flipping through a proof of yet another book from a somewhat well known liberal voice diagnosing “where the left went wrong” and i’m struck, again, by the fact that a large part (if not most) of the liberal commentariat simply does not believe that the political right has agency.
That this Court continues to extend special solicitude to religious institutions now claiming a right to participate in publicly funded programs on their own terms should be understood as nothing short of insanity.
My take on Chiles:
Interested in a state supreme court clerkship? @statecourtreport.org has a database featuring clerkship opportunities from 25 states and more than 80 justices. We hope it's a good starting point for applicants! statecourtreport.org/state-judici...
I remember 1989, when the wall fell in Berlin. I remember 1990, when Mandela walked free. One time I mentioned to my students, what that felt like and they could not understand.
A picture of me petting a local stray cat
This sweet angel stopped by to say hello and hang out for a bit. #caturday
The goal of regulatory democracy should be to surface and channel productive disagreement, not chase consensus. This is so good @jamesgoodwin.bsky.social !!
fas.org/publication/...
The Milton Friedman logic of “schools should be like restaurants” means that sometimes a school will randomly close and a whole community wakes up one morning to find their essential infrastructure vanished. Like this school. www.ajc.com/education/20...
unreal to realize that, in about 2 months, it'll be 2 years since The Originalism Trap came out
I've sold 5,925 copies so far, which is probably pretty good for a Black girl nobody had ever heard of writing a book about the Constitution? hope I can hit 6K!
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/735353...
New from the Duke Law Journal: a symposium on "Historical Facts and Constitutional Law: New Challenges for Lawyers, Judges, and Scholars" - spearheaded by @brandonlgarrett.bsky.social Joseph Blocher & Tim Lovelace: dlj.law.duke.edu/current-issue/ (1/4)
“Now that property damage can sustain a terrorism charge, and given how easily prosecutors can make a person’s political opinions germane to a criminal trial, we should anticipate more aggressive and overtly politicized charging by federal prosecutors under pressure from the Trump administration.”
Grief is like this—so hard that you have to cry and laugh and keep them with us best we can. Important project below.
Solicitor General Sauer just said birthright citizenship “demeans the priceless and profound gift of American citizenship” which is hilarious since Trump has literally proposed selling citizenship for $5 million a pop
like we have an actual price
www.nbcnews.com/video/trump-...
7-2 to block the executive order; maybe 8-1.
This wasn't (and won't be) close.
I'll have more thoughts on why (and what that means) in tomorrow's newsletter:
www.stevevladeck.com
Extremely fucked up. They should be getting at least two bsky.app/profile/davi...
An image of the TOC of a journal issue on law and capitalism.
cool new journal issue alert! second installment from the law and capitalism conference at Duke. I have a piece in it - can't wait to read the others. lcp.law.duke.edu
After years of research, Daphna Renan & I are thrilled to announce preorders of SUPREMACY. Why is US democracy so broken? One reason is we've wrongly accepted that 9 justices have the final say over the Constitution. This book traces how that happened—& how we can reclaim power to govern ourselves.
from 1868 to 2025 there was little dispute about what the birthright clause meant and the idea that the past year has been some great scholarly debate is absurd. a handful of partisans and hacks have churned out junk so that the president can get what he wants. that’s it.
The NYT oped pages accept a single digit % of submissions. Authors though can use multiple platforms to get word out about their book. Don has generously offered his platform for my guest post next week where I will draw parallels between my legal & policy history book to current politics.
Federalism as countervailing power, not a procedural checklist, is so important.
open.substack.com/pub/statesfo...
Not a specific reporter, but @statecourtreport.org does incredible work in this space.
Same.
If you’re in New York tomorrow, do come to this remarkable event, the next in our ongoing @lpenyc.bsky.social night school series: how can social movements shape municipal governance, chaired by @cuny.edu law’s own Prof. Marbré Stahly-Butts.
RSVP below!
justice alito talmbout it "seriously undermines" voter confidence when a "big stash" of mail ballots arrives and changes the "apparent outcome"
sir do you mean when all the votes are counted? bc it sounds like you're just describing when all the votes are counted
Excellent to be invited at @lpeblog.bsky.social to comment on @beaubaumann.bsky.social”s already celebrated post. Where are we in the quest for legislative supremacy? lpeproject.org/blog/of-lpe-...
V-Dem’s latest democracy report places the U.S. outside the category of liberal democracies: “US democracy is now back at the worst recorded level since 1965, when US civil rights laws first introduced de facto universal suffrage. All progress made since then has been erased.”
The MORE-UFT caucus in NYC is doing a reading group of my book, and one of the core organizers’ cats bought a bunch of copies for them.
Today’s hearing on Plyler calls into question a longstanding constitutional protection with implications that extend well beyond public education.
I wrote about these broader implications last year in @slate.com. Worth revisiting in light of today’s developments:
slate.com/news-and-pol...
A thoughtful reflection on LPE and the dynamics of intellectual movements in the legal academy.
