167 articles
Can the Biden administration issue guidelines setting priorities in the enforcement of immigration law? Do states have standing to challenge these guidelines?
Does the solicitor general’s office have too much influence over the Supreme Court?
Once considered taboo, court packing is now a topic at presidential debates, the subject of numerous op-eds and a trending hashtag on Twitter. Proponents of expanding the Supreme Court point out that the Constitution leaves the number of justices to Congress’ discretion, and that Congress has altered the court’s size many times in the past.
Thirty years ago, President George H.W. Bush made the surprising choice to nominate the enigmatic David H. Souter to the Supreme Court. As Professor Chad Oldfather explains in a new article, “The Inconspicuous DHS: The Supreme Court, Celebrity Culture, and David H. Souter,” we are unlikely to see anyone like Souter ascend to the highest court in the land again.
Adam Bonica is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University. Adam Chilton is a professor at the University of Chicago Law School. Maya Sen is a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
In their article “How to Save the Supreme Court,” Daniel Epps and Ganesh Sitaraman argue that the Supreme Court faces a legitimacy crisis requiring it to either “radically change—or die.” They outline two proposals to drastically alter the court’s composition, which they hope will depoliticize the appointments process and diminish the influence of the Supreme Court on presidential elections.
In his concurrence in the 2018 Supreme Court decision upholding President Donald Trump’s travel ban, Trump v. Hawaii, Justice Clarence Thomas criticized the courts below for issuing injunctions that barred the administration from enforcing the ban against anyone, rather than only against the parties to the lawsuit.
Against all odds, a surprising number of Supreme Court justices have morphed into celebrities over the last decade. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has led the way: She is currently the subject of a documentary, a biopic, a music album, a Tumblr blog and a best-selling biography, and has earned the rapper-esque moniker “the Notorious R.B.G.” But she is not alone.
Terry Skolnik is Assistant Professor at the University of Ottowa, Faculty of Law. Beginning in the mid 1990s, the dynamics of Supreme Court hearings started to change significantly. Many of these changes persist today.
Michael J. Nelson is Jeffrey L. Hyde and Sharon D. Hyde and Political Science Board of Visitors Early Career Professor in Political Science at Penn State University. Lee Epstein is Ethan A.H. Shepley Distinguished University Professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
As the federal constitutional convention drew to a close, the delegates appointed the Committee of Style and Arrangement to prepare a final Constitution from the textual provisions that the convention had previously adopted.
By what was effectively a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court yesterday agreed to fully stay a California district court’s injunction against President Donald Trump’s repurposing of appropriated funds to build part of his “border wall.” The Supreme Court’s summary order in Trump v. Sierra Club offered one