Broken Law

Supreme Court confirmations are headlining events, driving the news cycle and consuming the Senate’s attention. But just what does the confirmation process look like behind the scenes? Beyond the TV cameras of the public hearing, what goes into putting a justice on the Supreme Court? Jeanne Hruska talks this week with ACS President Russ Feingold, who voted on six Supreme Court justices during his...

What role do ethics violations play in the degradation of our democracy? The Trump administration left behind a legacy of profound corruption, egregious conflicts of interest, and outrageous self-dealing. The Wall Street Journal has reported on over 130 judges who have violated conflicts of interest laws. And Congress evades accountability on the regular by exempting itself from the Freedom of Inf...

Dr. Marcus Hunter joins Broken Law to talk with Peggy Li about why reparations are needed in the United States and how the movement for reparations works with and alongside the movement for Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) in this country. This episode is a great follow-up to Episode 9's introduction to TRHT. Dr. Hunter and Peggy address common misunderstandings about reparati...

Elie Mystal, Legal Analyst and Justice Correspondent for The Nation, stops by Broken Law to talk with Jeanne Hruska about what he means when he says, "you either control the Supreme Court or you control nothing.” They discus the Supreme Court's role in creating the voting rights crisis confronting the country and the Court's mounting assault on the executive branch. Elie concludes b...

Late last year, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case challenging a NY State firearm regulation under the Second Amendment— New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen . This is the case that gun rights advocates have been waiting for and they are counting on the Supreme Court to deliver a blockbuster decision that radically expands the individual right to bear arms. Gun...

The battle over the 2022 midterm elections has already begun. Gerrymandering, packing of election offices, and new voter suppression laws are being leveraged to influence the results of the upcoming midterms before a single ballot is cast. Lindsay Langholz speaks with Michael Li and Elizabeth Howard from the Brennan Center for Justice about whether we are already in full crisis mode, how we got he...

One year ago, an angry mob of white supremacist anarchists stormed the U.S. Capitol, interrupted the constitutionally required counting of Electoral College votes, and tried to undermine the peaceful transfer of power. One year later there have been investigations, some prosecutions, and even an impeachment, but has it been enough to prevent January 6 th from serving as a blueprint for future insu...

In our final episode of 2021, Jeanne Hruska speaks with Melissa Murray, Professor at the NYU School of Law, and Mark Joseph Stern, staff writer at Slate Magazine, about the legal legacy of the past twelve months. What were the biggest legal stories of the year? Which legal stories went underreported? And which legal journalists and experts should you be following heading into 2022? ---------------...

In this final episode of our State of Democracy series, we discuss the importance of a vibrant civil society, which is frequently discussed in foreign policy circles, but less so here at home. Jeanne Hruska speaks with Sarah Holewinski from Human Rights Watch and Jon Temin from Freedom House about what we, as civil society stakeholders, can do to strengthen democracy, and whether our involvement i...

70 years after the establishment of the United Nations and the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we are witnessing mounting human rights abuses in every corner of the globe. These abuses are piling up alongside what experts say is a pattern of global democratic retreat, forcing us to wonder if these two phenomena are linked together. Are democracy and human rights interdependen...

On December 1 st , the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the blockbuster abortion case Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Org. Lindsay Langholz speaks with Gretchen Borchelt, Vice President for Reproductive Rights and Health at the National Women's Law Center, on this week's episode to break down the oral arguments and discuss what the future holds for reproductive rights and justi...

Across the globe, we are witnessing a democratic decline, including worrying signs of democratic retreat here at home. Elected autocrats are fine tuning their playbook in countries as diverse as Venezuela and Hungary. What is leading to this rise in global authoritarianism and how can democracies combat it? This week, Debra Perlin speaks with Michael Abramowitz, president of Freedom House, about t...

For as much talk as there is about the presidency and whom we elect to Congress, there is rarely public conversation about who is sitting on our federal courts, specifically those that are not the U.S. Supreme Court. This absence of public discourse is at odds with the impact that the federal courts have on our lives. On this episode, Jeanne Hruska chats with Jill Dash, ACS Vice President for Stra...

