Merrick Garland Archives - Public Seminar

Politics

Punish the Voting Rights Villains

The second section of the 14th amendment was written to exact penalties for voting rights violations—why don’t we use it?

May 26, 2021 • by Marc Stein

_____ In April, pundits feasted on the U.S. Census Bureau’s announcement of state population figures for 2020 and the resulting reapportionment of seats in the House of Representatives prior to the 2022 elections. The winners? Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Colorado, Oregon, and Montana. The losers? California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, ...

Columnists

This Is What Government Looks Like

As the winter’s Covid-19 surge pushes deaths past 500,000, the Biden administration focuses on policy

February 25, 2021 • by Heather Cox Richardson

This week the United States passed the heartbreaking marker of 500,000 official deaths from COVID-19. President Biden held a ceremony to remember those lost, saying "On this solemn occasion, we reflect on their loss and on their loved ones left behind. We, as a Nation, must remember them so we ...

Politics

Covering SCOTUS in the Age of Trump

A conversation with Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick

August 27, 2020 • by Dahlia Lithwick and Claire Potter

Yet in the final days of the last session, Chief Justice John Roberts, appointed by George W. Bush, voted with the liberal minority in two key cases. Philosophically committed to consensus-building, this is something Roberts has done at key moments since 2016, raising questions about whether he had taken Kennedy’s ...

Feature

The Invisible Constitutional Crisis

Options for the US Supreme Court’s Pending Vacancy

October 28, 2016 • by Matthew Filner

The United States is in the midst of a constitutional crisis. Yes, that’s right: one of the most important crises of our constitutional republic and it is going virtually unnoticed as a crisis. No, I am not talking about the Trump candidacy -- though reprehensible in multiple ways, it is ...