Season 3, Episode 42 (Show 146): Allen and Affirmative Action Again
October 11, 2023
Voting rights in Alabama, and affirmative action elsewhere, seemingly settled, rear their heads again. Two issues, but Professor Amar finds the common constitutional concept. NOTE: Lawyers and Judges – Visit podcast.njsba.com for CLE credit after listening.
After the Court decided important voting rights and affirmative action cases last term, these issues are back either before the Court or apparently headed for it. Why? We look at Allen v. Milligan, and affirmative action in the service academies, and find that the bounce-back of what seem to be entirely unrelated cases in fact demonstrates important constitutional and indeed originalist principles. And who is at the center of all this? Justice Kavanaugh, once again.
(LAWYERS AND JUDGES ARE ELIGIBLE FOR CONTINUING LEGAL EDUCATION CREDIT by visiting podcast.njsba.com after listening.)
Show Notes:
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Season 3, Episode 41 (Show 145): Eleven Presidents – Special Guest Bob Woodward
October 4, 2023
In an extraordinary 90 minutes, Bob Woodward offers a perspective on the Presidency, the Supreme Court, and the nation and its Constitution from a perch of experience and objectivity that we may never see again. NOTE: Lawyers and Judges – Visit podcast.njsba.com for CLE credit after listening.
The career of America’s greatest investigative reporter has spanned more than 50 years, and Bob Woodward has told the stories of eleven presidents, the Supreme Court, the Intelligence Community, and indeed the American political system with a penetrating, persistent drive towards the truth. (LAWYERS AND JUDGES ARE ELIGIBLE FOR CONTINUING LEGAL EDUCATION CREDIT by visiting podcast.njsba.com after listening.) Today this titan spends 90 minutes with us, and the insights continue to pour out of him. One can’t help but see Nixon at one end and Trump near the other; Woodward certainly sees them, and even with his ever-present professional distance and restraint, it’s powerful to hear the most deeply informed perspective there has ever been on the Constitution’s most ambitious creation – the Presidency – and the extraordinarily aberrant occupants of that office.
Show Notes:
Season 3, Episode 40 (Show 144): Have Kavanaugh, Will Travel
September 27, 2023
The Court prepares to sit for the new term, and the Dobbs decision continues to reverberate. We look at the aftermath and where the law, the Court, and the country are headed in its wake.
It’s almost October, and the Supreme Court readies to hear a new set of cases. The Roberts Court seems defined above all by the Dobbs decision at this point. The opinion, authored by Justice Alito, has been exhaustively dissected, but looking forward, we see various states taking further and more extreme actions. What role will the so-called swing justices, some of whom wrote concurrences in the case, play in the litigation that the new developments will likely spawn? What of the dire predictions of many pundits in the aftermath of the case? And what about Amarica’s Constitution – what did we say, and what say we now? Travel the road with us.
Show Notes:
Season 3, Episode 39 (Show 143): Justice Jackson’s Santa Clause
September 20, 2023
Judicial Ethics, the 303 case, art history, and we start to pull the curtain on a big announcement, all this week on a potpourri that somehow finds it all interrelated.
It’s an assortment of topics as listeners response to some recent developments and nagging questions. We revisit the 303 case, specifically the dissent, as Justice Jackson lays out an interesting hypothetical that doesn’t produce, perhaps, the intended response – at least from Professor Amar. Meanwhile, Justice Alito is back in the news with his judicial Declaration of Independence – Akhil may not quite agree. We also have an exciting prelude to a big announcement about our podcast!
Show Notes:
Season 3, Episode 38 (Show 142): An Officer and a President
September 13, 2023
Does Section 3 apply to not only Trump, but to any President? What is going on in Wisconsin, where a duly elected Justice may be strangely impeached without sitting for a case? And Justice Alito is back in the news.
CLE credit is available by visiting podcast.njsba.com after listening.
Two recent major podcast themes – section 3 of the fourteenth amendment, and judicial ethics – echoed through the news this past week. Wisconsin legislators seek to impeach a new state Supreme Court Justice before she even sits for a case; and in Washington, Justice Alito is asked to recuse himself because of an interview he gave. Meanwhile, Section 3 is addressed by a former US Attorney General, who says it is inapplicable to the President for reasons that may seem counterintuitive, even strange. We analyze the claims as well as what lies behind them in our constitutional system.
CLE credit is available by visiting podcast.njsba.com after listening.
Show Notes:
Season 3, Episode 37 (Show 141): The Two Experts, Part Two – Special Guests William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen
September 6, 2023
The nation is buzzing as the implications of the landmark article on Section Three are surfacing; we exclusively have the opportunity to explore these paths with the article’s authors.
CLE credit is available by visiting podcast.njsba.com after listening.
We continue our exclusive discussion with the Professors Baude and Paulsen, authors of the bombshell article declaring Trump ineligible for the Presidency. This time we explore some concerns that have been voiced in the media and elsewhere; we look at how this provision might make itself effective in practice. We trace the possible routes such an effort might take; where would it be initiated – and importantly, who would be the final authority? Along the way we enter the Fed Courts classroom and look at – what else – the Constitution’s voice on these matters, in the 14th amendment, and elsewhere.