McGirt v. Oklahoma may be the most consequential recent Supreme Court case that you have never heard of. McGirt, decided in July 2020, stunned many Court watchers and Indian Law experts. Rather than uphold white political dominance, the Supreme Court ruled that a sizeable portion of Oklahoma remains Native American land. Why is this so consequential? Christopher Wright Durocher speaks with Amb. Ke...

Throughout the world, the death penalty is in decline. Since 1976, more than 75 countries have abolished the death penalty, and many others have severely curtailed its use or abolished it in practice, if not in law. While this trend is reflected in parts of the United States, the federal government and many states retain capital punishment. How does this affect our country’s standing in the intern...

Disability law and policy is too often pushed to the edges of the legal field, left to folks from the disability community to both advocate for and navigate. But we know that these issues impact every aspect of our legal system and our collective daily lives. According to the Center for Disease Control, one in four adults has a disability in this country. How do we reform disability law so it actu...

The U.S. Supreme Court is facing a legitimacy crisis. Put simply, we no longer have a Supreme Court that can be trusted to uphold constitutional rights, judicial norms, and democratic guardrails in this country. ACS President, Russ Feingold, and Executive Vice President, Zinelle October, join Jeanne Hruska to discuss how the Supreme Court reached this point and the structural and non-structural re...

Over 30,000 people work for the federal judiciary, a system that the public relies on for redressing sexual and workplace harassment. And yet, those 30,000 employees go to work each and every day without the protection of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. Now, some employees are taking the f...

Right now, the diversity of the American public is scarcely reflected in positions of leadership, whether on the bench or even in the film industry. While diversity is often discussed in the form of percentages and statistics, numbers do not explain what is lost when diversity is missing. As we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, Zoraima Peleaz is joined by Judge Maria Lucy Armendariz and Emmy-Nomi...

At 17 years old, Jarrett Adams was wrongly convicted and sentenced to 28 years in prison. It took him ten years to prove his innocence. As shocking as Jarrett's story is, he will be the first to tell you that it is not as unique as you think. Join Meghan Paulas for her conversation with Jarrett, author of Redeeming Justice, about his journey through the broken criminal legal system and why it...

The twenty years since 9/11 have seen the growth of the "Surveillance State," with the proliferation of government surveillance following the enactment of the USA PATRIOT Act. On this episode, Debra Perlin is joined by Hasan Ali from Microsoft and Greg Nojeim from the Center for Democracy and Technology to discuss how increased surveillance has changed the way Americans think about priva...

In the wake of 9/11, Congress passed the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). Only one member of Congress voted against it, Congresswoman Barbara Lee. Join Russ Feingold, the only senator to vote against the USA PATRIOT Act, for his interview with Congresswoman Lee about what happened behind the scenes in the lead up to the AUMF and what it is like to be a dissenter in Congress...

On Part I of our Legal Legacy of 9/11 series, we focus specifically on domestic extremism and how we can avoid repeating the same post-9/11 mistakes when it comes to confronting this domestic threat. In the weeks and months following 9/11, the U.S. government adopted an aggressive preventative approach to international counterterrorism. This approach was seen through expansive new legislation, swe...

Since the U.S. Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade in 1973, reproductive rights have never been more in peril than they are today, due to the make up of our highest court. How did we get here and what can be done to preserve abortion access in this new reality? Join Lindsay Langholz for her conversation with Julie Kay and Kathryn Kolbert, authors of the new book Controlling Women, as they discuss th...

In 2019, New Hampshire became the 21st state to repeal the death penalty. With growing momentum across the country to abolish the death penalty, are there lessons to be learned from the states that have recently done so? Join Jeanne Hruska for her interview with Renny Cushing, a NH Representative who led the effort to repeal the death penalty in his state, about how this genuinely purple state suc...