We the People

In this episode, Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, talks with C-SPAN’s Peter Slen about the life and career of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. The conversation is part of C-SPAN’s Books That Shaped America series, which explores key works from American history that have had a major impact on society. This discussion features Holmes’ The Common Law, written in 1881. You can find all segments from the C-SPAN series at c-span.org/booksthatshapedamerica. Resources:Oliver Wendell Holmes, “The Common Law,” (1881) Questions or comments about the show? Email us at podcast@constitutioncenter.org.Continue today’s conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr. Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.You can find transcripts for each episode on the podcast pages in our Media Library.

Robert Post, Sterling Professor of Law at Yale Law School, discusses the history of the Taft Court and the contrasting constitutional approaches among its justices. Topics include the challenges faced in researching the Taft Court volume, the interpretation of the Fourth Amendment and substantive due process rights, a comparison of Taft and Brandeis' goals, national power versus states' rights, the origins of the Whitney test, and the impact of the Taft Court on the present court.

On Tuesday, December 4, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Moore v. United States. The case concerns a challenge to the “mandatory repatriation tax,” and asks whether the Constitution allows Congress to tax American shareholders for the unrealized earnings of a foreign corporation. In this episode, Akhil Amar of Yale Law School and Anastasia Boden of the Cato Institute join Jeffrey Rosen to break down the arguments on both sides of the case. The conversation touches on the history of taxation in the Founding era, the extent of Congressional power, and the very meaning of the word “taxation.” Resources: Anastasia Boden, Amicus Brief for Petitioners, Moore v. United States Akhil Amar and Vikram Amar, Amicus Brief for Respondents, Moore v. United States   Moore v. United States (oral argument via C-SPAN) Questions or comments about the show? Email us at podcast@constitutioncenter.org. Continue today’s conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr. Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly. You can find transcripts for each episode on the podcast pages in our Media Library. 

On Wednesday, November 29, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy. The case involves three constitutional challenges to the agency, involving the right to a jury trial; the nondelegation doctrine; and the scope of executive power. In this episode, Noah Rosenblum, assistant professor of law at NYU, and Ilan Wurman, assistant professor at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, join Jeffrey Rosen to break down the arguments in the case, which pits the federal regulatory agency against a hedge fund manager charged with securities violations. They break down the constitutional claims at play, and discuss how the case could affect the future of the SEC and the modern administrative state as we know it.  Resources:  SEC v. Jarkesy (oral argument via CSPAN; transcript)  Noah Rosenblum, “The Case That Could Destroy the Government,” The Atlantic (Nov. 27, 2023)  Ilan Wurman, Brief in Support of Neither Party, SEC v. Jarkesy   Ilan Wurman, “Nondelegation at the Founding” (Yale L.J. 2021)  Julian Davis Mortenson & Nicholas Bagley, “Delegation at the Founding,” (Columbia L.Rev. 2021)    Questions or comments about the show? Email us at podcast@constitutioncenter.org.  Continue today’s conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr.  Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly. You can find transcripts for each episode on the podcast pages in our Media Library. 

Last week the Supreme Court announced that it adopted a formal code of ethics, endorsed by all nine Justices. In this episode, Professor Daniel Epps of Washington University School of Law and Professor Stephen Vladeck of the University of Texas School of Law join Jeffrey Rosen to break down the Supreme Court ethics code and explore questions about how it will be applied and enforced. Resources:   Supreme Court of the United States, Statement of the Court Regarding the Code of Conduct, Nov. 13, 2023  Daniel Epps and Will Baude, “Easy Win,” Divided Argument (podcast)   Steve Vladeck, “One and a Half Cheers for the Supreme Court,” One First substack, Nov. 16, 2023.  Steve Vladeck, “Opinion: The Supreme Court code of conduct misses this big thing,” CNN, Nov. 14, 2023   Steve Vladeck, “An Article III Inspector-General,” One First substack, Oct. 19, 2023.  Epps, Daniel and Trammell, Alan M., “The False Promise of Jurisdiction Stripping” (March 8, 2023). Columbia Law Review, Forthcoming.    Questions or comments about the show? Email us at podcast@constitutioncenter.org.  Continue today’s conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr.  Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.  You can find transcripts for each episode on the podcast pages in our Media Library. 

