On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will spend the morning trying to sort out two constitutional puzzles about criminal trials and the rights of the accused. The first case arises in the embattled zone between state and federal courts, focusing on when a federal court can overturn a guilty verdict in a state court trial. The… Read More
Supreme Court: Echoing the 18th Century?
The Supreme Court begins a new term tomorrow, the first Monday in October, and the opening hearing might sound something like the constitutional debates, circa 1787. The first case poses a question that is as old as the Constitution itself, and it’s a question that the founders specifically created the Supreme Court to answer. The… Read More
Listening, “live,” to the Supreme Court
History will be made next Monday at the U.S. Supreme Court. For the first time, America will be able to tune in to listen to the Court’s hearings “live” – just as they happen, directly from the courtroom, and with the Justices asking questions in a rapid-fire, unstructured way. However, it will be audio only;… Read More
What is the Supreme Court worried about?
It is becoming increasingly clear that, inside the Supreme Court, some of the Justices are growing worried about the institution’s public reputation. But what may be most worrisome to them is how that might translate into structural change, imposed on the Court from the outside. In recent days, three of the Court’s nine Justices have… Read More
Abortion rights now in deep peril
Acting just before midnight last night, a deeply divided Supreme Court allowed Texas to continue enforcing the nation’s strictest ban on abortions – even as the majority insisted that it was not upholding the ban’s constitutionality. The majority said it had doubts that the Court had the power at this stage to stop the law,… Read More
The case against a constitutional coup
The newly-circulating scheme to displace America’s voters in choosing the President next time, handing that over to state legislatures, has a good many interlocking parts. A failure of any one of them could doom the entire project. The theory does have many critics, and they strongly challenge what they consider to be its weak parts…. Read More
A constitutional coup in 2024? — Part 2
Yesterday’s article examined the theory that the Constitution might allow state legislatures to assign themselves the power to appoint the electors who will choose the President in 2024. How might that actually happen? —————— It is only August, three years before America again chooses its President, but a scheme that might take away that choice… Read More
Will 2024 be the “Year of the Coup?” — Part 1
This discussion will appear here in two parts. The second part will appear tomorrow. —————– Imagine that Americans go to the polls in 2024 and choose a Democrat for President. Now, three years before that voting, a constitutional theory that has existed since the 1890’s is circulating anew, suggesting a way to overturn a Democrat’s… Read More
Will there be a new constitutional convention?
Modern America continues to wage heated culture wars — over abortion, same-sex marriage, religious liberty, systemic racism, voting rights. But, below the surface of those highly visible conflicts, there continues a quiet but deeply serious and very detailed culture war of another sort. The goal of those most actively involved in this campaign is to… Read More
The filibuster and the Constitution
Majority rule and the filibuster The Founders who wrote the Constitution believed strongly that, in governing America, the majority should rule. But they did create a United States Senate in which members representing a minority of the nation’s people could thwart the will of the majority. With each state, regardless of size, having equal seats… Read More