Rightly Decided

In this special off-season episode of Rightly Decided, Laura Beth Latimer and Chance Weldon sit down with Judge Kevin Yeary of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Stepping away from standard case breakdowns, the team dives straight into the philosophy, career, and guiding principles of a judge sitting on Texas's highest criminal court.   From his unexpected shift from civil trial law to his nearl...

Can the government use a geofence warrant to track every cell phone near a crime scene without violating the Fourth Amendment?  Welcome back to Rightly Decided, the mostly originalist takes of the litigators of the Texas Public Policy Foundation! In our season finale, Laura Beth Latimer, Chance Weldon, Nathan Seltzer, and Clayton Calvin break down the Supreme Court's major digital privacy ruling i...

Did you know that modern civil asset forfeiture laws originated from the seizure of 18th-century pirate ships? Welcome back to Rightly Decided, the mostly originalist takes of the litigators of the Texas Public Policy Foundation! This week, Laura Beth Latimer and Chance Weldon break their usual rule against discussing policy to welcome a special guest: Dr. Derek Cohen, TPPF's Chief Policy and Rese...

TPPF's Laura Beth Latimer, Nathan Seltzer, Clayton Calvin, and Chance Weldon get fired up over property rights and home equity theft. The team looks deep into the world of tax sales, breaking down how local governments have been seizing properties for minor tax debts and pocketing the excess equity. The discussion covers two major Supreme Court cases: the landmark 2023 case Tyler v. Hennepin Count...

TPPF litigators Laura Beth Latimer, Chance Weldon, Nathan Seltzer, and Clayton Calvin are wrapping up some of the final Supreme Court drops of the session with an analysis of two major election cases. First, the team wades into a fascinating statutory interpretation battle in Watson v. Republican National Committee . What does the word "elect" actually mean, and does Election Day end when a ballot...

TPPF litigators Laura Beth Latimer, Clayton Calvin, Nathan Seltzer, and Chance Weldon play catch-up on the Supreme Court docket, tackling two major "culture war" cases. But don't worry, constitutional nerds—the team balances out the cultural heat with a massive, juicy deep dive into the Spending Clause (which, as Nathan helpfully reminds us, doesn't actually exist in the Constitution). The crew br...

Laura Beth Latimer, Chance Weldon, Nathan Seltzer, and Clayton Calvin are unpacking the final drops of the Supreme Court's October 2025 session. The team is zeroing in on two landmark Second Amendment decisions: United States v. Hemani (the "guns and drugs" case) and Wolford v. Lopez (the Hawaii guns case). Before diving into the heavy constitutional lifting, the crew geeks out over some breaking...

Welcome to Rightly Decided , where the litigators of the Texas Public Policy Foundation bring you mostly originalist takes and zero media hysteria. In this episode, Laura Beth Latimer is joined by Nathan Seltzer, Clayton Calvin, and Litigation Director Chance Weldon to cut through the noise on the massive end-of-term SCOTUS drop: Trump v. Barbara . It's time for a legal play-by-play of the 5-4 (or...

A major morning drop at the Supreme Court completely reshaped the landscape of administrative law and the unitary executive theory. In this episode of Rightly Decided , Laura Beth Latimer is joined by Nathan Seltzer and Clayton Calvin to break down two blockbuster, newly released opinions: Trump v. Slaughter and Trump v. Cook . Are independent agencies officially a thing of the past, or has SCOTUS...

What happens when a Texas Supreme Court Justice walks into a podcast studio? You get an episode packed with everything from Monsters, Inc. jokes to hardcore constitutional theory. Hosts Laura Beth Latimer and Clayton Calvin are joined by Justice James P. Sullivan (aka "Judge Sully") of the Texas Supreme Court to talk life, law, why judicial opinions don’t have to be a snooze fest, and what it take...

In this episode of Rightly Decided, the litigators from the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Center for the American Future begin by breaking down a major Fifth Circuit victory that struck down an 1869 federal ban on home distilling of spirits. They analyze the McNutt and Hobby Distillers Association v. U.S. Department of Justice case, dissecting standing doctrine, the limits of the taxing power,...

In this episode of Rightly Decided , the litigators from the Texas Public Policy Foundation  return to the hallowed (and slightly dusty) halls of the Supreme Court. Fresh off getting sworn into the SCOTUS bar, Clayton Calvin gives us a behind-the-scenes look at drop days in June and what it’s really like to watch the justices read from the bench.   Then, the team unpacks a trio of fascinating case...

