Covering the Supreme Court, lower courts, and the law

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

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

Relying upon a broad interpretation of the powers of the nation’s Chief Executive, President Biden on Friday fired one of the government’s most important officials even though Congress years ago had severely limited the authority to do exactly that.  Sent packing was the head of the Social Security agency, Trump appointee Andrew Saul, who otherwise… Read More

The federal government’s domestic terrorism watchdog – the Department of Homeland Security – is said to be monitoring extremist groups’ web and other electronic traffic to detect any signs of a violent attempt to put former President Donald Trump back in the White House.   A constitutional theory now being circulated by Trump himself, and by… Read More

For the third time in modern history, the Supreme Court has interpreted in a narrow way the strongest law that Congress has ever passed to protect voting rights – protection that was created especially for minority citizens.  In a 6-to-3 ruling on Thursday, the last day of the current term for decisions, the Court once… Read More

One of the oldest constitutional understandings in America is that the government should remain neutral about religion, neither favoring it nor interfering with it. The idea is captured in a phrase that President Thomas Jefferson used in a letter to Baptists in Danbury, Conn., in 1802, assuring them that the Constitution’s First Amendment had built… Read More

The Supreme Court’s decision this morning, blocking the latest effort by conservative politicians and lawyers to end “Obamacare” (the Affordable Care Act), had two quite specific meanings.  First, the massive health insurance law remains intact today.  But, second, the constitutional battle over its long-term survival will go on, and the ultimate outcome is far from… Read More

A group of constitutional scholars (39 in all) has written to Congress to answer the claims that it would be unconstitutional for Congress to make the District of Columbia the 51st state, unless that is done by constitutional amendment.   It argued that Congress could do so constitutionally by passing a simple law, as was… Read More

Scandals have surrounded many presidents throughout American history, but no one who has occupied that office has ever been in as serious trouble with the law as Donald Trump could be now.  Three investigations of potential crimes are now moving ahead, two in New York and one in Georgia, and there is a real possibility… Read More

The moment that opponents of abortion have been awaiting for nearly five decades may have arrived at the Supreme Court this morning.  The Justices announced that they will decide a Mississippi case that could lead to the end of abortion as a constitutional right, or at least could allow the most stringent restriction so far… Read More