In proposing his judicial overhaul, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has said he was restoring the balance of power between elected lawmakers and unelected judges. “It is not the end of democracy, it is the strengthening of democracy,” Mr. Netanyahu said last week, before a huge wave of protest and civil unrest forced him […]
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WASHINGTON — The demand by House Republicans for information from a local prosecutor in New York about his criminal investigation into former President Donald J. Trump is pushing an already escalating fight over the scope and limits of congressional oversight powers into new territory. Legal battles about the oversight authority of Congress were one of […]
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The First Amendment has so far played only a bit part in the debate about banning TikTok. This may change. If the U.S. government actually tries to shut down this major communications platform, the First Amendment will certainly have something to say about it. Perhaps the reason First Amendment rights haven’t received more attention in […]
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WASHINGTON — In March 2021, a year into the coronavirus pandemic, a key witness in a criminal case in a federal court in New York was allowed to testify remotely, from his lawyer’s office in California. The cross-examination was marred by technical glitches and the stilted awkwardness familiar to anyone who has participated in a […]
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And a 5-4 conservative majority relied on similar standing concerns in June 2021 to hold that the Constitution foreclosed suits by some consumers who sought to challenge credit reporting companies who kept inaccurate records of their credit information — holding that it wasn’t enough that Congress believed such conduct should be legally actionable. In each […]
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WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Kansas City on Tuesday struck down a Missouri law that restricted local and state law enforcement agencies in carrying out federal gun laws, ruling that the statute violated the Constitution and posed a grave threat to public safety. Judge Brian C. Wimes of the Western District of Missouri ruled […]
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In particular, Roosevelt, who is a professor of constitutional law at the University of Pennsylvania, says that we get the Declaration wrong. “The Declaration of Independence was not a statement about human rights in the abstract,” he writes. “It was not a declaration of concrete human rights, either.” Instead, the Declaration of Independence was about, […]
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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear a case that could hobble the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and advance a key project of the conservative legal movement: to limit the power of independent agencies. A ruling against the bureau, created as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act after the financial crisis, could […]
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Later that month, another judge, John L. Sinatra Jr., blocked the portion of the law that barred firearms in houses of worship because he could not find an “American tradition” that supported it. The state appealed Judge Sinatra’s ruling, too. The relevant portions of the law went back into effect. The following month, the measure […]
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Former Vice President Mike Pence is planning to fight a federal grand jury subpoena compelling him to testify in the investigation into President Donald J. Trump’s actions leading up to the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to a person familiar with Mr. Pence’s plans. Mr. Pence is expected to argue that […]
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Representative David Cicilline, Democrat of Rhode Island, was more pointed, suggesting that Republicans including Mr. Gaetz who backed Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election had no right to engage in patriotic displays in Congress. He tried to add a clause to Mr. Gaetz’s proposal that would bar insurrectionists from leading the Pledge of […]
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President Biden has been conspicuously quiet on the topic of the Supreme Court. Even as there’s an active debate about what to do about a court that has too often exceeded the bounds of its authority, he has avoided regular criticism of it. His restraint in discussing the court is true in general, and it’s […]
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