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SCOTUS

  • I used to teach a course on the US Supreme Court, starting around 1990 and until I retired almost three decades later. I’ve lost my patience with it.
  • Justice Sandra Day O’Connor just died. It seems poor form to criticize the departed. But she might as well have participated in Dred Scott v. Sanford, the worst decision the Supreme Court ever handed down and one of the triggers for the Civil War, because her vote was crucial to another decision just as bad. O’Connor, Rehnquist, Thomas, Scalia, and Kennedy all voted to substitute their presidential preferences for the election results in 2000. It has been standard and proper for courts to conduct recounts when elections are challenged and enough votes are at issue to change the result. The Florida Court was doing that. And they were doing it the right way – recounting the whole Florida vote by a single set of rules. But this group of so-called justices decided it was OK to take the election into their own hands lest Mr. Bush be embarrassed by the results – Scalia was quite explicit about it but there was no other real explanation.
  • The jury chose to send the Pittsburgh Synagogue shooter to his death. But let’s talk about the use of the Second Amendment in ways that made his and the many mass killings possible.
  • Inspired by history, Attorney and Author Elizabeth Silver’s new novel, "The Majority," is a novel of love and friendship, motherhood and ambition, and one woman’s fight to be a Supreme Court justice.
  • Affirmative action is over for colleges — but not in all cases.In today’s Congressional Corner, Democrat Pat Ryan of New York’s 18th district wraps up his conversation with WAMC’s Ian Pickus. This interview was recorded July 6.
  • In the new book, "The Supermajority," Michael Waldman - president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law - explores the tumultuous 2021¬–2022 Supreme Court term. He draws deeply on history to examine other times the Court veered from the popular will, provoking controversy and backlash. What can we do when the Supreme Court challenges the country?
  • Tomorrow is June 24 and it's the one-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization, which ended the U.S. constitutional right to abortion. To learn how this has impacted our region, we welcome Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood's President and CEO, Chelly Hegan.
  • WAM Theatre and Berkshire Theatre Group are presenting the regional premier of Heidi Schreck’s “What the Constitution Means to Me” at the Berkshire Theatre Group’s Unicorn Theatre, in Stockbridge, Massachusetts May 18 through June 3. Directed by WAM Co-Founding Artistic Director Kristen van Ginhoven, “What the Constitution Means to Me” stars two-time Tony Award Nominee Kate Baldwin.
  • CNN Senior Supreme Court Analyst Joan Biskupic provides an urgent and inside look at the history-making era in the Supreme Court during the Trump and post-Trump years, from its seismic shift to the Right to its controversial decisions, including its reversal of Roe v. Wade, based on access to all the key players. Her new book, Nine Black Robes, displays the inner maneuverings among the Supreme Court justices that led to the seismic reversal of Roe v. Wade and a half century of women’s abortion rights.
  • There’s a common story we tell about America: that our fundamental values as a country were stated in the Declaration of Independence, fought for in the Revolution, and made law in the Constitution. But, with the country increasingly divided, this story isn’t working for us anymore—what’s more, it’s not even true.As Kermit Roosevelt argues in reinterpretation of the American story, our fundamental values, particularly equality, are not part of the vision of the Founders. Instead, they were stated in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and were the hope of Reconstruction, when it was possible to envision the emergence of the nation committed to liberty and equality.