In 1965, the Supreme Court held in Griswold v. Connecticut that the Constitution protected the right of families to use contraception. In 1973, the Court in Roe v. Wade extended this right to decisions to terminate a pregnancy. When Roe was overturned fifty years later in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, this not only affected abortion rights but threatened access to contraceptives and fertility treatments. Justice Clarence Thomas, writing in concurrence, explicitly called for th...
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In 1965, the Supreme Court held in Griswold v. Connecticut that the Constitution protected the right of families to use contraception. In 1973, the Court in Roe v. Wade extended this right to decisions to terminate a pregnancy. When Roe was overturned fifty years later in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, this not only affected abortion rights but threatened access to contraceptives and fertility treatments. Justice Clarence Thomas, writing in concurrence, explicitly called for th...
In 1965, the Supreme Court held in Griswold v. Connecticut that the Constitution protected the right of families to use contraception. In 1973, the Court in Roe v. Wade extended this right to decisions to terminate a pregnancy. When Roe was overturned fifty years later in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, this not only affected abortion rights but threatened access to contraceptives and fertility treatments. Justice Clarence Thomas, writing in concurrence, explicitly called for th...
There is a deep irony that the U.S., long a leader in the promotion of democracy, offers no national representation for residents of its own capital. No other country in the world deprives the citizens of their capital of the right to vote. Denying the vote in Washington, D.C. only exacerbates the long-standing history of disenfranchising of black voters. It's time for this injustice to be rectified.
Supreme Court Justices are appointed for life, making the Supreme Court one of the least democratic institutions in the world. Even worse, the Court now plays a political role unforeseen by the Founding Fathers. No other country has this problem. America is alone among modern constitutional democracies in allowing their high-court justices to serve without terms or age limits. Legislation has been proposed to impose term limits on Justice without amending the Constitution by assigning Justice...
The American people are frustrated with the American election system. As a result, the United States ranks 138 out of 172 nations in voter turnout. One of the biggest reasons that working adults don’t vote is that they are too busy. Standing in long lines before morning commutes, leaving during workday to travel to assigned polling stations, or putting off family duties to reach the polls after work are luxuries many people can’t afford. Because of this, sixty-five percent of Americans are in...
Gerrymandering is widely regarded as a distortion of the democratic process. Gerrymandering refers to any deliberate manipulation of electoral boundaries to favor one political party or group. These methods can dramatically skew election outcomes despite little change in overall voter preference. The Supreme Court has declined to review political gerrymandering by states. Congress, however, has the authority to end gerrymandering by requiring that congressional district boundaries be drawn by...
Democracies around the world only require a simple majority (above 50%) to pass legislation. The filibuster, which requires approval by 60% of the Senate, makes that chamber the most anti-democratic in the world. If Senators supporting a filibuster are from low population states, they could represent as few as twenty percent of Americans. So, in our democracy, the vast majority of Americans can deeply desire a piece of legislation, but the remaining portion of the population can kill it...
For the upcoming 2026 mid-term elections, serious congressional candidates need to consider a change of approach. Rather than struggling to resolve divisive ideological issues, candidates need to pick common governing themes that are not only broadly popular but also immune to attack. PROJECT 2026 describes ten legislative proposals that all congressional candidates should agree to.
On Truth Social, President Trump’s social media outlet, Trump posted a picture of himself in a crown saying “Long live the king.” Trump, however, will have a hard time subverting the Constitution. The key to consolidating power in authoritarian regimes is to use supermajorities to change the Constitution. President Trump's popularity is at historic lows, and power in our Constitution is more decentralized than in any other country. This podcast will discuss this, and will also consider ...
In 2016, Donald Trump said "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters" In 2025, Donald Trump illegally took billions of dollars of research grants away from Harvard University. I guess we can't say we weren't warned. This podcast explores how the power to control funding, which is called the power of the purse, belongs to Congress, not the President.
In this podcast, we interview Elizabeth Aniskevich, a litigator and a former federal employee at the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. Earlier this year, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau terminated all probationary employees. When this was stopped by the courts, the agency eliminated 1,400 of the 1,700 jobs at the agency. We will discuss what it was like to be at the agency when it was targeted by the Trump administration and how the employees are fighting back.
Can President Trump fire Jerome Powell, the Chair of the Federal Reserve Board? When bankers run central banks, economies are stable. When politicians run central banks, economies blow up. The Federal Reserve is an independent agency, and Jerome Powell can only be fired for cause. But the Supreme Court has made it clear that it doesn’t like independent agencies. What is likely to happen?
On July 8, the Supreme Court lifted a district court order which barred the Trump administration from eliminating thousands of jobs across the federal government. Though an important case, this isn’t the end of litigation over those firings. However, those seeking to oppose these RIFs (Reductions in Force) will now need to challenge them in a more piecemeal fashion, making such litigation more challenging and expensive.
First raised in the 1980s, the Unitary Executive Theory argues that the President should be allowed to fire the officials of all agencies, even if the positions are protected by Congress. President Trump’s administration has extended this theory beyond recognition to argue that agencies can refuse to spend money authorized by Congress, fire federal workers without following legal guidelines, and eliminate certain federal agencies completely. Dozens of cases are ongoing that will decide just h...
In Trump v. Casa, the Supreme Court held that injunctions cannot be used to prohibit the Executive Branch from taking legal actions against persons or states not before the Court. In this case, that meant that persons in the 38 states that did not join the lawsuit wishing to claim U.S. citizenship based on their birth in the U.S. must bring their own legal case. This ban on universal injunctions will also affect dozens of other cases against the Trump administration.
The Supreme Court will be an important factor in determining how much of the Trump agenda will be implemented. But how does the Supreme Court decide difficult cases? There are many theories of constitutional interpretation, some of which are more disruptive to established case law than others. This episode will explore the many ways the Court will consider the unprecedented constitutional issues being presented by the actions of the Trump administration.
On June 22, 2025, President Trump initiated the most significant U.S. military strike on Iranian soil since 1979, hitting nuclear sites in support of Israeli military operations. Democrats protested that this attack was unconstitutional as it was done without authorization by Congress. Does the Constitution provide the President the unilateral authority to initiate military operations?
DEI is many things to many people. So, when President Trump issued Executive Orders targeting the practice, it's implementation was chaotic, unpredictable, and ripe for legal challenge. This podcast explores the history of DEI and the Trump admimistrations multi-pronged attack on it.
Today we are talking about the Venezuelan immigrants that the President sent to prison in El Salvador in early March. The court order that was supposted tp stop them didn't. So today we will be discussing what happened there, a little bit about what checks and balances mean, and whether we are in a constitutional crisis.
Sadena asks Ken: what powers does the Constitution give to the President and where do executive orders fall within it? What happens if someone does not follow an executive order?
In 1965, the Supreme Court held in Griswold v. Connecticut that the Constitution protected the right of families to use contraception. In 1973, the Court in Roe v. Wade extended this right to decisions to terminate a pregnancy. When Roe was overturned fifty years later in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, this not only affected abortion rights but threatened access to contraceptives and fertility treatments. Justice Clarence Thomas, writing in concurrence, explicitly called for th...
