Our Latest Newsletter: Citizen flag poles, mega-appeals, and land acknowledgments. ij.org/sc_newslette...

When you opened the presents and ingested the dinner, the all time most poinent carol remains Christmas in Heaven from The Meaning of Life.

Things that happen when your kids are all teenagers. It's almost 9am on December 25 and this guy and I are the only ones awake. Glorious. (And yes, those are Seventh Circuit socks.) #AppellateSky Merry Christmas everyone!

NORAD Santa tracker is Woke

My colleague Eric Boettcher and I wrote an amicus brief on behalf of Tyson Timbs (yes, of Timbs v. Indiana) in a case John discusses: Jouppi v. Alaska (is a six pack of beer enough to confiscate a plane?)

Check out the Kavanaugh FN 4; I think it's pretty clear that the Kavanaugh Stop thing has gotten to him:

Full disclosure: Kasia was sad I chose this last-minute ruling that my colleagues are litigating when I had just sent in a draft for a different case. For posterity (and FWIW, which probably isn't much) I'm posting here that cutting-room-floor summary of an equitable powers case from Iowa.🧵1/

(1/16) 🧵🧵🧵@statecourtreport.org just published its annual year-end feature! Top legal thinkers tell us which cases from the last 12 months you all should know about. Dang — it's been a year. Topics include ICE action, executing innocent people, gerrymandering, and way more. @brennancenter.org

This will help me appreciate some of @rmfifthcircuit.bsky.social's family stories.

My Festivus airing of grievances (well, advice really): Most legal writing would be better if it was more like P.G. Wodehouse.

Up on SSRN now, a new draft about Measuring Judicial Ideology with a special focus on state courts, forthcoming in the Ind. L. J. With all of the recent discussion about the power of state courts to protect rights, it's worth noting the robust study of state court judge ideology. /

This is critically important. Democrats need to pass it if they retake Congress. Trump will veto it. So pass it again. Campaign on it. Given current polling, corruption of the FBI, and the brutality of ICE and BP, there’s no better time to say, “Federal police are not above the law.”

I learn from a student that you can bet on whether Jesus Christ will return in 2025. Looks like the odds, although not wildly unlikely earlier this year, are now rather dismal. Perhaps bet on the great prophet Zarquon instead? polymarket.com/event/will-j...

More resignations. reason.com/volokh/2025/...

More of this by the DOJ but to invalidate occupational licensing laws. And zoning too. (Maybe not *this* DOJ but future, minimally competent, ones.)

In 2014, when preparing a challenge to a MN statute, I went to the state archives to listen to committee debates of the law on reel-to-reels. (Still worked! Now they're online.) I learned that the legislature had DELIBERATELY destroyed all tapes pre-1991. Luckily my law was passed in 1993.

#LawStudents: Are you looking for a paid clerkship opportunity? ⚖️ Apply for IJ’s Dave Kennedy Fellowship (Summer 2026) and gain hands-on experience in cutting-edge civil rights litigation. Applications are now open and reviewed on a rolling basis—apply today! www.IJ.org/students

CFP: Oxford Studies in Private Law Theory, Volume V. We're seeking contributions in contract, property, tort, fiduciary, equity, unjust enrichment, and remedies law. Submissions are 12,000 words, and you get a trip to Cape Town! Deadline August 1, 2026! philevents.org/event/show/1...

If you're looking for a last-minute gift, may I recommend the audio version of Why Q Needs U? The book is 𝑓𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑐 on its own, but hearing the author read the words himself--with all the pronunciation & accent nuance inherent in the story of our alphabet--makes it even better!

FYI, if you're advowson-curious. A few years ago, when I discovered advowsons for the first time, I went down an advowson rabbit hole and made this thread at The Other Place. x.com/IJSanders/st...

Wow. Thinking of my own field, despite all the valid criticism of student law reviews, perhaps the fact they cite-check every citation (or say they do, anyway) puts a bit of a firewall around legal scholarship for this?

Received a lovely Christmas card and letter from my dad's cousin, who is in his mid-90s. Still uses a typewriter. I believe he is the last person I know of anywhere on Earth who uses one. Anyone else know somebody who still does?

So many things going on in state courts! Including, in my contribution, a rejection of evidence-free administrative warrants in Pennsylvania.

The latest episode of Unpublished Opinions, our roundtable podcast! Anya Bidwell, Patrick Jaicomo & John Wrench ruminate on Founders vs. founding documents, complexities of constitutional change, coverage of SCOTUS, and more! ij.org/podcasts/unp...

Today is Jane Austen's 250th birthday. My small part of the celebration is to re-share what I wrote about not appreciating her until I was older. I also compare her novels to Seinfeld (both are about "nothing") and Mansfield Park to Arrested Development. www.discoursemagazine.com/p/moving-to-...

