Articles by James Caldwell

Rudy Giuliani Hospitalized in Critical Condition

Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and onetime adviser to President Donald Trump, has been hospitalized and is in “critical but stable condition,” according to his spokesman. The statement came Sunday from spokesman Ted Goodman, who did not disclose what led to Giuliani’s...

Can the FCC Yank ABC’s Licenses Over a Political Feud?

When people hear that the federal government “licenses” television stations, a natural conclusion follows: if Washington grants the privilege, Washington can take it away. And if it can take it away, why not use that threat when a network becomes politically inconvenient? That line of thinking...

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...

When the State Wants to Look Inside Your Home

The Fourth Amendment was written with a simple instinct: a person’s home should not be treated like a public hallway. The recurring question in state and local policymaking is how far government should be able to go in peering into the home, and how easily private spaces can be treated as close...

The Supreme Court Reopens Texas’ Mid-Cycle Map Fight

The Supreme Court just handed Texas Republicans a win with a move that was both simple and deeply consequential: it summarily reversed a lower-court ruling that had blocked Texas’ mid-cycle congressional redistricting plan. In other words, the Court struck down the block and left the new map...

The Conspiracy Surge After the Dinner Attack

When a violent incident erupts in a public place, we expect fear. What we do not always expect is the second blast, the one that hits your phone. No sooner had a gunman tried to storm the ballroom of the Washington Hilton, where the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was taking place Saturday...

Ohio’s Gun Preemption Debate

In Ohio, arguments over gun policy often drift toward a familiar dividing line: whether cities should be able to write their own firearm rules, or whether the state should insist on one uniform standard everywhere. That can sound like a technical turf fight between the statehouse and city halls. It...

Texas and the Ten Commandments: A Test of the Establishment Clause

Texas wants the Ten Commandments on the wall of every public school classroom. Not in a textbook. Not as part of a unit on ancient law codes. On the wall, full time, in the King James wording, as a state-mandated presence in the daily life of a student. A closely divided federal appeals court has...

Birthright Citizenship and the Share-of-Births Question

Debates over birthright citizenship often hinge on disputed estimates about how many U.S. births involve parents who are not permanent residents. Those claims can be politically potent even when the measurement is not consistent. Treat the premise carefully. The figures that circulate in public...

A Digital Constitution Archive Worth Building

Every few years we watch the same national ritual: a public official holds up the Constitution like a prop, a pundit invokes “what the framers intended,” and a classroom of teenagers asks the most honest question of all. “Where does it actually say that?” That question is the beating heart...

Congress at 10% Approval: A Crisis of Legitimacy or Just Another Tuesday?

Congress is sitting at 10% approval , with 86% of Americans disapproving , a level that ties the worst public verdict ever measured for the institution. Those are not “bad numbers.” Those are governance numbers . They tell us something about whether people still believe the system is capable of...

Tariffs in Court: Refunds, Prices, and Next Moves

Tariff fights tend to end up in the same place most constitutional conflicts do: the gap between what government can do and what the public is told it will do. This is a general, evergreen guide to how tariff litigation and implementation typically unfold. It is not commentary on any single case,...

Should Candidates Be Allowed to Bet on Their Own Elections?

Here is a civics-class question that should make every voter a little uncomfortable: if a candidate can legally raise money, buy ads, hire staff, and shape the message, why should it feel different when that same candidate puts cash on the outcome of their own election? Because it is different. Not...

When the Court Leaks

For most of American history, the Supreme Court has asked the public for patience. Read the opinions, follow the reasoning, accept the result, even if you hate it. That bargain is not written into the Constitution, but it is the cultural glue that has kept nine unelected lawyers from looking like...

Tariffs and the Courts

Tariffs are often framed in politics as easy to announce and, depending on context, harder to defend. Supporters may describe them as a show of strength or bargaining leverage. Critics may describe them as a broad cost increase that can feel tax-like in practice. Once tariffs are challenged, the...

SCOTUS to Weigh Funding for Schools That Reject Same-Sex Parents

The Supreme Court just agreed Monday to hear a case that sounds, on the surface, like a narrow fight over preschool paperwork. It is not narrow. It is a live question about what Americans mean when we say “religious liberty,” and what we mean when we say equal access, even when the legal fight...

The Tariff Refund Portal Is Live. Don’t Expect a Check in Your Mailbox.

When the Supreme Court struck down the Trump administration’s emergency tariffs earlier this year, a lot of Americans heard one simple idea: those tariffs are gone, so the government has to give the money back . True, as far as it goes. But the more uncomfortable civics question is this: who...

A Strait of Hormuz Blockade Without Congress?

The Strait of Hormuz is not just a watery choke point. It is a constitutional one too. When the world’s most sensitive shipping lane becomes the stage for armed enforcement, the question is not only what happened at sea, but who, back home, has the authority to set the rules. After an incident...

New Hampshire’s Campus Carry Fight

New Hampshire just shoved a hard question back onto the table: when you step onto a college campus, do you step out of your constitutional rights? A campus carry bill, HB 1793 , has cleared the New Hampshire House and now heads to the state Senate, where lawmakers will weigh it next. The bill is...

Is the AR-15 Constitutionally Protected?

The Second Amendment debate has a bad habit of turning into a shouting match about modern politics instead of a serious argument about constitutional limits. This week, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon tried to drag it back to first principles, at least in the legal...