The U.S. Constitution

When the White House Jokes About ‘No Kings’

A royal visit is always a little surreal in Washington. It invites a republic to admire the optics it claims to reject. That tension shows up whenever American politics brushes against crowns, carriage-processions, and the theater of inherited authority. The question is not whether the United...

A ‘Military-Grade Weapons’ Ban After WHCD: The Second Amendment Fight Over Definitions

In the days after the shooting connected to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, a familiar policy idea resurfaced quickly: ban “military-grade weapons.” That call was amplified by Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, a former Democratic Party vice chair, who urged such a ban in a...

GOP Section 702 Deal Hits Rules Committee Hurdle

A House Republican deal to renew and revise Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is hitting its first major procedural hurdle: the House Rules Committee. The committee decides what reaches the floor, how debate is structured, and which amendments are allowed. Lawmakers expected...

When Politics Feels Like a Dead End

When an armed person rushes a high-profile political event, our first reaction is usually a mix of fear and disbelief. The second reaction, if we are honest, is often to reach for a simple explanation: “He was crazy,” or “He was evil,” or “That is just what politics is now.” Those...

Geofence Warrants and the Fourth Amendment

There is a particular kind of search the Fourth Amendment was written to stop: the kind that begins with a dragnet and ends by deciding who looks suspicious. In 1791, that dragnet looked like a “general warrant,” a government permission slip to rummage through private papers without naming the...

When Protest Feels Pointless

There is a particular kind of political despair that does not look like quiet resignation. It looks like acceleration. It looks like a person deciding that the ordinary channels of democracy are not just slow, but fake. That the doors marked petition , vote , and litigate are props on a stage, not...

Supreme Court Weighs Limits on Roundup Mass Lawsuits

The Supreme Court is considering a question that comes up again and again in modern product litigation: when a product is regulated at the federal level, how much room is left for state lawsuits claiming the warnings were not strong enough? This time, the product is Roundup, a widely used weed...

The Armed Man at the WHCA, and the Constitution We Practice

There is a particular kind of national anxiety that settles in when someone armed rushes a room full of public officials and journalists. It is not just fear of violence. It is the realization that our civic life depends on fragile rituals: public events, open access, a free press standing close...

Jurisdiction Stripping and the Courts

Every few years, Congress rediscovers a tempting lever: if courts keep striking down our laws, why not keep courts from hearing the cases at all? That idea has a name: jurisdiction stripping . It sounds technical, but it is one of the most direct ways the political branches can try to change...

Humanitarian Parole vs. Advance Parole

In everyday English, “parole” sounds like something you get after serving time. In immigration law, it means something very different, and much more precarious. Immigration parole is a discretionary permission to be in the United States for a limited period and a specific purpose, without being...

Presidential Signing Statements

The president signs a bill. Cameras click. Pens multiply. And then, sometimes, the president adds a few paragraphs that sound like a footnote to the law itself. That footnote is a presidential signing statement , and it is one of the most misunderstood tools in the executive branch. Some people...

The Insanity Defense

People talk about the insanity defense like it is a magic phrase: say it, and the courtroom door swings open. In reality, it is among the narrowest, most technical defenses in American criminal law, and it answers a very specific question. Not whether the defendant did the act. Not whether the...

Exhausting Administrative Remedies

You can lose a lawsuit against a federal agency without ever arguing the facts, the Constitution, or even whether the agency was wrong. The reason is often painfully simple: you sued too soon. Administrative law has a set of gatekeeping rules that sound procedural but act like a bouncer at the...

Probation and Parole Revocation: Due Process

Probation and parole can feel like they blur into everyday life. You report. You test. You keep curfews. You ask permission before you travel. It is supervision, not a court proceeding. Revocation is different. Revocation is the moment the system stops monitoring and starts deciding whether you...

Competency to Stand Trial

We talk about criminal trials like they are a machine. Arrest, arraignment, motions, trial, verdict. Feed in a defendant, turn the crank, justice comes out the other side. But the Constitution requires something more basic before the machine is allowed to run: the person facing prosecution has to...

Material Witness Warrants and Federal Custody

You can be taken into federal custody without being charged with a crime. That sentence sounds like a constitutional glitch. In reality, it is a narrow tool Congress wrote into federal law: the material witness warrant . The idea is simple. Sometimes the government cannot prove a case without a...

The STOCK Act, Explained

You are allowed to buy stocks if you serve in Congress. That is not the scandal. The scandal is what happens when the people writing laws that move markets also trade like ordinary investors, while having access to information that ordinary investors do not. That tension is why the STOCK Act...

Consent Decrees and Police Reform

You can sue a city after a rights violation. You can vote out a mayor. You can hire a new chief, pass a new policy, and promise things will be different. And then, a year later, the same complaints return with the same familiar details: the same stops, the same uses of force, the same failures to...

Federal Target Letters

You open the mail and see it: a letter from the Department of Justice. It uses a word that sounds like it belongs in a spy novel, not your life: target . A federal target letter is not a conviction. It is not even an indictment. It is something more unsettling and, in many cases, more urgent: a...

Sealed Indictments in Federal Cases

You hear it in breaking news like it is a magic phrase: a sealed indictment . It sounds like a locked box with a name on it, waiting for the moment prosecutors decide to open it. That image is not far off. In federal court, an indictment is a formal set of criminal charges approved by a grand jury....