Add to this that HSI just filed a declaration in our case challenging these policies saying they can’t trust REAL IDs as proof of status. So showing your papers isn’t even enough to end the stop.

Zachary B. Wolf at CNN asked my Cato colleague David Bier to respond to some comments by White House aide Stephen Miller denouncing immigrants and liberal immigration law generally. This is David's response. /1

". . . down to the copying-clerk in the Six Clerks’ Office who has copied his tens of thousands of Chancery folio-pages under that eternal heading, no man’s nature has been made better by it." -Dickens, Bleak House, on Jarndyce and Jarndyce

Now this is judicial engagement. Georgia trial court judge, 1808: Should people just sit around and wait for an election if the legislature violates the constitution? No, it "is worse than popular insurrection." (But he also says that's bad too. The remedy is to go to court.)

State courts shape daily life more than you think, but keeping up with the decisions that matter can be a challenge. From legal scholars to students to rights advocates, hear from some of our superusers about how they use State Court Report. Subscribe today: go.statecourtreport.org/subscribe.

Even if you are an originalist (like me!) you will find this an extremely helpful summary of various anti-originalist arguments that can be used against your litigation strategies or scholarship. Check it out! Helpful feedback: A more explicit discussion of the fixation thesis would be useful.

Background on this photo: Taken, quite illegally, around 1924 in Lewes Crown Court, Sussex. In its time it was one of the only photos taken of a trial in English history. The photographer snapped it from the gallery & legged it before the staff could confiscate his equipment.

Socialism sucks

immigrants score the lowest on tests, but they also take all our jobs, while at the same time taking all the welfare and buying all the homes

The Illinois Bivens Act is now law - people can sue under state law for ICE’s constitutional violations. Which state is next? When the feds fall down on their obligations to protect people’s rights, it is time for states to step up. gov-pritzker-newsroom.prezly.com/gov-pritzker...

In BFD news, today in an @ij.org case, a state appellate court for the 1st time explicitly rejected the "probable cause" standard of Camara v Municipal Court (1967) for a state constitution. Pennsylvania cities now cannot look in renters' homes just because "this is what we do" (The Camara standard)

It's over already?

Come work with me and the legal team at @cato.org drafting briefs in the most important cases of the year. We're hiring 1-year legal associates and summer interns. See link in reply for more info and how to apply; the sooner we receive applications the better.

Coda: A few years ago a student wrote about the lawsuit for their dissertation. To get the trial records they had to trek to the current (and past) Duke of Northumberland's home--Alnwick Castle in northern England! Which sounds like a lovely archive to visit, I'll add. 1/3

The government is emboldened to base policies on untruths -- as in the Caribbean boat strike incidents -- by everything from deference to defense and foreign policy decisions to "the mendacious permission structure established by rational basis review." [Clark Neily]

Ironically, if SCOTUS scraps "birthright citizenship", it will be easier for a legal immigrant with naturalization papers to prove they're a US citizen than someone who is native-born, and only has a birth certificate that doesn't specify parents' status.

From Punch, 1890. I got a chuckle.

Excellent piece by @ijsanders.bsky.social!! Another reason to consult state constitutional law is the presence of provisions such as natural rights clauses and unenumerated rights clauses in certain jurisdictions. It's time to tap that potential!

Our Latest Podcast: Judges as Employers. With @alizashatzman.bsky.social & @katrinmarquez.bsky.social! ij.org/podcasts/sho...

I am proud to announce that I have been awarded the Cracker Jack Peace Prize. The plastic ring is but a small token of the 14 wars I have ended and billions of lives I saved.

I *always* learn something when @ijsanders.bsky.social writes for State Court Report, even (especially?!) when I have a different view. He grapples with genuinely hard questions about how to give meaning to capacious state constitutional language protecting liberty. An excellent read!

“Fundamental rights” in state courts are in a state of confusion. I argue in @statecourtreport.org that’s because the old “fundamental vs nonfundamental” paradigm doesn’t work anymore. Instead, advocates (even progressives!) should “Make Lochner Your Friend.” 🧵 statecourtreport.org/our-work/ana...

Thinking today about when a Somali guy came in our IJ Minneapolis office & about local public housing authorities not respecting Somali 2d Amendment rights. We don't do that kind of work but I talked to him about it for a bit. He was a cab driver. Loved the Constitution & America.

Reading Thackeray's Vanity Fair (1848), came to this sentence, & almost fell out of my seat: "He rode his own horse, Greased Lightning, and won the Garrison cup at Quebec races." I'm like IS THAT WHERE IT COMES FROM?!