Below is a round-up of the latest from the Battle for the Constitution: a special project on the constitutional debates in American life, in partnership with The Atlantic.
We Are Losing a Generation of Civil-Rights Memories
By Leta McCollough Seletzky, Essayist and Memoirist
Leta McCollough Seletzky writes that forgetting our history risks losing the hard-fought gains toward equality and fundamental rights past generations have made.
A Citizen’s Guide to SCOTUS Live
By Garrett Epps, Professor of Law, University of Baltimore School of Law
Garrett Epps gives a preview of the first-ever live-streamed oral arguments at the Supreme Court and discusses how each Justice acts during oral arguments.
Congress Needs to be Way, Way Bigger
By David Litt, Author, Democracy in One Book or Less
David Litt argues that, to adequately represent the needs of the people, the House of Representatives should increase its size.
By Gary Gerstle, Paul Mellon Professor of American History, University of Cambridge
Gary Gerstle says that Justice Louis Brandeis’ description of states as “laboratories of democracy” has never been clearer than today, as the federal government has not adequately responded to the COVID-19 crisis, and states have led the way.
The Supreme Court Could Use the First Amendment to Unleash a Robocall Nightmare
By Garrett Epps, Professor of Law, University of Baltimore School of Law
Garrett Epps looks at the recently argued case, Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants—about if a law prohibiting robocalls to cellphones except in the case of many debt-collectors violates the First Amendment—and states that if the Supreme Court takes an absolutist view of the First Amendment and strikes down the entire law, it will be immensely unpopular.
Oklahoma’s Suspect Argument in Front of the Supreme Court
By Rebecca Nagle, Host, This Land
Rebecca Nagle writes that while Oklahoma contends that many convicted criminals could be let free depending on how the Supreme Court rules in the upcoming case of McGirt v. Oklahoma—which could effectively declare that almost half of the state is Native American territory—because of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, few cases could actually be retried and therefore few people could be let free.
