by Neil H. Buchanan
Adding to the list of things that ought to have been unnecessary to write, I recently offered this observation: "The Constitution is not a stupid document written by careless men." Donald Trump's assaults on our system of government have been so fundamental that even the most crushingly obvious truths need to be revisited.
The point of that particular observation was to respond to people -- even many of Trump's fiercest detractors -- who have been saying that the president's pardon power is absolute and unreviewable. If those people were right, then the Constitution would be not merely a suicide pact but a self-negating exercise, a piece of paper that created a limited government in name but a dictatorship in fact.
Even in the context of constructing a strong argument against the Arpaio pardon, for example, Professor Martin Redish recently claimed that "on its face the pardon power appears virtually unlimited." This, fortunately, is wrong on its face -- and although I have never met Professor Redish, the rest of his argument makes me suspect that he would be happy to be wrong in this instance.
The relevant language from the Constitution is this: "The President ... shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons ... ." The only way that the pardon power would appear to be unlimited "on its face" is if one believes that "shall have power" unambiguously means "shall have complete and unreviewable power." But it does not say that (nor does it definitively say anything else).
Because the pardon clause does not say that the president's power is unlimited, and because the word pardon is itself not self-defining (Does it include only acts of mercy?), it should very much be within the courts' purview -- as it is in all constitutional questions -- to hear and adjudicate challenges to the president's pardon power, from the Arpaio pardon to possible future pardons of Trump's family members and his other enablers.
Indeed, just as I had hoped, some people have already started to mobilize against Trump's unprecedented power grab. The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin, for example, wrote a column yesterday with the sub-headline, "Trump's pardon power may not be so absolute after all."
Thursday, August 31, 2017
Wednesday, August 30, 2017
Lost in the Construction Zone
By Eric Segall
Last Friday, Mike posted an essay titled “How Determinate is
Originalism in Practice?” He essentially argued that the decisions of Justices
Scalia and Thomas suggest that originalism is less determinate than originalists contend because both Justices reached more conservative results than one would expect from a neutral application of the doctrine. Professor Larry Solum, a scholar associated with New Originalism, responded with
a four-part series taking issue with many of the points raised
in Mike's essay. Mike and I are both critics of originalism, although we do not agree on everything. Thus, this post speaks only for me. It is devoted solely to responding to the second part of Larry's response dealing with what he calls "public meaning and
underdetermination." This aspect of Larry's response is important because it implicates the critique of many scholars that New Originalism is just living constitutionalism by another name (speaking of names, because I can't bring myself to call Mike "Dorf" I will refer to Professor Solum as "Larry" for the sake of parity. I hope he doesn't mind).
Why Abortion-Only Insurance Will Turn Off People Who Need It
by Sherry F. Colb
In my column for this week, I discuss the recently passed Texas law prohibiting health insurance companies from offering general policies that also cover abortion. If they wish to cover abortion, they must have a separate policy with separate premiums and requiring a separate signature by the insured. In the column, I consider a potential argument in favor of such a law: perhaps Texas wishes to make it possible for people who disapprove of abortion to avoid feeling complicit in the abortions that their insurance premiums subsidize. The column analyzes the strength of that argument through analogies to different types of complicity-avoiding claims.
In this post, I want to focus on the decision that a woman purchasing health insurance must make about whether to buy the supplemental abortion insurance plan on top of her regular plan. When purchasing ordinary insurance, one need not think about all of the unfortunate health events that might befall a person. One simply signs up for health insurance and knows that he or she is covered in the event of whatever health problems that he or she might prefer not to think about. But a single-event health insurance plan is quite different from that.
In my column for this week, I discuss the recently passed Texas law prohibiting health insurance companies from offering general policies that also cover abortion. If they wish to cover abortion, they must have a separate policy with separate premiums and requiring a separate signature by the insured. In the column, I consider a potential argument in favor of such a law: perhaps Texas wishes to make it possible for people who disapprove of abortion to avoid feeling complicit in the abortions that their insurance premiums subsidize. The column analyzes the strength of that argument through analogies to different types of complicity-avoiding claims.
In this post, I want to focus on the decision that a woman purchasing health insurance must make about whether to buy the supplemental abortion insurance plan on top of her regular plan. When purchasing ordinary insurance, one need not think about all of the unfortunate health events that might befall a person. One simply signs up for health insurance and knows that he or she is covered in the event of whatever health problems that he or she might prefer not to think about. But a single-event health insurance plan is quite different from that.
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
The President's Pardon Power Is Not Absolute
by Neil H. Buchanan
In what might be his most terrifying move yet (although there is plenty of competition for that dubious distinction), Donald Trump further burnished his racist credentials last week by issuing a presidential pardon to the former Maricopa County (Arizona) sheriff Joe Arpaio.
For those who have only the vaguest sense of how bad Arpaio's 24-year reign of terror was, Harper's provides a sobering list of outrages, including (but sadly not limited to) these offenses against human decency:
As bad as the Arpaio pardon was, however, the greater worry among people who care about the rule of law -- honest conservatives every bit as much as liberals and centrists -- is that Trump might have discovered a shortcut to autocracy.
From now on, the worry goes, Trump might simply pardon people whenever it suits his purpose, directly negating the judicial branch and indirectly negating the legislative branch of government. This might be the biggest leap yet toward a truly imperial presidency (and maybe outright fascism).
I certainly share those concerns, but I am also worried that those who oppose Trump are unilaterally disarming after the first shot has been fired. Too many people are saying that there is nothing short of impeachment that can be done to stop Trump from turning the pardon power into a weapon of dictatorship.
Fortunately, they are wrong. The pardon power is not absolute, and impeachment -- as merited as it already is in Trump's case -- is not the only way to respond to Trump's potential abuses of the pardon power.
In what might be his most terrifying move yet (although there is plenty of competition for that dubious distinction), Donald Trump further burnished his racist credentials last week by issuing a presidential pardon to the former Maricopa County (Arizona) sheriff Joe Arpaio.
For those who have only the vaguest sense of how bad Arpaio's 24-year reign of terror was, Harper's provides a sobering list of outrages, including (but sadly not limited to) these offenses against human decency:
"[Arpaio] shot footage of female inmates that could be viewed online; forced hundreds of inmates not yet convicted of any crime to march from one jail to another in pink underwear; oversaw guards who referred to Latino inmates as 'wetbacks' and 'Mexican bitches,' strapped to a chair a paraplegic inmate and then tightened the restraints until his neck broke, and forced a female inmate to give birth in shackles." (italics added)That is the person whom Trump has deemed a personal friend and an American hero. Talk about being able to judge someone by the company he keeps!
As bad as the Arpaio pardon was, however, the greater worry among people who care about the rule of law -- honest conservatives every bit as much as liberals and centrists -- is that Trump might have discovered a shortcut to autocracy.
From now on, the worry goes, Trump might simply pardon people whenever it suits his purpose, directly negating the judicial branch and indirectly negating the legislative branch of government. This might be the biggest leap yet toward a truly imperial presidency (and maybe outright fascism).
I certainly share those concerns, but I am also worried that those who oppose Trump are unilaterally disarming after the first shot has been fired. Too many people are saying that there is nothing short of impeachment that can be done to stop Trump from turning the pardon power into a weapon of dictatorship.
Fortunately, they are wrong. The pardon power is not absolute, and impeachment -- as merited as it already is in Trump's case -- is not the only way to respond to Trump's potential abuses of the pardon power.
