Articles by Eleanor Stratton

What the Solicitor General Does

Many Americans can name the Attorney General. Fewer can name the person who does some of the government’s most delicate legal work: walking into the Supreme Court and telling nine justices what the United States thinks the law means. That person is the Solicitor General, usually shortened to the...

Faithless Electors and Elector Pledge Laws

Most Americans think the presidential election ends on Election Night. Legally, it does not. In most states, voters are not directly voting for President in a constitutional sense. They are choosing among slates of people called electors that are tied to each candidate or party ticket under state...

Presidential Signing Statements Explained

You know the scene: Congress passes a bill, cameras click, pens line up on the desk, and the president signs a new law into existence. Then comes the part most people never see. Alongside the signature, the White House often releases a written statement explaining what the president thinks the law...

Brady Material and the Brady Rule

“Brady material” sounds like a technical term, like something you request on a form and receive in a neatly numbered packet. In real life, it is messier and much more constitutional law than paperwork. The Brady rule is the Supreme Court’s name for a due process command: the government cannot...

Standing to Sue in Federal Court

People talk about “taking it to federal court” like it is a civic superpower. The Constitution disagrees. Federal judges are not empowered to referee every political fight or correct every government mistake. They exist to resolve cases and controversies , and that phrase in Article III has...

The Right to a Speedy Trial Explained

The Sixth Amendment says that “in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial.” That guarantee does two things at once. It promises a safeguard against a government that could otherwise lock someone up, leave charges hanging, and wait until the...

The Confrontation Clause Explained

The Sixth Amendment promises a criminal defendant the right “to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” That sentence sounds straightforward until you see how modern cases are actually built. Many prosecutions are not just people testifying in person. They are recordings, lab results,...

The Exclusionary Rule Explained

The exclusionary rule is one of those legal ideas that feels backwards the first time you hear it: sometimes a court will keep reliable evidence out of a criminal trial because the government gathered it the wrong way. That sounds like a technicality. It is not. It is a constitutional pressure...

Senate Advice and Consent

“Advice and consent” is one of those constitutional phrases that sounds like a polite formality, like the Senate is gently nodding along while the President runs the executive branch. In practice, it is one of the Senate’s sharpest tools. It is the mechanism that decides who becomes a Supreme...

How Congress Overrides a Presidential Veto

The President can stop a bill with a veto. But the Constitution does not treat that veto like a royal command. It treats it like a speed bump, one that becomes a wall unless Congress can prove something important: that the bill has overwhelming support even after the President has objected. That is...

The Pocket Veto Explained

The Constitution gives the President a familiar choice when Congress sends a bill to the White House: sign it into law or veto it and send it back. But there is a third option that can feel counterintuitive. The President can do nothing, and if Congress has adjourned in the right way at the right...

Natural-Born Citizen and Presidential Eligibility

The Constitution sets only a few eligibility rules for the presidency, and one phrase does most of the work: “natural born Citizen.” It is a requirement everyone recognizes and for which almost no one can point to a single, controlling definition. The result is predictable. A short clause...

Electoral Count Act: How Congress Certifies Electoral Votes

Americans talk about presidential elections like they end on election night. Constitutionally and legally, they do not. The public vote drives which slate of electors gets appointed in each state, and those duly appointed electors determine the winner by casting electoral votes. The public-facing...

Writ of Certiorari

You will hear it in headlines like it is a verdict: “The Supreme Court declined to hear the case.” But what the Court usually declines is not the merits. It declines the invitation . That invitation is called a writ of certiorari , often shortened to cert . It is the procedural gatekeeper that...

Pam Bondi Fired as Attorney General

Attorney General Pam Bondi has been fired by President Donald Trump, a jarring reminder that in the modern presidency, the Justice Department can become both a legal institution and a political mirror. The White House has confirmed that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche will step in as acting...

The Noem Story and the Constitution’s Blackmail Problem

There are two separate stories wrapped inside the recent revelations about Bryon Noem, the husband of former homeland security secretary Kristi Noem. The first is tabloid fodder: private photos, explicit messages, and a months-long online fetish exchange that reportedly involved cross-dressing...

Amicus Briefs: When Outside Groups Weigh In

You have probably seen the headline version of this: a major case hits the Supreme Court and suddenly a flood of outside groups “weigh in.” States. Trade associations. Civil rights organizations. Retired judges. Sometimes even members of Congress. Those filings are usually amicus briefs , short...

Mistrials and Hung Juries

A criminal trial is supposed to end with a verdict. Guilty or not guilty. A clean, final answer. But sometimes the system cannot get there. Jurors cannot agree. Something happens in the courtroom that makes a fair verdict impossible. The judge declares a mistrial , and the case hits an unsettling...

The Senate Blue Slip, Explained

Some of the most consequential power in Washington lives in places you will not find in the Constitution’s text. The Senate “blue slip” is one of those places. It is not a law. It is not a constitutional requirement. It is a Senate Judiciary Committee tradition that can slow, reshape, or stop...

Unanimous Consent in the Senate

The Senate has 100 members, debate can be extended on many questions, and it has a reputation for procedural gridlock in practice. Yet most days, it still manages to move quickly through stacks of routine work. The tool that makes that possible is unanimous consent , usually shortened to UC . UC is...