Democrats wrote law firms providing free legal services to the govt after capitulating to Trump's executive orders that they may be breaking the law. In my column for @justiaverdict.bsky.social, I explain that the Antideficiency Act applies only to "voluntary" services, but the firms were coerced. 👇

Directing his attention at Ezra Klein's analysis and JD Vance's rhetoric, Prof Neil Buchanan observes that while of course "words are better than violence, that does not mean that everyone's words are offered in good faith or even add up to a coherent argument." Details on the blog.👇

Prof Jacob Hamburger suggests that state labor law could provide some protection against ICE raids: "As federal immigration enforcement ramps up while federal labor enforcement winds down, states have an opportunity to devise new labor law tools to protect and empower immigrants at work." Details 👇

There was some easy-to-miss amusing news last week. A federal judge struck what he called Trump's "tedious and burdensome" complaint against the NY Times. As I explain on the blog, the lawyers packed the pleading with hyperbole for no tactical legal purpose but to please the narcissistic client. 👇

On the blog, @espinsegall.bsky.social, who is a faculty member of a public university in a blue city in a purple state run by a Republican statewide government, wonders what is and is no longer permissible for him to say. 👇

Trump said the quiet part out loud: his critics must be silenced. But FCC Chair Brendan Carr has suggested he would restore the so-called "fairness doctrine" that conservatives despised and Reagan ended. Carr would apply it unfairly, but even if applied fairly, is it still constitutional? Details👇

I was asked to speak about the Bill of Rights by my friends at @tcplny.bsky.social, Ithaca's great public library. I agreed-- because apparently now I'm a legal historian. 🙄 The audience kept me on my toes and up at the front of the room for nearly 2 hours, so watch/listen at your own risk.

Prof Neil Buchanan--who had defended Sen Schumer's actions on the last budget bill--has reached the breaking point. On the blog, he explains that "Schumer, Jeffries, and everyone like them somehow manage to kill any outbreak of enthusiasm among the people who should be energized right now." 👇

The Trump/RFK Jr. CDC has reverted to calling mpox "monkeypox." There's no scientific or other policy basis for the change. Expressing and encouraging racism and homophobia are, for the Trump administration, a feature, not a bug. Details on the blog. 👇

Prof Neil Buchanan--who was virtually alone among progressives in thinking Chuck Schumer rightly chose the less awful of two awful paths by funding the govt in March--argues that now that Trump's lawlessness is inarguable, Democrats should not cooperate in trying to avoid a government shutdown. 👇

A magnificently snarky review by my colleague @gshans.bsky.social of Justice Barrett’s new book vindicates my decision to review her CBS interview without reading it by confirming that it is a platitudinous brief for naive formalism. See also my column below.

On the blog, I summarize and link to my new essay in the UC Davis Law Review online: "Play in the Joints Beyond the Religion Clauses." It critiques recent SCOTUS cases that shrink the zone between what Free Exercise requires and Establishment forbids. It also praises buffer zones more broadly. 👇

Promoting their respective new books, Justices Sotomayor & Barrett sat for interviews. As I explain on @justiaverdict.bsky.social, each offered pablum about SCOTUS. Barrett also sowed confusion about fundamental rights & displayed obliviousness to the Trump administration's threat to democracy.👇

On the blog, @espinsegall.bsky.social continues his series on the 20th anniversary of the appointment of John Roberts as Chief Justice by noting how much the law has changed, thus questioning whether we have the rule of law or the rule of people--in particular, the people on the Supreme Court.

I return as "wing man" in the latest episode of The Hen Report podcast with @marisul.bsky.social and @jasminsinger.com of @ourhenhouse.org. Listen at the link below or wherever you get your podcasts to our discussion of Peanut the Squirrel, Fred the Raccoon, intersectional activism, and more.

