Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist George F. Will returned to the National Constitution Center earlier this summer to discuss his new book, 'The Conservative Sensibility', a reflection on American conservatism. He sat down with National Constitution Center President Jeffrey Rosen for a wide-ranging conversation, sharing his thoughts on everything from natural rights and the Declaration of Independence through the Woodrow Wilson presidency and up to the Roberts Court. This episode originally aired...
Aug 15, 2019•1 hr 3 min
In early August 1787, the Constitutional Convention’s Committee of Detail had just presented its preliminary draft of the Constitution to the rest of the delegates, and the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists were beginning to parse some of the biggest foundational debates over what American government should look like. On this episode, we explore the questions: How did the unique constitutional visions of the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists influence the drafting and ratification of the C...
Aug 08, 2019•56 min
President Trump can no longer block people on Twitter, following a ruling by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The court held that because President Trump controls access to his @realdonaldtrump Twitter account and uses it for official government purposes, it is a public forum and, under the First Amendment, he cannot block people solely based on their viewpoints. Katie Fallow – one of the lead attorneys who represented the blocked Twitter users in the case – and David French, senior writer a...
Aug 01, 2019•48 min
July 19 was the anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention, the nation’s first women’s rights convention held in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. This episode explores what happened at the historic convention, and how its legacy shaped the Constitution through the fight for women’s suffrage and the 19th Amendment and, later, landmark gender equality and reproductive rights cases, including Roe v. Wade . Gender law and women's rights scholars Erika Bachiochi of the Ethics & Public Policy Cente...
Jul 25, 2019•1 hr 3 min
Justice John Paul Stevens—one of the nation’s oldest, longest-serving, and most-revered justices—passed away at the age of 99 on Tuesday. On this episode, we remember the man, the justice, and some of his most influential majority opinions and dissents. Two of Justice Stevens' former law clerks, Daniel Farber of Berkeley Law and Kate Shaw of Cardozo Law, share some favorite memories from their clerkships and commemorate Justice Stevens’ life and legacy in conversation with host Jeffrey Rosen. Qu...
Jul 18, 2019•47 min
July 11 is the anniversary of the 1804 duel in which Alexander Hamilton was fatally shot by Vice President Aaron Burr. On today’s episode, we pick up where the musical ' Hamilton' left off, and explore what happened to Vice President Burr in the aftermath of the duel. Why wasn’t Burr prosecuted until after he left office in 1807? What happened during his treason trial? And what relevance does his treason trial have for executive privilege and indictments of executive officers today? Two leading ...
Jul 11, 2019•54 min
As guest Ilya Shapiro put it, “If it’s June/July, we’re talkin’ SCOTUS.” We review the 2018-19 Supreme Court term and explore the nature and future of the new Roberts Court and the Chief’s newfound role as the swing justice. Topics include the partisan gerrymandering case, the differences that emerged between Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, and the future of the administrative state at the Court. Ilya Shapiro of the Cato Institute and Leah Litman of the University of Michigan Law School join hos...
Jul 04, 2019•56 min
How do judges manage the personal challenges that their role often requires them to face, including unconscious bias, chronic stress, exposure to emotionally-charged circumstances, and public pressure and scrutiny? Current and former judges join in candid conversations about how they have managed these challenges and how they have approached their work. The first panel features moderator Michael Lewis, best-selling author of ‘Moneyball’ and ‘The Big Short’ and host of the podcast ‘Against the Ru...
Jun 27, 2019•1 hr 17 min
In honor of the anniversary of the ratification of the Constitution, June 21, and the upcoming Independence Day holiday on July 4 – today’s episode celebrates the influence of the Declaration of Independence on the Constitution and constitutional movements throughout history. We explore how the Declaration influenced the drafting of the Constitution itself; the abolitionist movement and Abraham Lincoln’s conception of a new birth of freedom after the Civil War; the Seneca Falls Convention and th...
Jun 20, 2019•55 min
Investigations into several leading big tech companies – including Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon – began on Tuesday as the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the role of such companies in the decline of the news industry. Prior to the hearings, host Jeffrey Rosen sat down with anti-trust law experts Mark Jamison of the American Enterprise Institute and Barry Lynn of the Open Markets Institute to ask: if these investigations lead to increased government regulation—what might the co...