Monday, August 28, 2017
Hate Speech and Private Disassociation
by Michael Dorf
In my Verdict column and an accompanying blog post last week, I proposed that Congress pass a statute imposing on internet domain registration, hosting, and other companies that provide essential services common carrier obligations, but that the statute ought to allow such companies, if they so choose, not to provide services to purveyors of hate speech, as defined by the statute. In both the column and the blog post, I acknowledged that the constitutionality of such an exception is unclear, given that, as construed by the Supreme Court, the First Amendment protects hate speech. Here I want to consider the question I bracketed last week: Would a common-carrier obligation with such an exception be valid?
I confess that after devoting considerable thought to this question, I find myself torn. Here I'll explain why I find this question difficult, mostly by exploring examples that pull in opposite directions.
In my Verdict column and an accompanying blog post last week, I proposed that Congress pass a statute imposing on internet domain registration, hosting, and other companies that provide essential services common carrier obligations, but that the statute ought to allow such companies, if they so choose, not to provide services to purveyors of hate speech, as defined by the statute. In both the column and the blog post, I acknowledged that the constitutionality of such an exception is unclear, given that, as construed by the Supreme Court, the First Amendment protects hate speech. Here I want to consider the question I bracketed last week: Would a common-carrier obligation with such an exception be valid?
I confess that after devoting considerable thought to this question, I find myself torn. Here I'll explain why I find this question difficult, mostly by exploring examples that pull in opposite directions.
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Our National Ache
By Eric Segall
Law Professors all over social media have been trying to figure out if we are in a "constitutional crisis" or heading towards a "constitutional crisis." Of course there is no standard definition of what that means, and therefore, not surprisingly, there is also much disagreement among the experts on what constitutes a "constitutional crisis." Here is what I know: I am 59 years old, and never in my lifetime has there been such a prolonged national ache-not after Watergate, not after Lewinsky, not even after 9/11.
Law Professors all over social media have been trying to figure out if we are in a "constitutional crisis" or heading towards a "constitutional crisis." Of course there is no standard definition of what that means, and therefore, not surprisingly, there is also much disagreement among the experts on what constitutes a "constitutional crisis." Here is what I know: I am 59 years old, and never in my lifetime has there been such a prolonged national ache-not after Watergate, not after Lewinsky, not even after 9/11.
Saturday, August 26, 2017
The Arpaio Pardon Through the Lens of Trump Exceptionalism
by Michael Dorf
(cross-posted on Take Care)
Donald Trump's pardon of Joe Arpaio has been widely condemned as a threat to the rule of law. For example, Senator John McCain tweeted:
McCain is right. Arpaio was convicted of contempt for intentionally violating a court order forbidding him from detaining people solely on suspicion of having entered the country illegally. Trump's pardon is despicable because, as McCain notes, Arpaio's policy centered on illegal and immoral racial profiling of Latinos. It is a a threat to the rule of law because contempt is the means by which courts enforce their orders. The use of the pardon power to undo contempt convictions poses a threat to the independence of the judiciary and thus, as McCain says, the rule of law.
(cross-posted on Take Care)
Donald Trump's pardon of Joe Arpaio has been widely condemned as a threat to the rule of law. For example, Senator John McCain tweeted:
McCain is right. Arpaio was convicted of contempt for intentionally violating a court order forbidding him from detaining people solely on suspicion of having entered the country illegally. Trump's pardon is despicable because, as McCain notes, Arpaio's policy centered on illegal and immoral racial profiling of Latinos. It is a a threat to the rule of law because contempt is the means by which courts enforce their orders. The use of the pardon power to undo contempt convictions poses a threat to the independence of the judiciary and thus, as McCain says, the rule of law.
Friday, August 25, 2017
How Determinate is Originalism in Practice?
by Michael Dorf
When originalism began gaining traction in the 1970s and 1980s, its proponents frequently cited its supposed constraining impact on judges as a virtue. This claim fit well both with originalism's ideological origins and its nature at the time. Although appeals to the framers were a common trope in judicial rhetoric in prior periods, by the time originalism began to crystalize as an "ism," it was largely a program of resistance against what conservatives saw as the excesses of the Warren Court and, to the extent that the Burger Court built on or failed to cut back on the work of the Warren Court, the Burger Court as well. At the time, originalism was generally promoted as aiming at implementing the framers' intent, which was thought to be reasonably determinate in its concrete applications. E.g., if the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment did not intend (or expect) it to forbid most forms of sex discrimination, then arguments for sex equality under the Fourteenth Amendment were inconsistent with this first wave of originalism.
Partly in response to withering criticism, originalism morphed over time, so that most people (and nearly all academics) who call themselves originalists now claim that what binds is the original public meaning of the Constitution's text, rather than the concrete intentions and expectations of its framers and ratifiers. And because the original public meaning of the more open-ended clauses of the Constitution tends to be, well, open-ended, original-public-meaning originalism tends to be substantially less determinate than (at least the claims that have been made for) old-style original intent. Originalists solved the problem of seemingly having to support a view of the Constitution that allows official sex discrimination and other unacceptable practices by sacrificing determinacy.
Except that most original-public-meaning originalists cling to determinacy as a virtue. They no longer claim that originalism is close to fully determinate, but they still frequently claim that it is substantially more determinate than other approaches to constitutional interpretation. This claim is empirically testable. If originalism were a methodology that constrained justices, one would expect that a justice who practiced originalism would be somewhat ideologically unpredictable. And yet, as I shall explain, originalism in practice is predictably conservative.
When originalism began gaining traction in the 1970s and 1980s, its proponents frequently cited its supposed constraining impact on judges as a virtue. This claim fit well both with originalism's ideological origins and its nature at the time. Although appeals to the framers were a common trope in judicial rhetoric in prior periods, by the time originalism began to crystalize as an "ism," it was largely a program of resistance against what conservatives saw as the excesses of the Warren Court and, to the extent that the Burger Court built on or failed to cut back on the work of the Warren Court, the Burger Court as well. At the time, originalism was generally promoted as aiming at implementing the framers' intent, which was thought to be reasonably determinate in its concrete applications. E.g., if the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment did not intend (or expect) it to forbid most forms of sex discrimination, then arguments for sex equality under the Fourteenth Amendment were inconsistent with this first wave of originalism.
Partly in response to withering criticism, originalism morphed over time, so that most people (and nearly all academics) who call themselves originalists now claim that what binds is the original public meaning of the Constitution's text, rather than the concrete intentions and expectations of its framers and ratifiers. And because the original public meaning of the more open-ended clauses of the Constitution tends to be, well, open-ended, original-public-meaning originalism tends to be substantially less determinate than (at least the claims that have been made for) old-style original intent. Originalists solved the problem of seemingly having to support a view of the Constitution that allows official sex discrimination and other unacceptable practices by sacrificing determinacy.
Except that most original-public-meaning originalists cling to determinacy as a virtue. They no longer claim that originalism is close to fully determinate, but they still frequently claim that it is substantially more determinate than other approaches to constitutional interpretation. This claim is empirically testable. If originalism were a methodology that constrained justices, one would expect that a justice who practiced originalism would be somewhat ideologically unpredictable. And yet, as I shall explain, originalism in practice is predictably conservative.
