical Review, and others. Somin has also published articles in a variety of popular press outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, CNN, NBC, The Atlantic, USA Today, Boston Globe, US News and World Report, South China Morning Post, National Law Journal and Reason. He has been quoted or interviewed by the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, The Economist, the Christian Science Monitor, the Financial Times, The Guardian, the Associated Press, CBS, MSNBC, NPR, BBC, Reuters, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Al Jazeera, and the Voice of America, among other media.

Somin’s writings have been cited in decisions by the United States Supreme Court, multiple state supreme courts and lower federal courts, and the Supreme Court of Israel. He has testified on the use of drones for targeted killing in the War on Terror before the US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights. In 2009, he testified on property rights issues at the United States Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Somin writes regularly for the popularlaw and politics blog, now affiliated with Reason magazine (previously affiliated with the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017). From 2006 to 2013, he served as Co-Editor of the , one of the country’s top-rated law and economics journals.

Somin has served as a visiting professor at the Ä¢¹½AV of Pennsylvania Law School. He has also been a visiting professor or scholar at the Georgetown Ä¢¹½AV Law Center, the Ä¢¹½AV of Hamburg, Germany, the Ä¢¹½AV of Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Zhengzhou Ä¢¹½AV in China. He is a Ä¢¹½AV Affiliate of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason Ä¢¹½AV, and an affiliated faculty member of the George Mason Ä¢¹½AV Institute for Immigration Research. Before joining the faculty at George Mason, Somin was the John M. Olin Fellow in Law at Northwestern Ä¢¹½AV Law School in 2002-2003. In 2001-2002, he clerked for the Hon. Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Professor Somin earned his B.A., Summa Cum Laude, at Amherst College, M.A. in Political Science from Harvard Ä¢¹½AV, and J.D. from Yale Law School.