The Ten Commandments are headed toward another possible encounter with the Supreme Court, this time by way of Texas, two groups of public-school families, and a sharply divided federal appeals court. On August 17, more than two dozen Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Baha’i, Unitarian Universalist, and nonreligious families asked the Supreme Court to review Texas Senate…
The Border, the Bump, and the Citizenship Battle
The Supreme Court’s ruling upholding birthright citizenship has set off the next round of immigration politics: not just who gets citizenship after birth, but who should be allowed into the country before birth. Specifically, some have begun floating tighter restrictions on pregnant foreign visitors entering the United States. The issue is “birth tourism,” meaning foreign…
Birthright Citizenship Survives, and the Justices Bring the Receipts
The Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship ruling is one of those cases where constitutional text, history, immigration policy, presidential power, and judicial philosophy all collide in one very crowded legal hallway. The Court affirmed the lower court’s judgment against President Trump’s executive order, which sought to deny citizenship to children born in the United States to…
Supreme Court, Girls’ Sports, and the Question Nobody Can Dodge
The Supreme Court has now upheld state laws from West Virginia and Idaho barring transgender girls and women from competing on school athletic teams designated for girls and women. The Court’s conservative majority ruled that the laws don’t violate the Constitution, while all nine justices agreed that Title IX doesn’t require schools to allow transgender…
Truth, Libel, and the Media’s Very Expensive Hall Pass
Few Supreme Court precedents have shaped American political speech more than New York Times v. Sullivan, the 1964 decision that made it much harder for public officials, and later public figures, to win defamation lawsuits. Supporters say that high bar protects free debate, especially criticism of powerful people. Critics say it’s become a legal bunker…
War, Power, and the Constitution: Who Actually Gets to Pull the Trigger?
On Friday, President Trump claimed that the War Powers Resolution is “totally unconstitutional.” That’s not exactly a mild critique. That’s the political equivalent of flipping the table and saying the rulebook itself is illegitimate. The War Powers Resolution, passed in 1973 in the shadow of the Vietnam War, was Congress’s attempt to rein in a…
When “Protecting Voters” Becomes “Sorting by Race”
Yesterday’s decision by the Supreme Court to strike down certain majority-minority congressional districts as unconstitutional racial gerrymandering has landed like a political thunderclap, though not exactly a surprising one. If you’ve been watching the Court’s trajectory on race-conscious policymaking, this feels less like a sudden detour and more like the next logical mile marker. Still,…
Lock Them Up or Not? The Fight Over Mandatory Detention
The legal fight over mandatory detention isn’t just about one policy tweak. It’s about the basic rules of the game when the government decides who gets to stay free and who sits in detention while their case plays out. Under the Trump administration’s policy, certain noncitizens—often those with past criminal convictions or specific immigration violations—could…
The Supreme Court, Geofence Warrants, and the Future of Privacy
The Supreme Court is weighing a case that could reshape how police investigate crimes in the digital age and, more importantly, how far the government can go in collecting data on ordinary people who aren’t suspected of doing anything wrong. At its core, the debate is about whether law enforcement should be allowed to use…
Back to the Firing Squad?
When the Department of Justice floats the idea of bringing back the firing squad, the immediate reaction from a lot of people is predictable: shock, discomfort, and a chorus of “this feels like a step backward.” But let’s be honest for a second. That reaction says more about how we’ve packaged capital punishment in recent…
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