Historians Ned Blackhawk and Brenda Child join for a conversation on Blackhawk’s national bestseller, The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History, which just won the National Book Award. They explore five centuries of U.S. history to shed light on the central role Indigenous peoples have played in shaping our nation’s narrative. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates. This program was streamed live on November 1, 2023. Resources:   Ned Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History    Brenda Child, Away From Home: American Indian Boarding School Experiences, 1879-2000  Brenda Child, Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900-1940  Claudio Saunt, Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory  Jeffrey Ostler, Surviving Genocide: Native Nations and the United States from the American Revolution to Bleeding Kansas  Eric Foner, The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution  Ned Blackhawk, Violence over the Land: Indians and Empires in the early American West  Brenda Child, Holding Our World Together: Ojibwe Women and the Survival of Community  Brenda Child, My Grandfather's Knocking Sticks: Ojibwe Family Life and Labor on the Reservation  Brenda Child and Brian Klopotek, Indian Subjects: Hemispheric Perspectives on the History of Indigenous Education  Michael Witgen, Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America   Questions or comments about the show? Email us at podcast@constitutioncenter.org. Continue today’s conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr.  Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.  You can find transcripts for each episode on the podcast pages in our Media Library. 

Supreme Court case on whether the government can ban guns for domestic violence abusers. Discussion on historical traditions, confusion in lower courts, and disarming individuals based on their actions. Use of historical racist gun laws, mismatch in reasoning for Second Amendment scope, and balanced approach for rights and safety. Potential overhaul of methodology and alternative tests for Second Amendment claims. Open cases and challenges regarding sensitive places and classes of persons.

This week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases about social media and the First Amendment. The cases involve questions surrounding when and whether a public official’s social media activity constitutes state action subject to First Amendment constraints—and if so, whether they can block individuals from their social media pages. In this episode, David Cole of the ACLU and Professor Eugene Volokh of UCLA Law join to break down the arguments in both cases, discuss the claims being made, and how the outcomes of the cases could contribute to further defining the scope of speech rights online. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates.   Resources:   Lindke v. Freed, Oral Argument (CSPAN)  O'Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier, Oral Argument (CSPAN)  Eugene Volokh, When Is Government Official's Blocking Commenter from Social Media Page "State Action"?, Volokh Conspiracy (June 2022)  David Cole / Brief of the ACLU et al in support of respondents, O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier  David Cole / Brief of ACLU et al in support of petitioner, Lindke v. Freed    Questions or comments about the show? Email us at podcast@constitutioncenter.org. Continue today’s conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr. Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly. You can find transcripts for each episode on the podcast pages in our Media Library.

This week we are sharing an episode from our companion podcast, Live at the National Constitution Center. In this episode, prize-winning historians Kate Masur, author of Until Justice Be Done: America’s First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction, and Dylan Penningroth, author of the new book Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights, explore the central role of African Americans in the struggle for justice and equality long before the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates. Resources:  Kate Masur, Until Justice Be Done: America’s First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction (2022)  Dylan Penningroth, Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights (2023)  Article IV, Section 2: Movement Of Persons Throughout the Union, Privileges and Immunities Clause, National Constitution Center’s Interactive Constitution  14th Amendment Privileges or Immunities Clause, National Constitution Center’s Interactive Constitution  Dylan Penningroth, The Claims of Kinfolk: African American Property and Community in the Nineteenth-Century South (2003)  Kate Masur, An Example for All the Land: Emancipation and the Struggle over Equality in Washington, D.C (2010)  Brief of Professors of History and Law as Amici Curia in Support of Respondents, Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. Harvard and UNC   Questions or comments about the show? Email us at podcast@constitutioncenter.org.Continue today’s conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr.Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.You can find transcripts for each episode on the podcast pages in our Media Library.

Presidential historians Sidney Milkis, Barbara Perry, and Stephen Knott discuss the demagogic nature of the American presidency. They explore the evolution of the presidency, the impact of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, and the rise of Donald Trump. The podcast also explores reforms, communication styles, and the relationship between Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian traditions. The speakers propose restoring power to intermediary institutions and embracing federalism.