Thursday, August 24, 2017
The Press Continues to Give Trump a Pass on His Nonexistent Policy Agenda
by Neil H. Buchanan
[August 26, 2017: This column has been updated to fix some editing errors.]
There are serious concerns that Donald Trump's ceaseless rhetorical attacks on the news media could lead to very non-rhetorical violent attacks on reporters. Trump hates to be the subject of negative coverage, so he attacks the messenger rather than changing his message.
One of the reasons that Trump is angry is that news organizations have made some efforts to prevent Trump's outrages from seeming at all normal. The word "lie," which used to be all but taboo in American journalism when discussing politicians (and certainly presidents) has been forced into service in response to a president who lies constantly.
Even so, habits of mind persist. There is, for example, a running list of Trump's lies in The Washington Post, yet the most recent update, "President Trump's List of False and Misleading Claims Tops 1000," uses all of the euphemisms for "lie" but contains not a single usage of the l-word.
What is all too easy to forget is that, even now, Trump benefits from journalistic habits and rituals that make him look much more effective -- and his policies much more defensible -- than the evidence can support. It turns out that, especially on policy matters, reporters seem to have a default mode that gives Trump a pass and treats him as perfectly normal.
With a huge debate looming over whether Trump and the Republicans will be able to transfer trillions of dollars to the superrich from everyone else, this journalistic sloppiness matters.
[August 26, 2017: This column has been updated to fix some editing errors.]
There are serious concerns that Donald Trump's ceaseless rhetorical attacks on the news media could lead to very non-rhetorical violent attacks on reporters. Trump hates to be the subject of negative coverage, so he attacks the messenger rather than changing his message.
One of the reasons that Trump is angry is that news organizations have made some efforts to prevent Trump's outrages from seeming at all normal. The word "lie," which used to be all but taboo in American journalism when discussing politicians (and certainly presidents) has been forced into service in response to a president who lies constantly.
Even so, habits of mind persist. There is, for example, a running list of Trump's lies in The Washington Post, yet the most recent update, "President Trump's List of False and Misleading Claims Tops 1000," uses all of the euphemisms for "lie" but contains not a single usage of the l-word.
What is all too easy to forget is that, even now, Trump benefits from journalistic habits and rituals that make him look much more effective -- and his policies much more defensible -- than the evidence can support. It turns out that, especially on policy matters, reporters seem to have a default mode that gives Trump a pass and treats him as perfectly normal.
With a huge debate looming over whether Trump and the Republicans will be able to transfer trillions of dollars to the superrich from everyone else, this journalistic sloppiness matters.
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
Neo-Nazis, Wedding Cakes, and Compelled Speech
by Michael Dorf
On Verdict, my latest column addresses the free-speech implications of the denial by various internet companies of hosting, registration, and other services to the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer. To summarize and over-simplify, I argue: (1) Such companies (such as GoDaddy and Google) did not breach their contractual Terms of Service; (2) they did not violate the First Amendment, because as private actors, the Constitution (with the exception of the 13th Amendment) does not apply to them; (3) we ought nonetheless worry about an internet in which private censorship can deny a platform to unpopular speech, if not for the sake of neo-Nazis then for others; (4) Congress could address that issue with a statute imposing common carrier obligations on internet companies in most circumstances; and (5) such a statute could probably carve out an exception that allows such companies to refuse service to purveyors of hate speech. (I hedge by saying "probably" here and in the column because there is a possibility that the hate-speech exception would be struck down on the authority of R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, about which I might have more to say in a subsequent post.)
Here I want to explore the interests asserted by the likes of GoDaddy, Google, and other internet companies in denying service to neo-Nazis and their ilk. I'll then consider implications of my analysis for the pending Supreme Court case of Masterpiece Cake Shop v. Colorado Civil Rights Comm'n.
On Verdict, my latest column addresses the free-speech implications of the denial by various internet companies of hosting, registration, and other services to the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer. To summarize and over-simplify, I argue: (1) Such companies (such as GoDaddy and Google) did not breach their contractual Terms of Service; (2) they did not violate the First Amendment, because as private actors, the Constitution (with the exception of the 13th Amendment) does not apply to them; (3) we ought nonetheless worry about an internet in which private censorship can deny a platform to unpopular speech, if not for the sake of neo-Nazis then for others; (4) Congress could address that issue with a statute imposing common carrier obligations on internet companies in most circumstances; and (5) such a statute could probably carve out an exception that allows such companies to refuse service to purveyors of hate speech. (I hedge by saying "probably" here and in the column because there is a possibility that the hate-speech exception would be struck down on the authority of R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, about which I might have more to say in a subsequent post.)
Here I want to explore the interests asserted by the likes of GoDaddy, Google, and other internet companies in denying service to neo-Nazis and their ilk. I'll then consider implications of my analysis for the pending Supreme Court case of Masterpiece Cake Shop v. Colorado Civil Rights Comm'n.
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
Northerners, Heritage, and Confederate Sympathies
by Neil H. Buchanan
The day after a Klan sympathizer drove a car into a crowd of counter-protesters in Charlottesville, killing one person and injuring nineteen others, I received an email from a friend:
I responded that I knew of one guy from my high school class who had joined the KKK, and I thus assumed that there have always been white supremacist groups in that area. Indeed, there are right-wing extremist groups all over the country, from New York State to Michigan to Montana and beyond. In a way, therefore, there was no reason to be surprised that my home town -- any home town -- could have produced this kind of monster.
As it turned out, the murderer in this case was not really from Maumee. After some quick checking online, I learned that he had grown up in Kentucky and had only moved to Ohio a year ago after his mother took a job there. For no good reason, I exhaled and felt some sense of relief.
Mirroring the second sentence of my friend's email, I also found myself thinking, "Well, Kentucky, I see. That makes more sense." But does it? Kentucky was not in the confederacy, either, and there are certainly areas of other non-secessionist states (Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania) that were sympathetic to the South. My current home state of Maryland, of course, has its own complicated story.
So my question is whether my friend's strong visceral reaction to northerners who defend the confederate cause -- a negative reaction that I fully share -- makes sense. In order to answer that question, it is necessary to understand where our gut-level reaction comes from.
The day after a Klan sympathizer drove a car into a crowd of counter-protesters in Charlottesville, killing one person and injuring nineteen others, I received an email from a friend:
"The driver who killed the counter protester in Charlottesville is from Maumee (Ohio). I think there's something extra awful about northerners defending the confederate cause."This was personal, because I grew up in Maumee, which is a suburb of Toledo, near the northern border with Michigan and only about an hour from Detroit.
I responded that I knew of one guy from my high school class who had joined the KKK, and I thus assumed that there have always been white supremacist groups in that area. Indeed, there are right-wing extremist groups all over the country, from New York State to Michigan to Montana and beyond. In a way, therefore, there was no reason to be surprised that my home town -- any home town -- could have produced this kind of monster.
As it turned out, the murderer in this case was not really from Maumee. After some quick checking online, I learned that he had grown up in Kentucky and had only moved to Ohio a year ago after his mother took a job there. For no good reason, I exhaled and felt some sense of relief.
Mirroring the second sentence of my friend's email, I also found myself thinking, "Well, Kentucky, I see. That makes more sense." But does it? Kentucky was not in the confederacy, either, and there are certainly areas of other non-secessionist states (Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania) that were sympathetic to the South. My current home state of Maryland, of course, has its own complicated story.