On the blog, I critique Justice Kavanaugh's attempt to justify Monday's emergency docket ruling greenlighting racial profiling in Los Angeles. He's wrong about everything: standing; the 4th Amendment; the balance of harms; and his suggestion that damages lawsuits are available. 👇

Prof Neil Buchanan criticizes the decision of leading scholarly conference with international aspirations to require that participants come to the U.S. in person, despite the obstacles (and worse) many outside the U.S. face in trying to enter the country. 👇

Today on the blog, I discuss the jurisdictional issue in last week's ruling for Harvard. As Judge Burroughs admitted, she might be reversed, but only because SCOTUS is playing "Calvinball" to ensure Trump victories. She was nonetheless right to follow the law as it is and not obey in advance. 👇

Prof Neil Buchanan explains that Trump never liked or understood capitalism--which is fundamentally about win-win exchanges. Trump's win-lose mentality generates lose-lose outcomes, exacerbated by his mercurial personality and thus unpredictable changes of policy direction. Details on the blog. 👇

Today kicks off a new series on the blog from economist and law professor Neil Buchanan addressing the many ways in which Trump is destroying wealth! (It's not just tariffs.) 👇

Anti-vaxxers often spout libertarian rhetoric, but RFK Jr is restricting Americans' options to obtain new COVID vaccines. In my new column for @justiaverdict.bsky.social, I explain (but certaintly don't justify) this inconsistency: MAHA libertarianism promotes only the freedom to enjoy quackery. 👇

Continuing to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the appointment of John Roberts as Chief Justice of the United States, here's @espinsegall.bsky.social with a follow-up to his Top 10 Worst Decisions of the Roberts Court: Its Top 10 Worst Moments. 👇

Prof Neil Buchanan explains on the blog that Trump is not an evil genius who is carrying out a cagey strategy or assiduously keeping campaign promises. He is "lazy and easily bored." Imagining otherwise "redirects people's efforts into trying to out-think someone who is not thinking at all."

ICYMI last night, here's my effort to sort through some of the major issues involved in the imminent litigation over President Trump's removal of Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.👇

Lisa Cook will likely sue to retain her seat on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors very shortly. While we wait (and even after she files), here's my analysis of her case in five not-so-easy pieces. 👇

Prof Neil Buchanan on the blog: SCOTUS and its right-wing allies "will continue to go through their rituals of crafting tedious and increasingly unconvincing cover stories, and the ever-pliant media will act as if this is not all a fig leaf that is failing to obscure the shame of a dictatorship."

Yesterday Trump signed an executive order calling for prosecutions for flag burning. It tries to circumvent SCOTUS precedents by focusing on a subset of flag burners. As I explain on the blog, however, the order fails to even mention the most relevant case: R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1992). 👇

If DOJ prosecutes John Bolton, could he have the indictment dismissed because it retaliates for his free speech? On the blog, I parse recent SCOTUS case law and conclude that he should be able to--if he can show retaliatory motive and that similarly situated persons aren't typically prosecuted.👇

In Mahmoud v Taylor, SCOTUS announced a free exercise right of parents to opt their kids out of public school lessons to which they have religious objections. I criticized the ruling, but on the blog I ask whether public schools might need to accommodate opt-outs to combat declining enrollment. 👇

Trump is adopting state capitalism by coercively obtaining government stakes in US companies. The moves are legally dubious, bad policy, and contrary to longstanding conservative dogma--but elected Republican officials go along because that is how a cult of personality works. Details on the blog👇

Trump's deals with Nvidia and AMD are taxes. They might not violate the Constitution's export tax prohibition because the taxed chips appear to be made in Taiwan, but they are unconstitutional because Congress did not delegate this authority. Details in my new column for @justiaverdict.bsky.social 👇

Next month will mark the 20-year anniversary of the appointment of John Roberts as Chief Justice of the United States. In recognition of that milestone, on the blog @espinsegall.bsky.social laments the damage the Roberts Court has wrought with a top-10 list of its worst rulings.

