We The People

One Year of COVID-19 and the Constitution

March 11, 2021

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As the world reflects on the anniversaries of COVID-19 lockdowns this week, this episode recaps the variety of constitutional issues sparked by the pandemic. Joshua Matz—a lawyer and partner at Kaplan Hecker and Fink LLP who successfully defended a Kentucky coronavirus-related public health order before the U.S. Supreme Court—and Adam White, a professor at George Mason Law and scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who has studied COVID-19-related constitutional issues—join host Jeffrey Rosen. They explore how the pandemic has fueled debates over governmental power to handle public health crises while balancing individual rights and liberties; the First Amendment rights of religious institutions in the face of shutdowns and other orders; state versus federal power; how courts ruled on voting rights issues during the 2020 election in the midst of the pandemic; how COVID-19 has affected inmates, immigrants, detainees and the criminal justice system, and more.

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TRANSCRIPT

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This transcript may not be in its final form, accuracy may vary, and it may be updated or revised in the future.

PARTICIPANTS

Joshua Matz is a partner at Kaplan Hecker and Fink LLP. Joshua has litigated cases about the rights of immigration detainees, pre-trial detainees, and voters during the pandemic, and successfully represented Governor Beshear at the Supreme Court in defending his COVID-19 public health orders against a free exercise challenge in Danville Christian Academy Inc. v. Beshear. Joshua also served as counsel to the House Judiciary Committee for both impeachments of President Trump.

Adam White is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute as well as assistant professor of law and the director of the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. His analysis of coronavirus and the Constitution issues has been published by National Review and other leading publications.

Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.

This episode was produced by Jackie McDermott and engineered by Greg Scheckler. Research was provided by Alexandra "Mac" Taylor and Lana Ulrich.

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