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Evanston to Send $25,000 Reparations Payments to 44 Residents

Evanston, Illinois is preparing to send a new round of publicly funded reparations payments: $25,000 each to 44 residents. The city’s reparations committee has said the payments are meant to help cover housing expenses , and that additional recipients are lined up behind them as money becomes...

Trump Attacks His Own Supreme Court Picks After Tariff Loss

When presidents pick Supreme Court justices, the political world often talks as if those seats come with a kind of long-term loyalty. This week offered a useful reminder that the Constitution does not work that way. After the Supreme Court struck down most of President Donald Trump’s sweeping...

Trump Rebukes His Own Justices After Tariff Loss

When presidents lose at the Supreme Court, they usually complain about the decision . President Donald Trump chose a different target this week: the people , including two justices he personally elevated to the bench. On Sunday, Trump lashed out at Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett after...

Clarence Thomas’ Record and the Court’s Balance of Power

There is a particular kind of Supreme Court power that does not show up in oral argument transcripts or in the tally at the bottom of an opinion. It is the power of simply being there, term after term, long enough for your “dissent” to become the next generation’s baseline. Last week, Justice...

DOJ Sues Denver Over Its Gun Ban

Denver is about to learn the hard lesson every civics student eventually bumps into: the Constitution does not always care what a city council meant to do. The U.S. Department of Justice has sued Denver over a local gun ban, moving the dispute into federal court. Beyond the politics, the practical...

Sanctions and “Lawfare”: When Courts Punish Bad-Faith Briefs

Every civics teacher eventually has to say a sentence students hate: process matters . Not because process is pretty, but because it is the guardrail that keeps power from turning into pure muscle. That is why a seemingly small courtroom moment, a federal judge ordering a $5,000 sanction after a...

When ICE Arrests the Wrong Person

It is easy to talk about “due process” like it is a courtroom concept. A judge. A lawyer. A formal charge. A tidy timeline. But due process often fails earlier, in the messy place where armed authority meets an ordinary morning. George Retes, a 25-year-old U.S. citizen, Army veteran, and...

A New SCOTUS Line on Gerrymanders

Gerrymandering is one of those political practices Americans love to hate, until it helps their side win. But the Constitution does not treat every kind of gerrymander the same. After a recent Supreme Court decision involving Louisiana’s congressional map, that difference just got sharper in a...

Booker’s Supreme Court Warning

Sen. Cory Booker is making a straightforward midterm argument about the Supreme Court: if Democrats take control of Congress, he says they will “reform” the Court. The question that prompted his remarks was framed as part of a long American tradition of political conflict over the Court,...

USPS and Handguns: A Major Rule Change in Motion

For most Americans, “mailing a handgun” sounds like something that is obviously illegal, like putting fireworks in a box and hoping nobody notices. But the law has never been that simple. It has been a layered system of federal statutes, postal regulations, and the background reality that the...

NJ Donor Disclosure Fight Shows the Power of Impact Litigation

Constitutional law does not always arrive with a sweeping statute or a landmark opinion that everyone recognizes on sight. Sometimes it starts with something smaller and more procedural: a demand for records. That is the posture of a dispute now unfolding in New Jersey. The state attorney general...

Pausing the Carroll Judgment: What an Appeal Freezes and What It Does Not

In civics class, I used to tell my students that the law has two speeds: what the jury decides, and what the system can actually enforce. Those two speeds collide when a losing party asks for a “stay,” meaning a court-ordered pause, while an appeal continues. That is the moment we are in with...

New Jersey ruling draws a line on off-duty cannabis use for police

For many Americans, cannabis policy is no longer an abstract debate. It shows up in workplace handbooks, union negotiations, disciplinary hearings, and a simple but important question: what can an employer control once an employee clocks out ? A recent decision from the Superior Court of New...

DOJ vs. Colorado Magazine Ban

Colorado has limited ammunition magazines to 15 rounds since 2013. Now the U.S. Department of Justice is in court arguing that Colorado’s “large-capacity magazine” law is not just bad policy, but unconstitutional. That lawsuit tees up a question that sounds simple until you touch the...

Roberts, the Court, and the Politics We Pretend Not to See

Chief Justice John Roberts told a room of lawyers at a legal conference in Hershey, Pennsylvania, that many Americans have the Supreme Court wrong. People, he said, see the justices as “political actors.” “I don’t think that is an accurate understanding of what we do,” Roberts added,...

11 Supreme Court Cases to Watch This Term

The Supreme Court’s term does not end with oral argument. It ends with consequences. The Court is now in the final stretch of its 2025–2026 term. Oral arguments are over and the merits docket is fully submitted. What remains is the work that actually settles the law: drafting, finalizing, and...

Gorsuch, “Hard Cases,” and Trust in the Supreme Court

When Americans say they have “lost trust” in the Supreme Court, they rarely mean they no longer trust the Court to decide . Of course it decides. Nine justices vote, opinions get published, and the country moves on, sometimes grudgingly. What people mean is something more constitutional and...

Trump Dangles GOP Support if Fetterman Switches Parties

Party labels are supposed to be shorthand, not shackles. But in a polarized moment, even small acts of independence can trigger a loyalty test. That is the backdrop to a remarkable offer now floating around Washington: President Donald Trump wants Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania to switch...

Explosives-Filled Car Crashes Into Portland Club

A car “packed with explosives” was driven into the Multnomah Athletic Club in Portland, Oregon, and the driver was killed in the resulting explosion, officials said. Investigators believe the driver was a former employee who deliberately rammed the vehicle through the club. Those are the basic...

When Government Nudges Become Censorship

Most Americans know the First Amendment’s basic idea: the government generally cannot punish you for political speech. That statement comes with important, narrow exceptions, including limits on true threats, incitement, and certain time, place, and manner rules. It also depends on context....