Articles by James Caldwell

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...

The National Popular Vote End Run

For most Americans, the Electoral College is like a fuse box in the basement. You do not think about it until the lights flicker. But in the last few elections, the flicker has become a strobe, and now a growing bloc of states is trying to rewire the system without touching the Constitution at all....

Trump’s Truth Social Blitz and the Politics of Sacred Imagery

President Trump used Truth Social the way some presidents used the Oval Office microphone: to define enemies, project command, and compress complicated disputes into sharable certainty. This week’s flare-ups moved on two tracks at once, a public dispute with Pope Leo XIV and a backlash over an...

The EPA Case That Could Revive Nondelegation

Congress passes a law. An agency fills in the operational details. The public feels the impact. And somehow, no one can quite identify the moment when elected lawmakers made the big choice. That, in plain English, is the constitutional itch behind a new push to get the Supreme Court to take a case...

Kentucky’s Gun-Maker Shield and the Price of Lawsuits

Kentucky is in the middle of a familiar American argument: who gets to set the rules when a national controversy lands on a statehouse desk? This time the spark is HB 78 , a bill the legislature passed and Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed on April 6, 2026 . The National Association for Gun Rights is urging...

Harvard Sues Over International Student Ban

The federal government has significant power over the people and institutions it regulates. Often, that power shows up as forms, compliance checks, and rules that can change over time. Occasionally, it shows up as a ban. Harvard is suing the Trump administration after it banned the school from...

Resignations, Not Expulsions

The House of Representatives is not a courtroom. It is not a human resources department, either. But it is a constitutional body with one glaring obligation that rarely gets tested in earnest: the duty to discipline its own members. This week, that duty collided with political reality. Rep. Tony...

Birthright Citizenship and the Sovereignty Question

Every generation finds a new way to ask an old question: who is an American ? Sometimes the question comes dressed as a moral argument. Sometimes it shows up as a budget argument. Lately, it shows up in court as a sovereignty argument, the claim that the United States can only remain a nation if it...

Trump’s DOJ Keeps a Biden Gun Rule

Presidents campaign like they can flip Washington like a light switch. New team in, old rules out. That story sells. It is also often false. On April 10, the Trump Justice Department kept a Biden-era gun rule in place. Whatever people expected from a change in administration, the immediate result...

What Melania Trump’s Epstein Statement Really Demands

When powerful people get named anywhere near the Jeffrey Epstein story, the public reflex is predictable: someone is hiding something . That reflex is understandable. It is also dangerous. In a constitutional republic, outrage is not evidence, and vibes are not due process. That is why First Lady...

Border Arrests and Real Warrants

The border is where Americans often assume the rules change. In some ways, they do. The government has broader authority at and near the nation’s entry points, especially for searches tied to immigration and customs enforcement. But border power still has edges. A legal question that can get lost...