We have all seen the firestorm of controversy over US Attorney General (AG) Merrick Garland’s approval of a warrant application to search the home of former President Donald Trump. I personally have no doubts about Garland’s commitment to evenhanded justice and the rule of law. But these events demonstrate, more than ever, the urgent need [...]
I am a Democrat and a strong admirer and supporter of President Biden. I think his administration and the Democratic leadership in Congress have achieved some striking successes so far. But my deeper loyalty, as a citizen and scholar, is to the constitutional system that has made America a great national experiment for almost 250 [...]
America faces unprecedented and existential threats to voting rights, free and fair elections, and the very future of our democracy. Congress must take urgent action now — well within its constitutional powers — to stop these threats in their tracks. All it would take is a simple one-page bill. I have proposed a draft here. [...]
Critics of the D.C. Statehood Bill, which passed the House on April 22, rightly object that it cannot properly override the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution. The House Bill creates utterly unnecessary problems under the Amendment by proposing a greatly reduced “District”, encompassing the White House, the Capitol and Supreme Court buildings, and the National [...]
Judging by much of the debate over the Senate filibuster rule, you’d think it was some honorable tradition worth keeping — “an elegant weapon of a more civilized age,” as Obi-Wan Kenobi described the lightsaber to Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars. Not so. The filibuster is a dangerous relic with a deeply destructive [...]
The “Final Days” of a failed, corrupt, and criminal presidency…for the second time in two generations (I recall as a child hearing the drumbeat of “Watergate” in the news), that is the legacy of America’s Republican Party. As President-elect Biden and so many others keep saying (perhaps out of desperate hope), “this is not who [...]
Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ), the former astronaut and rising political star, was sworn in December 2, marking the end of an astonishingly long period (two years plus three months) during which the people of Arizona were deprived of their constitutional right to elect one of their two U.S. senators. It is an outrage that it [...]
It is tempting to laugh off the claims about election fraud by President Trump and his Republican followers. Even some Trumpian Republicans have tried, like Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. He dismissed as “laughable” the effort by Republican Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler to force him out of office because, in their chilling [...]
Is Nancy Pelosi, as Speaker of the House of Representatives, properly and constitutionally second in line for the presidency? The question has urgent new relevance in light of President Donald Trump becoming sick with Coronavirus and the spread of COVID infections at the top levels of the administration. If a double vacancy occurred due to [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Bryan H. Wildenthal of Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego discusses the history of Supreme Court vacancies and presidential nominations during presidential election years...Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the most provocative judges in American...