Jun 13, 2019•1 hr 6 min
What’s at stake, for the Constitution and the Supreme Court, in the 2020 election? If President Trump is re-elected and has the chance to appoint more Supreme Court justices, will the Court—and the country—fundamentally transform in a way not seen in generations? Professors and constitutional theorists Bruce Ackerman of Yale Law School and Randy Barnett of Georgetown University Law Center explore these questions and more in a wide-ranging discussion with host Jeffrey Rosen. Questions or comments...
Jun 06, 2019•49 min
In part two of our discussion on abortion and the Constitution – David French of National Review and reproductive rights historian Mary Ziegler of Florida State College of Law join host Jeffrey Rosen. French and Ziegler break down the recent Supreme Court decision in Box v. Planned Parenthood , and the related legal debates surrounding “fetal dignity” and fetal rights. Exploring Justice Thomas’ concurrence in Box – French explains why he thinks Thomas is once again “throwing down the gauntlet” o...
May 30, 2019•59 min
The increasing number of new laws restricting abortion recently passed in numerous states around the country has some wondering: is Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to abortion at risk? On this episode, we dive into landmark abortion precedent from Griswold v. Connecticut and Roe v. Wade through Planned Parenthood v. Casey and Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, tracing the evolution of abortion jurisprudence under the Constitution. We also discuss the variety of new laws aimed at restr...
May 23, 2019•49 min
In light of the ongoing subpoena fights between Congress and the president and the House Judiciary Committee’s vote to hold Attorney General Barr in contempt for refusing to release the full Mueller report—this episode addresses the questions: Are we in a constitutional crisis? Or are these normal disputes occurring within our constitutional system? Have we been here before? Adam Liptak of The New York Times and Keith Whittington of Princeton University join host Jeffrey Rosen to answer these qu...
May 16, 2019•1 hr 1 min
On May 7, host Jeffrey Rosen sat down with Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. to celebrate the opening of the National Constitution Center’s new permanent exhibit – ‘Civil War and Reconstruction: The Battle for Freedom and Equality.’ The exhibit is America’s first devoted to exploring how constitutional clashes over slavery set the stage for the Civil War, and how the nation transformed the Constitution after the war with the addition of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. Professor Gates discuss...
May 09, 2019•45 min
Would adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census—which a lawsuit argues could dissuade people from responding to it—violate the Constitution’s enumeration clause, which requires that an “actual enumeration,” or a counting, of all Americans be performed every ten years? Does it matter how and why the question is added? Tom Wolf, Counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice, and John Eastman, Professor at Chapman University School of Law, join host Jeffrey Rosen to debate these questions. They ...
May 02, 2019•53 min
This episode sheds constitutional light on the Mueller report, focusing on the question of obstruction. We explore what Special Counsel Robert Mueller did and did not conclude about obstruction, explain the “corrupt intent” requirement for an obstruction charge, and grapple with the constitutional question as to whether the president can commit obstruction. Our guests also address the question: in the aftermath of the Mueller report, what should Congress do, and what are the lessons for future A...
Apr 25, 2019•55 min
The indictment of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for conspiracy to hack into a classified government computer has reignited the debate over the question: what is the line between First Amendment-protected journalism and cyber-crime? On this episode, two leading experts on the intersection of the First Amendment and national security–Josh Geltzer of Georgetown University Law Center and Ben Wizner of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project—join host Jeffrey R...
Apr 18, 2019•51 min
How did a Vietnam War veteran’s request for disability benefits turn into one of the key Supreme Court cases of this term, one with major implications for the future of the administrative state? In this episode, administrative law experts Jonathan Adler of Case Western Law School and Ron Levin of Washington University in St. Louis School of Law explain the issues in this case, Kisor v. Wilkie . They join host Jeffrey Rosen to unpack Kisor and the administrative law deference doctrine, known as “...
Apr 11, 2019•55 min
Last week, the Department of Justice surprised many by reversing its position on the Affordable Care Act—stating that it agrees with U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor that the ACA is unconstitutional, and won’t defend the law. Judge O’Connor’s December 2018 decision in Texas v. United States held that because the tax penalty that enforced the individual mandate had been reduced to $0 in Congress’s 2017 tax reforms, the rest of the ACA could not stand. The House of Representatives, along with sev...