So my question is whether my friend's strong visceral reaction to northerners who defend the confederate cause -- a negative reaction that I fully share -- makes sense. In order to answer that question, it is necessary to understand where our gut-level reaction comes from.
Monday, August 21, 2017
Constitutional Arithmetic Post-Charlottesville: Sometimes One Plus One Equals Zero
by Michael Dorf
(cross-posted on Take Care)
Since the white supremacist march, rally, and mayhem in Charlottesville, some civil libertarians have begun to question whether the white supremacists were entitled to march and rally at all, in light of the fact that they were armed. For example, the Executive Directors of three large ACLU affiliates in California stated: “If white supremacists march into our towns armed to the teeth and with the intent to harm people, they are not engaging in activity protected by the United States Constitution.” Given the organization's history of defending the constitutional rights of unpopular, even repugnant, speakers, that position has been controversial.
It shouldn't be. As a simple matter of common sense, a march or rally by people who are heavily armed is not an exercise of what the First Amendment calls "the right of the people peaceably to assemble" (emphasis added). Even a child knows that. So what explains the controversy?
Part of the answer is, I suspect, is a fallacy of arithmetic. There is a First Amendment right to hold a rally or a march. There is (let us assume for the moment) a Second Amendment right to carry firearms openly in public. Thus, the logic goes, an armed march is the exercise of two rights, not just one, and should be doubly protected.
However, that logic is false. Constitutional arithmetic is not ordinary arithmetic. Sometimes one plus one equals zero.
(cross-posted on Take Care)
Since the white supremacist march, rally, and mayhem in Charlottesville, some civil libertarians have begun to question whether the white supremacists were entitled to march and rally at all, in light of the fact that they were armed. For example, the Executive Directors of three large ACLU affiliates in California stated: “If white supremacists march into our towns armed to the teeth and with the intent to harm people, they are not engaging in activity protected by the United States Constitution.” Given the organization's history of defending the constitutional rights of unpopular, even repugnant, speakers, that position has been controversial.
It shouldn't be. As a simple matter of common sense, a march or rally by people who are heavily armed is not an exercise of what the First Amendment calls "the right of the people peaceably to assemble" (emphasis added). Even a child knows that. So what explains the controversy?
Part of the answer is, I suspect, is a fallacy of arithmetic. There is a First Amendment right to hold a rally or a march. There is (let us assume for the moment) a Second Amendment right to carry firearms openly in public. Thus, the logic goes, an armed march is the exercise of two rights, not just one, and should be doubly protected.
However, that logic is false. Constitutional arithmetic is not ordinary arithmetic. Sometimes one plus one equals zero.
Friday, August 18, 2017
Free Speech and Guns in 2037
By William Hausdorff and Eric Segall
Grandpa, I learned in school today that
not so long ago American hate groups were allowed to march through the streets
of our town, shouting threats and racial slurs at people, and to carry guns
while they did that. And that some
people got killed.
I’m so glad they can’t do that anymore.
Can you explain this to me? Because I
really didn’t understand it. Is all that
really true?
Well, you're too young to remember
this, but it all began to change with what happened in Charlottesville,
Virginia back in 2017—just about 20 years ago.
The Company Trump and His Supporters Keep
by Neil H. Buchanan
We have long since passed the point where it makes sense to try to compare Donald Trump's outrages. "A new low." "Most depressing." "Even more dangerous." "Unprecedented in its depravity." The inventory of negative superlatives has been depleted. Everything, it seems, is the worst.
I will not, therefore, try to claim that there was one Trump statement in the last week that shocked me more than any other. I will, instead, take one of his moments of awfulness as a starting point to make a larger argument.
As most observers know, Trump claimed in his indescribable press conference on Tuesday, August 15, that there were "some very fine people on both sides" of the Charlottesville protests.
Trump's claim seemed to be that some fine people marched alongside groups of men carrying Nazi and Confederate flags who were chanting anti-semitic slogans, but the company they kept does not reflect badly on them, because they were merely there to protest the removal of a statue and the renaming of a park.
Even giving a complete (and undeserved) pass to people who would defend statues and other public honoraria that exist "to celebrate white supremacy," the best response I have seen to Trump's whitewashing (unfunny pun intended, of course) of bigotry was offered by the late-night host Jimmy Kimmel:
We have long since passed the point where it makes sense to try to compare Donald Trump's outrages. "A new low." "Most depressing." "Even more dangerous." "Unprecedented in its depravity." The inventory of negative superlatives has been depleted. Everything, it seems, is the worst.
I will not, therefore, try to claim that there was one Trump statement in the last week that shocked me more than any other. I will, instead, take one of his moments of awfulness as a starting point to make a larger argument.
As most observers know, Trump claimed in his indescribable press conference on Tuesday, August 15, that there were "some very fine people on both sides" of the Charlottesville protests.
Trump's claim seemed to be that some fine people marched alongside groups of men carrying Nazi and Confederate flags who were chanting anti-semitic slogans, but the company they kept does not reflect badly on them, because they were merely there to protest the removal of a statue and the renaming of a park.
Even giving a complete (and undeserved) pass to people who would defend statues and other public honoraria that exist "to celebrate white supremacy," the best response I have seen to Trump's whitewashing (unfunny pun intended, of course) of bigotry was offered by the late-night host Jimmy Kimmel:
"If you’re with a group of people and they’re chanting things like 'Jews will not replace us' and you don’t immediately leave that group, you are not a very fine person."
Failing to notice the company that people choose to keep is an act of willful moral blindness. Any person who could say, "Well, these people shouting hateful slurs and carrying the symbols of America's defeated enemies don't make me want to leave their presence," is a person who himself is morally bankrupt.
The question is how far this extends. And it brings into sharper focus a question about Trump's voters that far too many commentators have been failing to understand for the past two years.
Thursday, August 17, 2017
A Pregnant Minor's Best Interests
by Sherry F. Colb
In my Verdict column for this week, I discuss an Alabama law regulating the judicial bypass hearing that minors get if they cannot or will not go to their parents to obtain consent for an abortion. The purpose of the judicial bypass hearing is to allow minors who are uncomfortable approaching their parents about their unplanned pregnancy (or whose parents refuse to consent) to approach a judge instead. The judge will then decide (1) if the minor is mature enough to make the decision on her own, and (2) assuming that the minor is not mature enough, whether an abortion is in the minor's best interests. The Alabama statute was unusual in that it provided that the minor's parents, the local District Attorney, and a Guardian Ad Litem for the embryo or fetus could or would also be parties to the bypass hearing. A federal court held this unusual statute unconstitutional, and I elaborate that holding in my column, which then discusses the communicative significance of inviting a prosecutor, the girl's parents, and a representative of the embryo or fetus into the courtroom. In this post, I want to focus on one of the two questions that a judicial bypass is in place to answer: if the minor is not mature enough to make the decision on her own, then is an abortion in her best interests?
In my Verdict column for this week, I discuss an Alabama law regulating the judicial bypass hearing that minors get if they cannot or will not go to their parents to obtain consent for an abortion. The purpose of the judicial bypass hearing is to allow minors who are uncomfortable approaching their parents about their unplanned pregnancy (or whose parents refuse to consent) to approach a judge instead. The judge will then decide (1) if the minor is mature enough to make the decision on her own, and (2) assuming that the minor is not mature enough, whether an abortion is in the minor's best interests. The Alabama statute was unusual in that it provided that the minor's parents, the local District Attorney, and a Guardian Ad Litem for the embryo or fetus could or would also be parties to the bypass hearing. A federal court held this unusual statute unconstitutional, and I elaborate that holding in my column, which then discusses the communicative significance of inviting a prosecutor, the girl's parents, and a representative of the embryo or fetus into the courtroom. In this post, I want to focus on one of the two questions that a judicial bypass is in place to answer: if the minor is not mature enough to make the decision on her own, then is an abortion in her best interests?
