Recent | Take Care

Another Illegal Executive Order--This Time National Monuments Are Under Attack

Trump issued an order directing Interior Secretary to review a generation's worth of national monument designations. That order is likely illegal.

Michael Burger

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School

On Standing In CREW v. Trump Part II: More Distinctions Without A Difference To Competitor Standing Cases

4/28/17 // Commentary

The various ways that standing skeptics have distinguished cases supporting standing in CREW are unpersuasive.

Leah Litman

Michigan Law School

Going to Court for Civil Servants

4/28/17 // Commentary

Protecting the civil service from purges, intimidation, or politicization is vital to a healthy democracy. That's why United to Protect Democracy has filed suit to combat a troubling pattern of bullying civil servants and trying to silence dissent.

Take Care

Versus Trump, Episode 2: "Get 'Em Out!" + Richard Primus

4/27/17 // Commentary

The second episode of Versus Trump, Take Care's podcast, features discussion of a lawsuit against President Trump for inciting violence, the Muslim travel ban, and more. Listen or subscribe now!

Easha Anand

San Francisco

Jason Harrow

Gerstein Harrow LLP

Charlie Gerstein

Gerstein Harrow LLP

Analyzing Trump's Reaction to the First Sanctuary City Ruling

4/27/17 // Commentary

Why did Trump bash a judicial decision blocking an order that, if you believe his own lawyers, does nothing, changes nothing, and likely won't be applied to anybody?

Joshua Matz

Versus Trump, Episode Two

4/27/17 // Commentary

This Week's Episode: "Get 'Em Out!" + Richard Primus

Jason Harrow

Gerstein Harrow LLP

Easha Anand

San Francisco

Charlie Gerstein

Gerstein Harrow LLP

The Federal Statute on Sanctuary Cities Doesn’t Say What the Trump Administration Thinks It Says

4/27/17 // Commentary

The statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1373(a), says nothing about Trump’s biggest complaint.

Nikolas Bowie

Harvard Law School

Facts Matter—Even if the Sessions Department of Justice Doesn’t Realize It

4/26/17 // Commentary

Just 100 days into the Trump Administration—the Administration that gave rise to the concept of #AlternativeFacts—there is reason to worry that facts don’t matter to the Justice Department now led by Trump’s Attorney General, Jeff Sessions.

Brianne J. Gorod

Constitutional Accountability Center

AG Sessions Just Might Give Up On Consent Decrees

4/26/17 // Commentary

Will Attorney General Sessions really get the federal government out of the police oversight business? Signs are increasingly pointing to yes.

Jason Harrow

Gerstein Harrow LLP

Calculating Costs and Defining Our Future

4/25/17 // Commentary

The March for Science reminded us that cutting funding to science today harms generations to come. Yet there is also another, subtler way the Trump Administration threatens to impose future costs on young people: the way in which it calculates costs themselves in cost-benefit analyses essential to our administrative state.

Eli Savit

University of Michigan Law School

CREW’s New and Improved Legal Complaint Against Trump

4/24/17 // Commentary

Matthew Stephenson (Harvard Law School) analyzes CREW's emoluments clause lawsuit against President Trump, discussing the recent addition of two plaintiffs and the likely course ahead.

Take Care

Trump Is Weakening His Only Defense of the Sanctuary Cities Order . . . by Enforcing It

4/24/17 // Commentary

DOJ argues that Trump's orders threatening sanctuary cities can't be challenged because they remain speculative. But a recent volley of menacing letters from DOJ to sanctuary cities and counties, and to the State of California, has blasted a hole in DOJ's own defense.

Nikolas Bowie

Harvard Law School

Echoes of History in Objections to Federal Enforcement of Voting Rights

4/21/17 // Commentary

A letter about how to fix DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has some interesting parallels to a recent voting rights dissent.

Leah Litman

Michigan Law School

A Different View of Why the Muslim Ban Violates the Establishment Clause

4/20/17 // Commentary

A diverse group of leading constitutional law scholars—representing many different views about the Establishment Clause—has filed an amicus brief challenging the Muslim Ban. Here's what you need to know.

Joshua Matz

Corey Brettschneider

Brown University

Micah Schwartzman

University of Virginia School of Law

Nelson Tebbe

Brooklyn Law School

Versus Trump, Episode 1

4/20/17 // Commentary

"A New Sheriff In Town" + Zephyr Teachout