Apr 04, 2019•50 min
The Supreme Court heard two partisan gerrymandering cases—one from North Carolina and another from Maryland—this week: Lamone v. Benisek and Rucho v. Common Cause . Examining those cases and how the Court might rule, host Jeffrey Rosen sits down with Nick Stephanopoulos, one of the attorneys in the North Carolina case and a law professor at the University of Chicago, and Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative at the Heritage Foundation. These scholars debate whether or...
Mar 28, 2019•52 min
Now that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has submitted the findings from his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, many are wondering, what will happen next? John Yoo of Berkeley Law School and Steve Vladeck of University of Texas Law School detail the possible scenarios and examine how the president and Congress might respond—focusing on potential executive privilege claims by President Trump. They also consider how President Trump might claim executive privilege in other...
Mar 21, 2019•52 min
Is it constitutional to execute an inmate who doesn’t remember the crime he committed? Or a person who might suffer excruciating pain during execution? These questions were raised by cases that came before the Supreme Court this term; joining host Jeffrey Rosen to debate them are John Bessler of the University of Baltimore School of Law and Richard Broughton of the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law. These two scholars consider the death penalty’s past and present, find points of agreemen...
Mar 14, 2019•51 min
On March 2, President Trump announced his plans to sign an executive order “requiring colleges and universities to support free speech if they want federal research dollars.” Considering whether or not such an order would be constitutional, how it might be enforced, and how it could affect colleges and universities—two experts on campus free speech, Sigal Ben-Porath of the University of Pennsylvania and Adam Kissel, former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Higher Education at the U.S. Department of...
Mar 07, 2019•1 hr 6 min
Two leading voices from organizations on different sides of today's biggest debates over reproductive rights and abortion laws—Catherine Glenn Foster of Americans United for Life and Dr. Kelli Garcia of National Women's Law Center—join host Jeffrey Rosen to explore the key cases making their way up to the Supreme Court. Garcia and Foster also share their views on landmark abortion precedent like Roe v. Wade, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and the more recent case Whole Woman's Health v. Hellersted...
Feb 28, 2019•1 hr
On this Presidents’ Day edition of We the People, political historian Julian Zelizer of Princeton and constitutional law professor Eric Posner of the University of Chicago Law School join host Jeffrey Rosen to debate the question: Is the presidency too powerful? Starting with the Founding Fathers’ vision for the presidency, they trace the evolution of presidential power through the Progressive Era presidencies of Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson, the move to restrain pres...
Feb 21, 2019•59 min
For We the People listeners enjoying wine this Valentine’s Day – we’re exploring the still-pending Supreme Court case Tennessee Wine and Spirits Retailers Association v. Blair. This lawsuit was brought by Total Wine & More, a retail liquor giant, and the Ketchums, a family who moved to Tennessee hoping to open a liquor store. Both parties were denied retail liquor licenses because they hadn’t resided in Tennessee long enough. This episode examines a variety of technical but fascinating legal...
Feb 14, 2019•59 min
The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) technically expired on June 30, 1982, the ratification deadline set by Congress, but a renewed push to resurrect and ratify this constitutional amendment gained momentum in 2017, with ratification by Illinois and Nevada. Now, ERA proponents are looking to secure ratification in a 38th state, which would round out the necessary three-fourths majority of the states required to pass an amendment. Two leading voices on either side of the debate over the ERA – Linda C...
Feb 07, 2019•1 hr 14 min
A dispute over the firing of a high school football coach who refused to stop praying on the field after games reached the Supreme Court this term; last week, the justices said they would not hear the case until its facts were better established by lower courts. Justice Alito concurred but, joined by three other conservative justices, indicated that he might be sympathetic to Kennedy’s claim that his actions were protected by the First Amendment, should his case eventually return to the Court. J...
Jan 31, 2019•1 hr 1 min
In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, this episode celebrates King’s life and work, his hopeful vision for America, and his fight to pass landmark civil rights laws and realize the promises of the Constitution. Civil rights and constitutional law experts Michael Klarman of Harvard Law and Theodore M. Shaw of UNC Law join guest host Lana Ulrich to explore King’s constitutional legacy. Questions or comments about the show? Email us at podcast@constitutioncenter.org.
Jan 24, 2019•55 min