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
What's the Difference Between Confederate Leaders and Slave-owning Founding Fathers?
by Michael Dorf
Baltimore's overnight removal of Confederate statues and similar actions elsewhere raise the question also raised by President Trump in his remarks yesterday expressing solidarity with the "many fine people" who just happened to participate in explicitly racist and antisemitic events in Charlottesville: "Is it George Washington next week? And is it Thomas Jefferson the week after?" The short answer to Trump's question is that we honor Washington and Jefferson despite the fact that they owned slaves, whereas memorials to the likes of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and Stonewall Jackson honor them because they fought for the Confederacy, a secessionist movement that had the preservation of slavery as its organizing principle.
Yet the longer answer is more complex. The nationwide movement to strip honors from people who participated in slavery and institutional racism has as its object some people whose contemporary honors can fairly be said to be based on other accomplishments. For example, the movement at Princeton to take away Woodrow Wilson's honors proceeds despite the fact that almost no contemporary Princetonians who seek to retain those honors thereby wish to honor Wilson's virulent racism or his "accomplishment" of segregating the federal workforce. Just as most Americans honor Washington and Jefferson despite rather than because of slavery, most Princetonians who honor Wilson do so despite rather than because of segregation. So what's the difference?
Baltimore's overnight removal of Confederate statues and similar actions elsewhere raise the question also raised by President Trump in his remarks yesterday expressing solidarity with the "many fine people" who just happened to participate in explicitly racist and antisemitic events in Charlottesville: "Is it George Washington next week? And is it Thomas Jefferson the week after?" The short answer to Trump's question is that we honor Washington and Jefferson despite the fact that they owned slaves, whereas memorials to the likes of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and Stonewall Jackson honor them because they fought for the Confederacy, a secessionist movement that had the preservation of slavery as its organizing principle.
Yet the longer answer is more complex. The nationwide movement to strip honors from people who participated in slavery and institutional racism has as its object some people whose contemporary honors can fairly be said to be based on other accomplishments. For example, the movement at Princeton to take away Woodrow Wilson's honors proceeds despite the fact that almost no contemporary Princetonians who seek to retain those honors thereby wish to honor Wilson's virulent racism or his "accomplishment" of segregating the federal workforce. Just as most Americans honor Washington and Jefferson despite rather than because of slavery, most Princetonians who honor Wilson do so despite rather than because of segregation. So what's the difference?
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
Trump Has the Opposite of a Poker Face
by Neil H. Buchanan
No one who has been paying even a little bit of attention to Donald Trump could have been surprised by his abject failure of leadership after the violent white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville this past weekend.
Trump's White House staff includes people who have built their careers by fomenting racist hatred, and Trump has enthusiastically embraced their themes and resentments. He had no inclination to criticize a part of his base that he has actively courted.
There has already been an outpouring of excellent commentary regarding Trump's contemptible evasions. Jennifer Rubin, a conservative columnist for The Washington Post, posted a blizzard of insightful blog entries, including one in which she decried "Trump's moral idiocy." (On the other hand, some nominally respectable right-wingers are now busily trying to create false equivalence between Trump and Barack Obama.)
But by far the best responses thus far have come from the political comedian John Oliver, whose opening segment on his HBO show on Sunday night (August 13) offered a string of brilliant comments. Two lines were especially devastating.
First, after showing a clip of David Duke praising Trump, Oliver dead-panned: "I've got to say, David Duke and the Nazis really seem to like Donald Trump, which is weird, because Nazis are a lot like cats: If they like you, it's probably because you're feeding them."
Then, Oliver showed a clip from earlier in the day in which Trump failed to respond to repeated opportunities to control and undo some of the damage of his earlier condemnation of violence "on many sides, on many sides." After Trump's last failure to respond, Oliver said: "He had one last shot before the buzzer on the racism clock hit zero, and he threw an air-ball so far away it landed in the Third Reich."
Michael Dorf did a fantastic job of imagining the speech that Trump could have delivered under these trying circumstances -- not the speech that Dorf would want Trump to give if Trump were suddenly to become a progressive pluralist, but simply one that expresses "sentiments that are appropriate to the gravity of the occasion but also consistent with the views that President Trump's least objectionable supporters attribute to him." Like all of us, however, Dorf knows full well that Trump could never deliver such a speech.
I suspect that I will find myself writing directly about those topics soon, but I want to use this column to put Trump's far-too-late, scripted attempt at damage control in the context of his tendency to say things in a way that cannot be adequately captured in written transcripts.
To put the point simply, Trump has the opposite of a poker face. No matter the words coming out of his mouth, it is always obvious what he actually means.
No one who has been paying even a little bit of attention to Donald Trump could have been surprised by his abject failure of leadership after the violent white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville this past weekend.
Trump's White House staff includes people who have built their careers by fomenting racist hatred, and Trump has enthusiastically embraced their themes and resentments. He had no inclination to criticize a part of his base that he has actively courted.
There has already been an outpouring of excellent commentary regarding Trump's contemptible evasions. Jennifer Rubin, a conservative columnist for The Washington Post, posted a blizzard of insightful blog entries, including one in which she decried "Trump's moral idiocy." (On the other hand, some nominally respectable right-wingers are now busily trying to create false equivalence between Trump and Barack Obama.)
But by far the best responses thus far have come from the political comedian John Oliver, whose opening segment on his HBO show on Sunday night (August 13) offered a string of brilliant comments. Two lines were especially devastating.
First, after showing a clip of David Duke praising Trump, Oliver dead-panned: "I've got to say, David Duke and the Nazis really seem to like Donald Trump, which is weird, because Nazis are a lot like cats: If they like you, it's probably because you're feeding them."
Then, Oliver showed a clip from earlier in the day in which Trump failed to respond to repeated opportunities to control and undo some of the damage of his earlier condemnation of violence "on many sides, on many sides." After Trump's last failure to respond, Oliver said: "He had one last shot before the buzzer on the racism clock hit zero, and he threw an air-ball so far away it landed in the Third Reich."
Michael Dorf did a fantastic job of imagining the speech that Trump could have delivered under these trying circumstances -- not the speech that Dorf would want Trump to give if Trump were suddenly to become a progressive pluralist, but simply one that expresses "sentiments that are appropriate to the gravity of the occasion but also consistent with the views that President Trump's least objectionable supporters attribute to him." Like all of us, however, Dorf knows full well that Trump could never deliver such a speech.
I suspect that I will find myself writing directly about those topics soon, but I want to use this column to put Trump's far-too-late, scripted attempt at damage control in the context of his tendency to say things in a way that cannot be adequately captured in written transcripts.
To put the point simply, Trump has the opposite of a poker face. No matter the words coming out of his mouth, it is always obvious what he actually means.
Monday, August 14, 2017
Some initial steps if the Democrats are really serious. Start by looking different.
By William Hausdorff
I’m a little ashamed to admit that I already miss the Mooch.
