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Poster reading "Basta Buitres," or "Enough Vultures," calling for Argentina to unite against the United States.

How the US Courts Rewrote the Rules of International Trade

How the American legal system created an economic environment that subordinated the entire world to domestic business interests.
by Brett Christophers via The Nation on March 3, 2025

Constrain the Court—Without Crippling It

Critics of the Supreme Court think it has lost its claim to legitimacy. But proposals for reforming it must strike a balance with preserving its independence.
by Laurence H. Tribe via New York Review of Books on July 27, 2023
Black and white side profile of Felix Frankfurter reading.

The Justice Who Wanted the Supreme Court to Get Out of the Way

Felix Frankfurter warned that politicians, not the courts, should make policy.
by John Fabian Witt via The New Republic on August 26, 2022
Artwork of the Supreme Court but with chess pieces used as columns..

The Supreme Court Is Not Supposed to Have This Much Power

And Congress should claw it back.
by Daphna Renan, Nikolas Bowie via The Atlantic on June 8, 2022

How Abraham Lincoln Fought the Supreme Court

As Lincoln recognized, it's not enough to question the decisions, justices, or even the structure of the Court. We need to challenge the foundation of its power.
by Matthew Karp via Jacobin on September 19, 2020

A Supreme Court Justice Wrote the Greatest “No Kings” Essay in History

This opinion is a milestone in the rule of law and is regularly cited by conservative and liberal justices alike.
by Gerard Magliocca via Slate on July 10, 2025
Chief Justices of the Supreme Court attend President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress at the US Capitol on March 4, 2025, in Washington, DC.

The Courts Won’t Save Us

Rather than resisting authoritarianism, the courts have enabled Trump’s rise.
by Samuel Moyn, Daniel Bessner via Jacobin on April 30, 2025
A hand bound to a gavel.

The Question Progressives Refuse to Answer

As Democrats became the party of proceduralism, they sidestepped a crucial debate.
by Marc J. Dunkelman via The Atlantic on April 2, 2025
Supreme Court sign proclaims "equal justice under law."

What Happens If Trump Defies the Courts

Do judges have the power to enforce their rulings if the executive branch refuses to comply?
by Isaac Chotiner, Cristina Rodriguez via The New Yorker on February 11, 2025
William Rehnquist

The Late Supreme Court Chief Who Haunts Today’s Right-Wing Justices

William Rehnquist went from a lonely dissenter to an institutionalist chief—and his opinions are all the rage among the court’s current conservatives.
by Duncan Hosie via The New Republic on October 23, 2024
Supreme Court building.

Lifetime Tenure for Supreme Court Justices Has Outlived Its Usefulness

While letting justices serve during “good behavior” was designed to encourage impartiality, it now tends to promote the opposite effect.
by Jack Rakove via Brennan Center For Justice on October 15, 2024
Photo of Supreme Court Justices posing in gowns.

The Origin of Specious

Originalism is not so much an idea as a legal-industrial complex divided into three parts—the academic, the jurisprudential, and the political.
by Garrett Epps via Washington Monthly on August 25, 2024
Chief Justice John Roberts.

The Supreme Court Has Murdered the Constitution

America’s founding document is now an all-but-meaningless scrap of paper. Happy Fourth!
by Ryan Cooper via The American Prospect on July 4, 2024
Frozen truck on icy road

The Frozen Trucker and the Fugitive Slave

On the TransAm Trucking case, legal reasoning, and the Fugitive Slave Act.
by Barry Goldman via 3 Quarks Daily on May 27, 2024

‘Brown’ at 70

The rhetorically modest but functionally powerful ruling that ended segregation shouldn’t be misused to forestall other efforts at racial equality.
by Randall Kennedy via The American Prospect on May 17, 2024
1957 U.S. Supreme Court Justices
partner

Super Chief

Reconsidering Earl Warren's place in U.S. history.
by Michael Bobelian via HNN on May 14, 2024
Antonin Scalia speaking at a Federalist Society event.

