Constitutional Law

Episode 28 of the podcast "What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law" explores the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation process, and constitutional rules pertaining to justices, including how and when one might be impeached.

President Trump is nominating federal judges, and Supreme Court Justices such as Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who claim to be committed to “originalism.” This approach to constitutional law requires that the Constitution be interpreted to mean today what the text was intended or understood to mean at the time it was written.

Ep. 26 of "What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law" looks as Roe v. Wade as it relates to President Trump, his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, and the Constitution. This episode also examines the unusual trajectory of Roe plaintiff Norma McCorvey's life in the decades following the 1973 Supreme Court decision.

Can Trump block people on Twitter? It turns out, the First Amendment has something to say about that. Episode 23, "President Twitter and the First Amendment" of What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law podcast is now available.

The blockbuster movie The Post tells a very important real-life story about the efforts of the journalists and leaders of the Washington Post (including Katherine Graham, the first female head of a major American newspaper) and the New York Times to publish parts of a collection of classified documents (the “Pentagon Papers”) detailing non-public information about America’s controversial involvement in the Vietnam War.

President Trump likes to threaten the press with libel lawsuits. What does the Constitution have to say about defamation and the press?

This is a preview of a forthcoming article, California Constitutional Law: Interpreting Restrictions on the Initiative Power (2017) 51 U.C. Davis L. Rev. Online 65, David A. Carrillo and Darien Shanske. Reprinted by permission.

Overview

Over the weekend, a bipartisan group of political leaders - including Arizona Sens. Jeff Flake and John McCain, as well as House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. - condemned President Trump's pardon late last week of Maricopa County (Arizona) Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

We now know that Donald Trump Jr., a high-level adviser to his father's presidential campaign, attempted to obtain opposition research from the Kremlin. To Trump's opponents, this finally proves explicit collusion between Trump's campaign and the Russian government. Still, it was astonishing to see the defeated candidate for the vice presidency of the United States, Tim Kaine, argue that the son of the incumbent president may have committed treason.