Unlike Spicer, Huckabee Sanders, Conway, and the
rest of that robotically mendacious crowd, Anthony Scaramucci, the effervescent
but sadly evanescent White House communications director, appears to be occasionally
capable of unprogrammed, human-like opinions.
Nevertheless, only after the Mooch was dismissed for delivering
his must-read interview-rant,
could I (momentarily) pull myself out of reach of the daily splattering of
untreated sewage that passes for White House communication. I decided to try to think about where Trump
and the Republicans are heading.
Saturday, August 12, 2017
The Speech A Presidential Trump Would Give
by Michael Dorf
In response to the Charlottesville violence at a white supremacist rally, President Trump condemned the "egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides"--a statement that can be read to place primary responsibility on the white supremacists but that falls short of doing so expressly. Even if we acknowledge that some counter-demonstrators were responsible for some of the violence, does Trump mean to suggest that the hatred and bigotry come from many sides? Why does he not unequivocally condemn and separate himself from white supremacists?
The answer may well be political. Perhaps Trump fears alienating his alt-right base. If so, nothing I can say here will persuade him to do anything other than continue to issue ambiguous platitudes. Still, on the off-chance that Trump wishes to say something presidential, I humbly offer a speech for him to deliver. To be clear, this is not the speech that I would write for a president whose views I found closer to my own. Instead, it expresses sentiments that are appropriate to the gravity of the occasion but also consistent with the views that President Trump's least objectionable supporters attribute to him.
In response to the Charlottesville violence at a white supremacist rally, President Trump condemned the "egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides"--a statement that can be read to place primary responsibility on the white supremacists but that falls short of doing so expressly. Even if we acknowledge that some counter-demonstrators were responsible for some of the violence, does Trump mean to suggest that the hatred and bigotry come from many sides? Why does he not unequivocally condemn and separate himself from white supremacists?
The answer may well be political. Perhaps Trump fears alienating his alt-right base. If so, nothing I can say here will persuade him to do anything other than continue to issue ambiguous platitudes. Still, on the off-chance that Trump wishes to say something presidential, I humbly offer a speech for him to deliver. To be clear, this is not the speech that I would write for a president whose views I found closer to my own. Instead, it expresses sentiments that are appropriate to the gravity of the occasion but also consistent with the views that President Trump's least objectionable supporters attribute to him.
Friday, August 11, 2017
Trump and North Korea: Where is Congress?
By Eric Segall
Donald Trump
might be the last person on the planet I would trust with making reasonable
decisions concerning what to do about North Korea's nuclear capability. Having
said that, we shouldn't trust any President with the unilateral power to commit a
non-emergency, no-need-for secrecy, act of war without congressional consent.
The founding fathers wanted to separate the war declaring function from the war
fighting function, yet here we are in a world where the President can unilaterally start a war. Congress must act, and act now.
A Tepid Defense of the "Diversity" Rationale for Affirmative Action
by Michael Dorf
My most recent Verdict column (now also available via Newsweek) discusses the recent announcement that the DOJ is committing resources to investigating and potentially suing American colleges and universities over their affirmative action programs. I describe the potential peril that the announcement--if the DOJ follows through--holds for colleges and universities that push the edge of the envelope of what the SCOTUS precedent currently permits and even for those that hew strictly to the line between permissible "plus-factor" affirmative action and impermissible de facto quotas. For the latter, the greater danger would be another SCOTUS appointment for President Trump (or, in the event of his removal, any other Republican president).
Here I want to discuss a related issue. Defenders of affirmative action--and even some of its critics--frequently criticize Justice Lewis Powell's controlling opinion in the Bakke case on the ground that it rejected the most compelling justification for race-based affirmative action while validating a relatively weak justification. I'll offer a hesitant defense of Powell's position (which subsequently was adopted by a SCOTUS majority).
My most recent Verdict column (now also available via Newsweek) discusses the recent announcement that the DOJ is committing resources to investigating and potentially suing American colleges and universities over their affirmative action programs. I describe the potential peril that the announcement--if the DOJ follows through--holds for colleges and universities that push the edge of the envelope of what the SCOTUS precedent currently permits and even for those that hew strictly to the line between permissible "plus-factor" affirmative action and impermissible de facto quotas. For the latter, the greater danger would be another SCOTUS appointment for President Trump (or, in the event of his removal, any other Republican president).
Here I want to discuss a related issue. Defenders of affirmative action--and even some of its critics--frequently criticize Justice Lewis Powell's controlling opinion in the Bakke case on the ground that it rejected the most compelling justification for race-based affirmative action while validating a relatively weak justification. I'll offer a hesitant defense of Powell's position (which subsequently was adopted by a SCOTUS majority).
Thursday, August 10, 2017
Political Advantage and Policy Responsibility for Democrats
by Neil H. Buchanan
The Democratic Party, we are forever being reminded, has had a bad run recently. Although I continue to believe that commentators have overstated their troubles and that Democrats' fortunes will soon improve, there is certainly no denying that Republicans are in charge nearly everywhere.
If great power implies great responsibility, however, then no power might imply no responsibility. Are the Democrats off the hook? When Barack Obama was in the White House, congressional Republicans exercised their irresponsibility not just during the two years that they were the minority party in both houses but even after they took back the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014.
From budget showdowns to repeated meaningless votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act to filibustering executive and judicial nominees, the Republicans acted entirely for political gain. And, as sad as it is to say, they were not punished for their irresponsibility. Indeed, they thrived.
True, Republicans did win fewer seats than they could have (especially in the Senate) by running a surprising number of cuckoo-pants candidates -- "I am not a witch!" -- but they continued to win at both the federal and state levels with candidates who never took seriously the notion that they were there to govern. Indeed, they never took any facts seriously, because everything was about ideology.
What should the Democrats do now? They are truly in the position where they can say, "We have no power to stop you, so we are not going to do anything to help you, even if you need us to do the right thing." Should they do that? They answer is not as easy as I would like it to be.
The Democratic Party, we are forever being reminded, has had a bad run recently. Although I continue to believe that commentators have overstated their troubles and that Democrats' fortunes will soon improve, there is certainly no denying that Republicans are in charge nearly everywhere.
If great power implies great responsibility, however, then no power might imply no responsibility. Are the Democrats off the hook? When Barack Obama was in the White House, congressional Republicans exercised their irresponsibility not just during the two years that they were the minority party in both houses but even after they took back the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014.
From budget showdowns to repeated meaningless votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act to filibustering executive and judicial nominees, the Republicans acted entirely for political gain. And, as sad as it is to say, they were not punished for their irresponsibility. Indeed, they thrived.
True, Republicans did win fewer seats than they could have (especially in the Senate) by running a surprising number of cuckoo-pants candidates -- "I am not a witch!" -- but they continued to win at both the federal and state levels with candidates who never took seriously the notion that they were there to govern. Indeed, they never took any facts seriously, because everything was about ideology.
What should the Democrats do now? They are truly in the position where they can say, "We have no power to stop you, so we are not going to do anything to help you, even if you need us to do the right thing." Should they do that? They answer is not as easy as I would like it to be.