How the Federalist Society Conquered the American Legal System

How the Federalist Society became the engine of the conservative legal movement—and where it might be headed next.
by Peter Shamshiri, Rhiannon Hamam, Michael Liroff, Amanda Hollis-Brusky via Balls And Strikes on February 13, 2024
Lincoln being sworn in by Chief Justice Taney.

We Are Already Defying the Supreme Court

The risks of calling on politicians to push back against the court must be weighed against the present reality of a malign judicial dictatorship.
by Samuel Moyn, Ryan D. Doerfler via Dissent on January 22, 2024

At Supreme Court, Corporations Misuse History in Cases on Agency Power

A pair of lawsuits claim that courts were a strong check against federal agency power in early America, but history shows otherwise.
by Gautham Rao, Thomas Wolf via Brennan Center For Justice on January 16, 2024
A diagram of the parts of a flintlock pistol.

Bad Facts, Bad Law

In a recent Supreme Court oral argument about disarming domestic abusers, originalism itself was put to the test.
by Duncan Hosie via New York Review of Books on November 25, 2023
Supreme Court Justice Harlan F. Stone photographed with a book.

The Supreme Court's World War II Battles

Cliff Sloan’s new book explains how the Franklin Roosevelt-shaped Court wrestled with individual rights as the nation fought to save itself and the world.
by Robert L. Tsai via Washington Monthly on September 22, 2023
In July 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt swore in Attorney General Robert Jackson as a Supreme Court justice. Jackson and Roosevelt often played poker together.

How FDR’s Influence Over the Supreme Court Transformed History

In “The Court at War,” Cliff Sloan examines the close relationship between FDR and the high court during World War II.
by Michael Bobelian via Washington Post on September 22, 2023
Protesters outside the United States Supreme Court.

What Tocqueville Saw in the Courts

Tocqueville understood how constitutional review, without meaningful checks, could enable judicial despotism.
by Alan S. Kahan via Law & Liberty on September 12, 2023
Supreme Court justice swearing in FDR at inauguration.

When FDR Took On the Supreme Court

The standard narrative of Roosevelt's court-packing efforts casts them as a failure. But what if they were a success?
by John Fabian Witt via The Nation on June 27, 2023
John Hart Ely.

The Liberal Giant Who Doomed Roe

His works underpins the Dobbs decision. His legacy matters enormously to what's next for constitutional law.
by Caitlin B. Tully via Slate on June 25, 2023
Drawing of Al Gore at the 2000 Democratic Convention.

Has the United States Ever Been a Democracy?

Jedediah Purdy's new book examines why the U.S. has continuously failed to qualify as a system defined by popular rule.
by Sophia Rosenfeld via The Nation on January 3, 2023
Illustration depicting workmen and firemen dragging a fireman and engineer from a Baltimore freight train during the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad strike.

The Railway Labor Act Allowed Congress to Break the Rail Strike. We Should Get Rid of It.

Congress was able to break the rail strike last week because of a century-old law designed to weaken the disruptive power of unions.
by Nelson Lichtenstein, Andrew Yamakawa Elrod via Jacobin on December 7, 2022
Supreme Court justices with their heads in boxes made from the Constitution.

Originalism Is Bunk. Liberal Lawyers Shouldn’t Fall For It.

The more liberals present originalist arguments, the more they legitimate originalism.
by Ruth Marcus via Washington Post on December 1, 2022
Eric Foner sits in an arm chair on stage during an interview, holding a microphone.

“Originalism Is Intellectually Indefensible”

On the persistent myth of the colorblind Constitution that the Supreme Court's conservatives have embraced.
by Eric Foner, Cristian Farias via Balls And Strikes on October 28, 2022
An American flag stylized as a ball bearing maze.

The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

How our inability to change America’s most important document is deforming our politics and government.
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on October 26, 2022
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