From Prof Neil Buchanan on the blog today: "For all of their complaints about non-conservatives' supposed intolerance of opposing views," the Trump administration officials and their allies trying to remake higher education in their image "are the most intolerant snowflakes imaginable." Details 👇

On the blog, Prof Neil Buchanan dives deep into the Florida Republicans' successful effort to sabotage their flagship university in the name of anti-woeness as a portent of the national-scale assault on higher education now emanating from the White House. 👇

I joined Our Hen House hosts @marisul.bsky.social and @jasminsinger.com for part of this week's Hen Report podcast--talking about my sessions at Vegan Summerfest and my upcoming Cornell Law School seminar on Animals & the Constitution. My segment begins at 34:50 but listen to the whole episode! 👇

Constitutional law's substance has changed considerably since I first taught it 33 years ago, but the challenge now is less about teaching new doctrine than about integrating traditional coverage into the current authoritarian context. On the blog, I explain my plans for the coming semester.👇

Why haven't right-wing libertarians objected to Trump's government stake in Nvidia's business in China? Because they don't really believe in small government, as their support for investing the Social Security trust fund in the stock market shows. Prof Neil Buchanan has details on the blog. 👇

In Trump v CASA, SCOTUS restricted nationwide injunctions. Do class actions unfairly circumvent CASA's limits? I argue on the blog that, to the contrary, CASA implies their permissibility, but there's a risk that ideologically driven courts, including SCOTUS, might throw sand in the gears. 👇

With the Trump administration continually defying longstanding constitutional norms and the Roberts Court repeatedly refashioning constitutional doctrine, how should instructors approach the subject? On the blog, @espinsegall.bsky.social lists 20 sub-questions (but no answers!) in that puzzle. 👇

The Senate confirmed Emil Bove to a lifetime judicial appointment on the 3rd Circuit despite Bove's contempt for the rule of law. What now? On the blog, @ggkrishnamoomoo.bsky.social proposes that Bove's colleagues not count his vote and deny effect to any opinions he writes. Details 👇

Today I'll be on all but one of the panels at the 27th annual Practicing Law Institute Supreme Court Review. I preview my remarks on the blog, focusing on Skrmetti and the relation between SCOTUS sanitizing Tennessee's transphobia and its sane-washing the second Trump administration. 👇

ICYMI: On the blog today, a propos of the Trump administration's war on wokeness, Prof Neil Buchanan runs a "classic"--his Verdict column explaining the emptiness of "woke" as used by the right. 👇

Alan Dershowitz says a Martha's Vineyard vendor acted illegally by refusing to sell him pierogies because he dislikes Dersh's politics. He's wrong. Neither federal nor Massachusetts law forbids political affiliation discrimination. Should it? I discuss in my column for @justiaverdict.bsky.social 👇

The resolution agreements signed by Columbia and Brown in response to Trump administration extortion seem to restrict affirmative action but do not impose limits beyond those already imposed by SCOTUS in the 2023 Harvard case. Detailed analysis, including of application essay prompts, on the blog.👇

Treasury Sec'y Scott Bessent thinks "Trump accounts" could be a backdoor to Social Security privatization. He's laughably wrong, but Prof Neil Buchanan gives Bessent credit for being merely ignorant and confused, rather than malicious, like the rest of the Trump administration. Details on the blog.👇

Yesterday Brown University bent the knee to Trump in the latest agreement to neuter academia as a site of potential resistance to authoritarianism. On the blog, I describe the differences and, more importantly, the similarities, with the Columbia ransom agreement. 👇

Trump's lawyers are seeking an expedited deposition of Rupert Murdoch because he's old and thus could die before testifying. There is some basis in law but a weak basis in fact for the motion. Also, the underlying lawsuit against the WSJ for its reporting on Trump & Jeffrey Epstein is frivolous. 👇

NYT headline today says "Trump Is Winning His Trade War." What?! And nope! Trade wars produce only losers. On the blog today, Prof Neil Buchanan explains that Trump's "wins" will increase consumer prices, bring in only minimal tariff revenue, and discourage other countries from buying US exports.👇

SCOTUS precedent adopted by conservatives allows state & local law enforcement to decline to enforce federal law; yet the Trump administration is targeting sanctuary cities with the same bullying tactics it has used against law firms & universities, as Prof Jacob Hamburger explains on the blog.👇

In his annual "Veganniversary" essay for the blog, Prof Neil Buchanan reports on the plant-based options in his new home of Dublin. Spoiler alert: It's a mixed bag. 👇