We the People

On April 9, 2021, President Biden issued Executive Order 14023 forming the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States. The Commission is comprised of a bipartisan group of experts on the Court—from former federal judges and practitioners, to legal scholars and historians—who have been tasked with analyzing arguments and the merits and legality of proposals in the current pub...

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen recently testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, telling senators that Facebook and Instagram stoke division, harm children, and avoid transparency and any consequences for their damaging effects. Her testimony amplified calls for regulation of the platforms. On today’s episode we consider a variety of proposed reforms, whether they wo...

Last week, Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito gave a speech responding to criticism of the Supreme Court’s emergency docket levied by, among others, his fellow Justices Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer. On this week’s episode, we explain what types of cases comprise the Court’s the emergency docket—sometimes referred to as the “shadow docket,” a term coined by scholar Will Baude—and whether the C...

Monday, October 4, will be the first day of oral arguments in the new 2021-22 Supreme Court term. On this week’s episode, Supreme Court journalists Kimberly Atkins Stohr of Boston Globe Opinion and Jess Bravin of The Wall Street Journal join host Jeffrey Rosen to preview the forthcoming term’s blockbuster cases on issues including abortion, religion, guns, free speech, state secrets, and more. Cas...

Three judges from the Third Circuit Court of Appeals joined host Jeffrey Rosen for a live panel held on September 17, Constitution Day, the anniversary of the signing of the Constitution. They shared an inside look into some of their rulings that then became blockbuster Supreme Court cases. Judge Cheryl Ann Krause discussed her ruling in the case involving a cheerleader who was punished for a Snap...

September 17 is Constitution Day—the anniversary of the framers signing the Constitution in 1787. This week’s episode dives into what happened after the Constitution was signed—when it had to be approved by “we the people,” a process known as ratification—and the arguments made on behalf of the Constitution. A major collection of those arguments came in the form of a series of essays, today often...

Last week, the Supreme Court declined to temporarily halt, and thus allowed to go into effect, a new Texas law that bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy—effectively banning most abortions in the state. The law is unusual in that, instead of enacting criminal penalties as a method of enforcement, it enables others to sue anyone who violates the law for money damages. On this week’s episode, h...

Legal battles over masks in schools are being fought across the country—in states including Arkansas, California, Florida, Kentucky, Michigan, Oklahoma, Nevada and Texas—and the U.S. Department of Education recently announced a civil rights investigation into mask mandate bans in several states.  This week’s episode explores lawsuits brought against governors who took action to try to ban  local m...

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the passage of the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age to 18. This week’s episode tells the fascinating story of the amendment—sparked by two wars and the idea of “old enough to fit, old enough to vote,” principally designed by two senators, and advocated for by countless young people, students, and civil rights activists. Host Jeffrey Rosen was joi...

This week’s episode profiles Mercy Otis Warren—a trailblazing woman who was one of the leading thinkers of America’s Revolutionary and Founding period. A poet, playwright, and pamphleteer—Warren’s ideas influenced John, Abigail, and Samuel Adams as well as Alexander Hamilton and others, and even helped shape the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Host Jeffrey Rosen was joined by two biographers...

On August 3, the Biden Administration issued an order from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention creating a second “eviction moratorium” that extended the pause on eviction proceedings in state courts during the pandemic—sparking debate over whether such an action was legal and constitutional. Joining Jeffrey Rosen to debate those questions this week are Ilya Shapiro, vice president of th...

As students return to school, hundreds of colleges and universities are requiring those returning to campus to get coronavirus vaccines. Recently, a federal appeals court declined to grant an injunction against Indiana University’s vaccine mandate after it was challenged in a lawsuit by students who say it violates their constitutional rights. On this week’s episode, we discuss the Indiana case as...

President Biden recently issued the Executive Order on Competition which aims to break up corporate power across the economy—proposing antitrust initiatives at more than a dozen federal agencies including the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). This week’s episode explores the executive order, the history, ideals, and legal principles behind it, and its potential impact. Host Jeffrey Rosen was joined...

The landmark 1964 Supreme Court decision New York Times Company v. Sullivan shaped libel and defamation law and established constitutional principles that still govern the scope of press protections in America today. The “actual malice” standard established in the decision requires a public official suing for defamation to prove that the newspaper published a false statement “with knowledge that i...

Benjamin Franklin is well known as a Founding Father and an innovative inventor, scientist, and diplomat. But did you know he had a major and often unsung role at the Constitutional Convention? Historians H.W. Brands, author of The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin, and Ed Larson, author of Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership, join host Jeffrey Rosen on this week’...

Last week, the Supreme Court released its opinion in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee—upholding two Arizona voting rules by deciding that they did not violate the Voting Rights Act or the Constitution and were not enacted with a racially discriminatory purpose. On this week’s episode, scholars debate whether that ruling was correct and how it might impact the future of voting rights and h...

As Americans look forward to celebrating Independence Day this holiday weekend, this week’s episode dives into the Declaration of Independence. We trace where its words and its ideals came from and how it went on to influence state constitutions, the U.S. Constitution, and other key American texts—including President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream”...

The Supreme Court recently released decisions from some of the most highly-anticipated cases of this term. Jess Bravin, who covers the Supreme Court for The Wall Street Journal, and Marcia Coyle, chief Washington correspondent for The National Law Journal and contributor to the National Constitution Center’s blog Constitution Daily, join host Jeffrey Rosen to recap those decisions and highlight th...

On June 19, 1865, Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, arrived in Galveston, Texas, with news that the Civil War had ended and that the enslaved were now free. President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had been issued over two years earlier, and the South had surrendered in April 1865, ending the Civil War. So why did it take so long for Texans to hear the news of their freedom...

As the Supreme Court approaches the home stretch of the 2020-2021 term, it’s released some opinions with unanimous decisions and others with split votes composed of unusual alignments of justices. Supreme Court experts Kate Shaw, cohost of the podcast Strict Scrutiny and professor at Cardozo Law, and Jonathan Adler, contributing editor of National Review and professor at Case Western Reserve Unive...

Last week, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer joined National Constitution Center President and CEO Jeffrey Rosen for a live online program to discuss the Constitution, civility, the Court, and more. In a wide-ranging conversation, the justice discusses how he goes about making decisions, shares some stories and life lessons from his time on the bench, and shares some of his fa...

The Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to a Mississippi law banning most abortions after 15 weeks (with narrow exceptions for medical emergencies or “severe fetal abnormality,” but not for instances of rape or incest). The case could lead the Supreme Court to once again question its landmark decision in Roe v. Wade (and later cases like Planned Parenthood v. Casey) which held that there was...

In the wake of the 2020 election, a host of new laws that deal with voting have been proposed across the country by both states and the federal government. Election law experts Rick Hasen, professor at UCI Law and author of Election Meltdown: Dirty Tricks, Distrust, and the Threat to American Democracy, and Derek Muller, election law professor at Iowa Law, join host Jeffrey Rosen to discuss whethe...

This week’s episode previews New York State Rifle and Pistol Association Inc. v. Corlett, which could become a major Second Amendment and gun rights case. This lawsuit was brought by two New York state residents who were denied licenses to carry firearms outside of the home, AKA “concealed carry” permits, because they had failed to show "proper cause" to carry a firearm in public for the purpose o...

The Facebook Oversight Board—a recently-developed court of sorts that independently reviews Facebook’s decisions and policies—issued a major ruling this week, upholding the company’s initial decision to ban President Trump indefinitely, but calling on the company to come to a final decision on its suspension of Trump and similar cases with greater detail. The board also requested that Facebook cla...