Wednesday, August 09, 2017
What Matters at the SCOTUS and for Constitutional Democracy?
by Michael Dorf
Tomorrow I will be speaking on a series of panels at the 19th annual Practicing Law Institute (PLI) Supreme Court Review session in NYC, with simulcasts in various locations as well as a webcast. I have been a panelist at this event since its inauguration and am, as always, eagerly looking forward to it. In addition to returning panelists Erwin Chemerinsky, Joan Biskupic, Burt Neuborne, Ted Shaw, Sherry Colb, Marty Schwartz, Leon Friedman, and myself, this year we add Judge Sandra Ikuta. (Although co-organizers Chemerinsky and Schwartz always ask us to provide fair accounts of the Court's work, the lineup slants liberal, so they make sure to include at least one recognizable conservative. Last year we had Judge Jeffrey Sutton and Jeffrey Wall, who is now acting Solicitor General. This year Judge Ikuta will be doing the work of the two of them!)
The day is organized around various topic areas and the cases the Court decided in each topic area. I'm responsible for presenting the immigration cases, including the Travel Ban case, as well as a couple of cases on the "Business Interests and Civil Litigation" panel. I'll also have opportunities to comment on the various other cases that my fellow panelists present on these and other panels. The day begins with an overview, which is something of a free-for-all. As advertised in the schedule, one topic that will no doubt get a fair bit of attention is the impact of Justice Gorsuch. I'll say a couple of words about that--the exact couple of words will be "extremely conservative"--but I intend to use some of my time during the opening panel to highlight the threat to constitutional democracy posed by President Trump.
Tomorrow I will be speaking on a series of panels at the 19th annual Practicing Law Institute (PLI) Supreme Court Review session in NYC, with simulcasts in various locations as well as a webcast. I have been a panelist at this event since its inauguration and am, as always, eagerly looking forward to it. In addition to returning panelists Erwin Chemerinsky, Joan Biskupic, Burt Neuborne, Ted Shaw, Sherry Colb, Marty Schwartz, Leon Friedman, and myself, this year we add Judge Sandra Ikuta. (Although co-organizers Chemerinsky and Schwartz always ask us to provide fair accounts of the Court's work, the lineup slants liberal, so they make sure to include at least one recognizable conservative. Last year we had Judge Jeffrey Sutton and Jeffrey Wall, who is now acting Solicitor General. This year Judge Ikuta will be doing the work of the two of them!)
The day is organized around various topic areas and the cases the Court decided in each topic area. I'm responsible for presenting the immigration cases, including the Travel Ban case, as well as a couple of cases on the "Business Interests and Civil Litigation" panel. I'll also have opportunities to comment on the various other cases that my fellow panelists present on these and other panels. The day begins with an overview, which is something of a free-for-all. As advertised in the schedule, one topic that will no doubt get a fair bit of attention is the impact of Justice Gorsuch. I'll say a couple of words about that--the exact couple of words will be "extremely conservative"--but I intend to use some of my time during the opening panel to highlight the threat to constitutional democracy posed by President Trump.
Tuesday, August 08, 2017
What is This Rule of Law Thing Really About?
by Neil H. Buchanan
It seems almost impossible to read about the Trump Administration without coming across yet another author who is worried about Trump's threat to the rule of law. This threat is very real, and it is a good thing that so many commentators are shining a spotlight on Trump's lawlessness.
In the midst of Trump's maelstrom of misdeeds, however, there is a danger that we will forget exactly what is at stake when we are talking about the rule of law, a term that can all too easily become a vague abstraction (like democracy). When we say that the rule of law is under assault, what do we mean? Why does it matter? What happens if it is eroded or lost?
It seems almost impossible to read about the Trump Administration without coming across yet another author who is worried about Trump's threat to the rule of law. This threat is very real, and it is a good thing that so many commentators are shining a spotlight on Trump's lawlessness.
In the midst of Trump's maelstrom of misdeeds, however, there is a danger that we will forget exactly what is at stake when we are talking about the rule of law, a term that can all too easily become a vague abstraction (like democracy). When we say that the rule of law is under assault, what do we mean? Why does it matter? What happens if it is eroded or lost?
Monday, August 07, 2017
Two Branches, Two Leaders, Two Speeches to Adolescent Boys
by Michael Dorf
The warp-speed news cycle has moved on, but I want to linger a bit over what now seems like ancient history: President Donald Trump's speech to the Boy Scouts Jamboree two weeks ago. I shall contrast Trump's speech with one the previous month to a similar (albeit smaller) crowd: The ninth-grade commencement address that Chief Justice John Roberts delivered at the Cardigan Mountain school, where his son Jack was among the graduates. The Roberts speech was everything that the Trump speech wasn't: self-deprecating; well-crafted; compassionate; and wise. The contrast tells us something profound about the differences between the men who respectively head the judicial and executive branches of our national government.
The warp-speed news cycle has moved on, but I want to linger a bit over what now seems like ancient history: President Donald Trump's speech to the Boy Scouts Jamboree two weeks ago. I shall contrast Trump's speech with one the previous month to a similar (albeit smaller) crowd: The ninth-grade commencement address that Chief Justice John Roberts delivered at the Cardigan Mountain school, where his son Jack was among the graduates. The Roberts speech was everything that the Trump speech wasn't: self-deprecating; well-crafted; compassionate; and wise. The contrast tells us something profound about the differences between the men who respectively head the judicial and executive branches of our national government.
Friday, August 04, 2017
Why Does Trump Press the Lie About Voter Fraud?
by Neil H. Buchanan
Donald Trump provides so many examples of blatant and overt racism that it almost seems unnecessary to focus on less obvious evidence of bigotry. Even so, there are important lessons to be learned from the choices that Trump makes about which issues to highlight and which fights he picks, almost all of which come back not only to his own narcissism but to his deeply racist worldview.
Ever since the 2016 election, Trump has been obsessed with proving that he won BIG. He continues to insist that his 44th-biggest out of the 56 margins of victory in Electoral College history was a landslide, and many of his surrogates (including the ones whom he has fired) have dutifully repeated this nonsense.
But at least that particular claim can be dismissed as mere puffery, yet another example of Trump's willingness to claim that his buildings are taller than they are, that his businesses are more successful than they are, or that his "words" and "brain" are better than they are. Ultimately, the word landslide is vague enough that most people will end up rolling their eyes and saying, "Whatever you want to call it, dude. Get over it."
The more interesting question is why Trump is pushing so hard on the lie about the phantom illegal voters who supposedly cost him a popular-vote victory. According to Trump, his 2.9 million-vote defeat is explained by something like three or five million illegal votes for Hillary Clinton. This lie turns out to be very revealing.
Donald Trump provides so many examples of blatant and overt racism that it almost seems unnecessary to focus on less obvious evidence of bigotry. Even so, there are important lessons to be learned from the choices that Trump makes about which issues to highlight and which fights he picks, almost all of which come back not only to his own narcissism but to his deeply racist worldview.
Ever since the 2016 election, Trump has been obsessed with proving that he won BIG. He continues to insist that his 44th-biggest out of the 56 margins of victory in Electoral College history was a landslide, and many of his surrogates (including the ones whom he has fired) have dutifully repeated this nonsense.
But at least that particular claim can be dismissed as mere puffery, yet another example of Trump's willingness to claim that his buildings are taller than they are, that his businesses are more successful than they are, or that his "words" and "brain" are better than they are. Ultimately, the word landslide is vague enough that most people will end up rolling their eyes and saying, "Whatever you want to call it, dude. Get over it."
