Articles by Eleanor Stratton

What Is the National Firearms Act? Suppressor Rules After the Latest Ruling

The National Firearms Act, or NFA, is one of those federal laws that reshaped how certain firearms and firearm devices are bought, transferred, and prosecuted through forms, approvals, and penalties. It does not categorically prohibit silencers for civilians nationwide. Instead, it creates a...

Is Vandalizing a National War Memorial a Federal Crime?

The Constitution does not have a “thou shalt not deface the World War II Memorial” clause. But it does give Congress something just as powerful: the ability to protect federal property. So when news breaks that a National Mall memorial has been spray-painted, the core legal question is not whether...

Can Trump Run Again in 2028? The 22nd Amendment and the Third-Term Wall

Presidential term limits are one of those constitutional rules most Americans feel in their bones even if they cannot quote the exact text. This week, President Donald Trump put that rule back on the front page himself. Speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Tuesday night, Trump...

How Eighth Circuit Judges Are Nominated

When a president announces a new nominee for a federal appeals court seat, it can sound like a personnel move in Washington. But constitutionally, it is one of the most direct ways a president and the Senate shape the meaning of federal law for decades. That is the backdrop to a report by Brooke...

Minnesota Welfare Fraud Scandal: How Public-Benefit Fraud Is Investigated and Prosecuted

When a public-benefit fraud story re-enters the headlines, it often comes wrapped in campaign language: who knew what, who was “tainted,” who should answer for what. But the legal system does not run on slogans. It runs on jurisdiction, evidence, intent, and due process. This article explains what...

Presidential Clemency Power: Pardons, Commutations, and DOJ Vetting

When a president issues a large batch of commutations outside the usual Justice Department review pipeline, the resulting internal scramble can make clemency sound like a paperwork problem. It is not. It is a constitutional design feature, and a political accountability problem. The Constitution...

EPA Section 404(c) Explained: The Clean Water Act Veto That Can Stop Permitted Projects

You can build a project around a federal permit and still discover that the permit was never the final word. That is the core anxiety behind the recent attention to Section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act: a power Congress gave the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to prohibit or restrict the...

FSU Scholarship Investigation: Title VI and Equal Protection, Explained

Florida State University is facing a federal civil-rights investigation over scholarship programs that allegedly limit eligibility based on race or sex. The headline is easy. The law underneath it is not. This story sits at the intersection of three things Americans often blur together: the...

Can a President Serve a Third Term? What the 22nd Amendment Says

The question resurfaces every few years, usually after an offhand comment or a headline that sounds like a dare: can a president serve a third term? Today the answer is straightforward in law and in practice. The Constitution, through the 22nd Amendment , forbids any person from being elected...

What Is ICE and What Can Congress Legally Do About It?

When a candidate says they want to “rip ICE apart,” they are not just making a statement about immigration policy. They are making a claim about government structure. And structure is where the Constitution quietly does most of its work. Immigration and enforcement live at the intersection of two...

Texas Man Arrested After Rant About Age Checks Blocking His Anime

Most Americans have a pretty simple mental model of free speech: you can criticize the government, you can swear at the government, and you can be obnoxious while doing it. That model is mostly right. It just breaks down at one fraught edge case: when a political rant starts to sound like a threat....

No Gestational Cap After Dobbs

When a headline says a state “allows abortions up to birth,” it can sound like the law has abolished every boundary. In some states, what happened is more legally specific: the state removed one kind of boundary, a week-based gestational age cap , while leaving other controls in place through...

Can the President Send the National Guard Into Cities?

The Constitution does not have a neat clause that says, “The President may send the National Guard into cities when crime rises.” What it does have is something broader and more consequential: a structure that splits military power between the federal government and the states, and then hands...

What Is the SAVE Act?

When a bill is “on the shelf” in the Senate, it often sounds like a political judgment. Usually it is something much more procedural: a tangle of unanimous-consent requests, objections that may or may not come, and the Senate’s unique ability to run on consent until a single senator says no. The...

Reflecting Pool Vandalism: What Federal Law Covers

You can stand at the Lincoln Memorial, look down the National Mall, and feel like you are standing inside the country’s shared memory. That is part of why vandalism stories involving the Reflecting Pool resonate so strongly. The Pool is not just a tourist backdrop. It is part of the National Mall...

Can Religion Disqualify Someone From Public Office?

You can feel the tension in the question because it lives at the intersection of two American instincts: the desire to judge leaders by character and the fear that government will start judging citizens by creed. That is why the Constitution, unusually early and unusually bluntly, draws a bright...

What Is the Filibuster?

You can spot a filibuster fight a mile away because it always sounds like a constitutional argument. One side says the Senate is being “paralyzed.” The other says the Senate is doing what it was designed to do: cool the passions of the moment. But the filibuster itself is neither a constitutional...

What Is TPS? How Temporary Protected Status Works and Why Haiti TPS Can End

Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, is one of the most misunderstood parts of U.S. immigration law because the word protected can sound like a permanent guarantee. It is not. TPS exists because Congress wrote a statute that lets the executive branch temporarily shield certain people already in the...

Can a President Renovate the White House Without Congress?

You can feel the constitutional nerve being touched whenever a president says, in effect, This is my house to secure and improve , and critics respond, You are a temporary occupant , and a court could ultimately agree in some form. To be clear, what follows is not a report about a specific, current...

After the Affirmative Action Ruling: What Colleges and Law Schools Can Still Consider

When the Supreme Court decided Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina in 2023, it did not say colleges must ignore a student’s life story. It held that the specific race-conscious admissions programs before it violated the Equal...