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Court-Packing is the Democrats’ Nuclear Option for the Supreme Court

Why an FDR plan from the 1930s is suddenly popular again.
by Dylan Matthews via Vox on July 2, 2018

How Supreme Court Nominations Lost Their Apolitical Pretense

It used to be that nobody would admit to opposing a nominee for ideological reasons. Should we be happy that illusion is over?
by David Greenberg via Politico Magazine on June 30, 2018

The Court’s Supreme Injustice

How John Marshall, Joseph Story, and Roger Taney strengthened the institution of slavery and embedded in the law a systemic hostility to fundamental freedom and basic justice.
by Allen Mendenhall via Los Angeles Review of Books on May 24, 2018

The Rise of the Victims’-Rights Movement

How a conservative agenda and a feminist cause came together to transform criminal justice.
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on May 15, 2018
Lady Justice statue.

The Untold Story of Ordinary Black Southerners’ Litigation During the Jim Crow Era

Between the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement, about a thousand black southerners sued whites who had wronged them.
by Melissa Milewski via OUPblog on March 27, 2018

Separation of Power

To make a more perfect union, don’t look to the Founding Fathers.
by William Hogeland via Lapham’s Quarterly on March 14, 2018

Josef K. in Washington

A review of "Closing the Courthouse Door: How Your Constitutional Rights Became Unenforceable" by Erwin Chemerinsky.
by David Luban via New York Review of Books on March 2, 2018

Why Does the U.S. Sentence Children to Life in Prison?

No other nation sentences people to die in prison for offenses committed as minors.
by Katie Rose Quandt via JSTOR Daily on January 31, 2018
Massachusetts State House
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Don’t Count on the Supreme Court to Stop Trump’s Travel Ban

Chinese exclusion in the 19th century exposes the limits of the justices' power.
by Katy Long via Made By History on July 5, 2017

The History Test

How should the courts use history?
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on March 27, 2017

The History of 'Stolen' Supreme Court Seats

As the new administration seeks to fill a vacancy on the Court, a look back at the forgotten mid-19th century battles over the judiciary.
by Erick Trickey via Smithsonian on March 20, 2017

When Presidents Think About Defying the Courts

When President Trump contemplates violating court orders, he joins a longer list of presidents.
by Jeff Shesol via The New Yorker on February 9, 2017
Crowds of people surrounding the General Land Office and accompanying tents

Hail to the Pencil Pusher

American bureaucracy's long and useful history.
by Mike Konczal via Boston Review on September 21, 2015

In Defense of Court-Packing

When the Supreme Court willfully misreads the Constitution, FDR’s plan doesn’t seem so bad.
by Ian Millhiser via Slate on February 23, 2015

‘Brown v. Board of Education’ Didn’t End Segregation, Big Government Did

Sixty years after the decision, it’s worth remembering it took Congress's Civil Rights Act to finally smash Jim Crow.
by Ian Millhiser via The Nation on May 14, 2014

Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Footnote Four

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's solo dissent from an affirmative action case was inspired by a footnote.
by Lincoln Caplan via The New Yorker on September 13, 2013
Declaration of Independence marked up with red marker.

Here Are the Declaration of Independence’s Grievances Against King George III. Many Apply to Trump.

It’s uncanny.
by Tim Murphy, David Corn via Mother Jones on July 3, 2025
Clark Mills’s statue of Andrew Jackson, Lafayette Park, Washington D.C., circa 1910–1925

Vance’s Junk History

When Donald Trump and his followers go in search of historical forerunners to justify their regime, they turn with striking regularity to the presidency.
by Sean Wilentz via New York Review of Books on April 25, 2025
Strom Thurmond speaking to the Senate Judiciary Committee in favor of Ed Carnes' confirmation to the bench.

The Fight for Justice Starts with Blocking Judges Who Are “Tough on Crime”

The story of how Ed Carnes became a judge offers crucial lessons for those who hope to unwind the policies of mass incarceration.
by Robert L. Tsai via Public Books on November 13, 2024
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
"We the People" collage.

Is It Time to Torch the Constitution?

Some scholars say that it’s to blame for our political dysfunction—and that we need to start over.
by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on September 23, 2024
Richard Nixon's face superimposed onto the January 6th protests.

Richard Nixon Would Have Loved the Court’s Immunity Decision

I would know.
by John Dean via The Atlantic on July 3, 2024
Stanford Law School.

Why the Right’s Mythical Version of the Past Dominates When It Comes to Legal “History”

They’re invested in legal education, creating an originalist industrial complex with outsize influence.
by Saul Cornell via Slate on May 14, 2024
Ronald Reagan campaigns in Houston ahead of the Republican Convention in 1976.
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How Abortion Took Over the Republican Party

Ronald Reagan proved instrumental to Southerners bringing their cultural conservatism to center stage for the Republican Party.
by Jonathan Bartho via Made By History on April 12, 2024
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
Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas talking

How Chicago School Economists Reshaped American Justice

The 50th anniversary of a groundbreaking work.
via The Economist on September 7, 2023
Hands placing silhouettes of witnesses onto a chart using tweezers.

An Offer You Can’t Refuse

How a mob statute metastasized.
by Piper French via The Drift on July 12, 2023
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg leaving the courthouse in a prison van, 1951.

Not How He Wanted to Be Remembered

Two decades passed before the ghosts of the Rosenbergs came back to haunt Irving Kaufman, the judge who sentenced them to death.
by Linda Greenhouse via New York Review of Books on June 1, 2023
Demonstrators with signs supporting medication abortion.

Conservatives Are Turning to a 150-Year-Old Obscenity Law to Outlaw Abortion

With the Comstock Act of 1873 coming back to life, reproductive care, LGBTQ protections, and a host of other civil rights are now at risk.
by Melissa Gira Grant via The New Republic on April 12, 2023
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