TPPF's National Election Protection Project Director Josh Findlay provides a timely deep dive into the seismic changes in redistricting following the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais .  Josh, a veteran election lawyer who served as the RNC’s first National Director of Election Integrity, breaks down how Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act has shaped congressional maps for decades. W...

What happens when cruise lines dock at “stolen” Cuban property? In Havana Docks v. Royal Caribbean , the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that using confiscated Havana docks triggers massive liability under the LIBERTAD Act — even after the original property interest expired. Justice Thomas’s majority opinion drops a history lesson from 1905 to the Cuban Revolution. Plus: The Court DIGs (dismisses as impro...

When the FDA openly admits it skipped its own procedural rules to fast-track the Biden administration’s post- Dobbs agenda, who exactly has the right to drag them into court over it? This week on Rightly Decided , Laura Beth Latimer, Nathan Seltzer, and Chance Weldon bypass the cultural hair-on-fire reporting surrounding the mifepristone litigation ( Danco v. Louisiana ) to talk about what’s actua...

This week, the crew wades into two fresh-from-the-Court opinions (with a healthy dose of side-eye and sword-of-Damocles metaphors). First up: Can a pro-life pregnancy center sue in federal court when the New Jersey AG demands their donor list ( First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc. v. Davenport )? The Supreme Court delivers a unanimous, common-sense smackdown on standing that’ll warm the hea...

In a razor-thin 9-8 en banc decision, the Fifth Circuit upheld Texas’ law requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in every public school classroom. Laura Beth Latimer is joined by Chance Weldon and Nathan Seltzer to break down Nathan v. Alamo Heights ISD . We discuss why the court held that Stone v. Graham no longer controls after the Supreme Court killed the Lemon test in Kennedy v. Bremerton...

In this week’s episode, we begin with Justice Clarence Thomas’s recent address at the University of Texas, where he offered a glimpse into his judicial philosophy and the interaction between natural law and the Constitution. We take a little journey into the influence of progressivism and legal positivism, and discuss what’s on the horizon for the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence. Also, we pull back...

It's Rightly Decided live from the 2026 Texas Policy Summit! The Texas Public Policy Foundation is on the front lines of the legal war over the Texas Regulatory Consistency Act (Texas House Bill 2127), better known as the "Death Star" Bill. Designed to eliminate the confusing patchwork of local regulations across Texas, the law has sparked intense opposition from major cities—and now, historic law...

Does the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 (42 U.S.C. § 1983) still protect individuals from egregious constitutional violations—or has it been gutted by the doctrine of qualified immunity? In this episode of Rightly Decided, we take a close look at Villareal v. Alaniz , a case the Supreme Court declined to hear, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s sharp dissent from that denial. Our discussion unpacks qualified...

The Supreme Court just reminded the government of a basic rule it keeps forgetting: the First Amendment doesn’t disappear just because the speaker has a professional license. In a massive 8-1 victory for the First Amendment, the Supreme Court just ruled in Chiles v. Salazar that "talk therapy" is protected speech—full stop. Colorado tried to claim they were just regulating a "medical procedure," b...

Join the litigators for a full-blown First Amendment joyride. We’re bouncing from the marble steps of the Supreme Court to the delightfully chaotic music videos of rap icon Afroman. And yes, there will be lemon pound cake. We dive into the unanimous SCOTUS ruling in Olivier v. City of Brandon , which revitalizes your right to sue the government even with a prior conviction. Then, we pivot to the $...

Join the litigators of TPPF's Center for the American Future as we dive deep into the roots of law enforcement’s ability to enter a home without a warrant. We break down the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in Case v. Montana , which allows police to cross your threshold without a warrant—or even probable cause—during a welfare check. Is this a necessary safety net, or has the Court created a mass...

What happens when California school policies, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Supreme Court’s mysterious "Shadow Docket" collide? TPPF's Vice President of Policy, Andrew Brown, joins us to unpack the procedural rollercoaster of Mirabelli v. Bonta. We dig into a California rule that requires teachers to hide a child’s social transition from parents, and why the Supreme Court hit pause on the rule...

This week, we’re dissecting the 2026 Supreme Court’s obsession with 1798. If you think Calder v. Bull was just a dusty 1L memory about a probate dispute, think again. If Justice Thomas is reading the tea leaves, revisiting ancient history may be the future of the bench. From the basics of ex post facto to the allegedly modern right to actually speak in your own defense, we’re tracing the line from...