Articles for category: Spotlight

Whose Common Sense?

On September 8, 2025, in the case of Noem v. Vazquez Perdomo, the Supreme Court signaled its support for ICE’s continued use of racial profiling in immigration policing. By staying a lower court’s restraining order, the Court allowed agents once again to stop and arrest people based on how they look, the language they speak, where they live, and the kind of work they do. The closest the Court came to providing reasons for its intervention came in the form of a non-precedential concurrence authored by Justice Kavanaugh. In it, “common sense” is doing the heavy lifting, just as it has in the Court’s immigration policing jurisprudence for decades, at the expense of facts, evidence, and individual rights.

10. September 2025

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Compound Interest

Last week, President Trump purported to fire a member of the Federal Reserve Board, Dr. Lisa Cook. And although he appointed Jerome Powell Chairman of the Federal Reserve during his first term, Trump has since directed constant scorn at Powell and repeatedly threatened to remove him as well. This controversy forms part of Trump’s broader effort to assert sweeping control over the executive branch. It also reveals his particular interest in loosening U.S. monetary policy. Yet his actions carry significant legal and economic risks of their own.

4. September 2025

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Trump’s Manufactured Emergencies

The Trump administration’s actions in Washington D.C. represent the continuation of interconnected political and rhetorical tactics that the president has used since his second inauguration that we should expect to see again and again – using misleading or downright fabricated information as the basis for declaring an emergency, relying on the fabricated emergency to invoke emergency legal authorities, and then relying on those authorities to take actions that exceed even the broad powers that such emergencies confer under the law. Looking ahead, we can expect the administration to run this same playbook in additional, predictable ways.

22. August 2025

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Pardons, Criminal Theory, and Political Sociology

Donald Trump’s use of the presidential pardon has transformed a constitutional power into a tool of personal loyalty and partisan retribution. Rather than correcting injustice, his pardons reward allies, shield loyalists, and punish critics. This shift reflects not only a philosophical challenge to the logic of criminal law, but also a deeper sociopolitical trend: the erosion of accountability through transactional governance. As legal boundaries blur and institutional checks falter, the rule of law itself is drawn into the orbit of authoritarian impulse.

21. August 2025

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Attacks on Reproductive Control

In the U.S., authoritarian populists exploit gender politics by criminalizing pregnancy, restricting reproductive rights, and using criminal law to undermine women’s autonomy. Under Trump, these dynamics intensified, ranging from nationwide abortion bans to the erosion of healthcare protections and threats to contraception access. Such measures tap into racial and economic anxieties, reinforce patriarchal power, and resonate far beyond the United States.

20. August 2025

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The Texas Gambit

American politics at present is defined by the daily discarding of long-standing norms. The latest ignominy involves the brazen attempt, by the Republican leadership of the State of Texas, to gerrymander the state’s congressional districts to give the GOP control over an additional five seats; a move that, if successful, would raise the number of U.S. House seats held by Texas Republicans. What is unprecedented in the Texas situation is both the origin and timing of the attempted gerrymander, and the gaudy theatricality that has followed.

10. August 2025

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Litigation v. Politics

The Trump Administration appears committed to crush any and all opposition by the aggressive use of national power. Given the constitutional status of federalism within the United States, these attempts at control from Washington are provoking a wave of litigation. However, it is also important to pay attention to the political means by which states can engage in resistance. A major issue of the moment is whether the Texas Legislature will adhere to the strong demand by Donald Trump that it redraw the legislative districts; and whether Democrats within the state will succeed in their defiance.

8. August 2025

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Parteiverbotsverfahren in der öffentlichen Debatte

In der seit einigen Monaten kontrovers geführten Debatte um ein mögliches AfD-Verbot werden immer wieder Positionen mit rechtlichen Argumenten unterfüttert, die mit Blick auf das Verfassungsrecht kaum haltbar oder zumindest stark umstritten sind. Ihnen soll im Folgenden besondere Aufmerksamkeit gelten: als Mahnung an alle, die sich öffentlich zu diesem Thema äußern, dass die juristische Methodik auch dort nicht vernachlässigt werden darf, wo (gefühlte) politische Dringlichkeit auf normative Komplexität trifft.

30. Juli 2025

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Bullying Universities

David Pozen at Columbia University calls Columbia University’s new agreement with the federal government “regulation by deal.” In regulation by deal, the administration foregoes the process of developing general standards to be enforced by regularized processes, all under the watchful eyes of courts, and instead bargains directly with each institution to be regulated, striking a bespoke arrangement with each. It’s a strategy that uses the power of the government outside the development of general rules and therefore outside the law.   

28. Juli 2025

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An Elusive Touchdown with a Political Football

On July 19, Congress voted to revoke funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting – something it has not done in the 60 years since its creation. In countries with strong public media traditions, this may seem astonishing: Why would Congress defund NPR and PBS after already having appropriated the money? And what does this mean for the First Amendment? To answer these questions, we must consider the peculiar history of public broadcasting in the United States.

24. Juli 2025

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