The more interesting question is why Trump is pushing so hard on the lie about the phantom illegal voters who supposedly cost him a popular-vote victory. According to Trump, his 2.9 million-vote defeat is explained by something like three or five million illegal votes for Hillary Clinton. This lie turns out to be very revealing.
Thursday, August 03, 2017
The Debt Ceiling for (Republicans and Other) Dummies
By Neil H. Buchanan
Republicans in Congress and their allies in the Trump Administration should have one overriding priority right now, and that is to repeal the debt ceiling statute. Note that I did not say that their goal should be to increase the debt ceiling, although that is the more likely -- and, absent an outbreak of sanity, necessary -- path that they must follow.
The one thing that they cannot do is nothing, because that would lead to an unprecedented disaster. The problem is that there is so much misinformation and ideological posturing about the debt ceiling that it is only too easy for fake populists to pretend that the debt ceiling is not a big deal or that other issues take priority. They are dangerously wrong.
Even though we have been through debt ceiling standoffs multiple times over the past six years, there is still a great deal of misunderstanding about the issues and the stakes involved. Here, I will explain what is happening, what could happen, and why the different approaches to the debt ceiling matter.
In particular, I will explain why I would stand with the Trump Administration (a statement that I never expected to make) if they took what would seem to be a radical step and ignored the debt ceiling when the time came. With or without that, however, a huge crisis faces us unless Republicans in Congress fix this problem soon.
The one thing that they cannot do is nothing, because that would lead to an unprecedented disaster. The problem is that there is so much misinformation and ideological posturing about the debt ceiling that it is only too easy for fake populists to pretend that the debt ceiling is not a big deal or that other issues take priority. They are dangerously wrong.
Even though we have been through debt ceiling standoffs multiple times over the past six years, there is still a great deal of misunderstanding about the issues and the stakes involved. Here, I will explain what is happening, what could happen, and why the different approaches to the debt ceiling matter.
In particular, I will explain why I would stand with the Trump Administration (a statement that I never expected to make) if they took what would seem to be a radical step and ignored the debt ceiling when the time came. With or without that, however, a huge crisis faces us unless Republicans in Congress fix this problem soon.
Wednesday, August 02, 2017
Common Sense, Legal Doctrine and Wedding Cakes
By Eric Segall
Next term the Supreme Court will hear a case brought by a baker who refused to sell a wedding cake to a same-sex couple. The baker argues that a Colorado non-discrimination law which makes it illegal to refuse to do business with people because of their sexual orientation violates his first amendment rights to freedom of speech and religion. Most scholars agree that the speech claim raises more difficult questions than the religion one, but this post focuses on the baker's claim that the Colorado non-discrimination law as applied to him is inconsistent with his right to the "free exercise of religion."
Next term the Supreme Court will hear a case brought by a baker who refused to sell a wedding cake to a same-sex couple. The baker argues that a Colorado non-discrimination law which makes it illegal to refuse to do business with people because of their sexual orientation violates his first amendment rights to freedom of speech and religion. Most scholars agree that the speech claim raises more difficult questions than the religion one, but this post focuses on the baker's claim that the Colorado non-discrimination law as applied to him is inconsistent with his right to the "free exercise of religion."
Death vs. Never Having Been Born
by Sherry F. Colb
Charlie Gard died last week. In my latest Verdict column I discuss his tragic life and the legal battle the ending of it occasioned. Charlie's parents disagreed with the boy's doctors because the former wanted to keep him alive to try an experimental treatment but the latter (the doctors) wanted to disconnect the boy from life support and give him a dignified death. In my column, I discuss what I regard as an optimal way to approach parental decision-making regarding a child's treatment, given that parents are generally the most likely people to have their child's best interests in mind.
In this post, I want to consider a different issue that emerges from Charlie's case. It is the "death versus never having been born" issue. Charlie was born with a genetic disease. His illness, mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome, is a horrible disease that is incurable and typically kills children in infancy or early childhood. Assuming that Charlie's parents were unaware that he had this condition prior to his birth, it is possible that if his parents had known ahead of time, they may well have chosen to terminate the pregnancy. Doing so would have spared Charlie (or, more accurately, the child who would have been Charlie) the pointless suffering that he ended up experiencing.
Charlie Gard died last week. In my latest Verdict column I discuss his tragic life and the legal battle the ending of it occasioned. Charlie's parents disagreed with the boy's doctors because the former wanted to keep him alive to try an experimental treatment but the latter (the doctors) wanted to disconnect the boy from life support and give him a dignified death. In my column, I discuss what I regard as an optimal way to approach parental decision-making regarding a child's treatment, given that parents are generally the most likely people to have their child's best interests in mind.
In this post, I want to consider a different issue that emerges from Charlie's case. It is the "death versus never having been born" issue. Charlie was born with a genetic disease. His illness, mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome, is a horrible disease that is incurable and typically kills children in infancy or early childhood. Assuming that Charlie's parents were unaware that he had this condition prior to his birth, it is possible that if his parents had known ahead of time, they may well have chosen to terminate the pregnancy. Doing so would have spared Charlie (or, more accurately, the child who would have been Charlie) the pointless suffering that he ended up experiencing.
Tuesday, August 01, 2017
Democracy, Constitutions, and Courts--Abroad and at Home
by Michael Dorf
The beginning of August for me heralds the new academic year. The registrar sends out reminders to post syllabi. The annual supplement to my casebook arrives in the mail. Despite the heat, my thoughts turn to the new batch of eager 1Ls that will shortly arrive for me and my colleagues to corrupt.
The coming semester will mark the first time I have taught constitutional law during the Trump presidency. I taught federal courts in the spring, for which various Trump policies--especially the Travel Ban--provided grist for discussion. But the federal courts issued raised by the Trump administration, like the subject in general, were somewhat technical.
By contrast, thinking about Trump and the Constitution writ large provides an opportunity to think about the very nature of constitutional democracy. Things long taken for granted--like the fact that a president would not attempt to cancel an election or refuse to accept the result of one--may now be discussed as more than fanciful hypotheticals. The distinction between stable democracies and fragile ones becomes somewhat less important as we contemplate the fragility of our own democracy. That, in turn, suggests a wider scope for comparative analysis. Accordingly, I want to consider some lessons we might learn about the relation among democracy, constitutions, and courts from recent events in Poland, Pakistan, and Venezuela.
The beginning of August for me heralds the new academic year. The registrar sends out reminders to post syllabi. The annual supplement to my casebook arrives in the mail. Despite the heat, my thoughts turn to the new batch of eager 1Ls that will shortly arrive for me and my colleagues to corrupt.
The coming semester will mark the first time I have taught constitutional law during the Trump presidency. I taught federal courts in the spring, for which various Trump policies--especially the Travel Ban--provided grist for discussion. But the federal courts issued raised by the Trump administration, like the subject in general, were somewhat technical.
By contrast, thinking about Trump and the Constitution writ large provides an opportunity to think about the very nature of constitutional democracy. Things long taken for granted--like the fact that a president would not attempt to cancel an election or refuse to accept the result of one--may now be discussed as more than fanciful hypotheticals. The distinction between stable democracies and fragile ones becomes somewhat less important as we contemplate the fragility of our own democracy. That, in turn, suggests a wider scope for comparative analysis. Accordingly, I want to consider some lessons we might learn about the relation among democracy, constitutions, and courts from recent events in Poland, Pakistan, and Venezuela.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
