You know what to do.

219. Drunks, Lampposts, and the Birthright Citizenship Case Efforts to backfill academic support for the birthright citizenship executive order wouldn't have been possible without a Court open to such "scholarship."

#ICYMI: I wrote yesterday about the effort by a handful of academics to create a literature supporting President Trump's birthright citizenship executive order—and how such backfilling has only been encouraged by the way that #SCOTUS has utilized (and cited) legal scholarship in recent years:

219. Drunks, Lampposts, and the Birthright Citizenship Case Efforts to backfill academic support for the birthright citizenship executive order wouldn't have been possible without a Court open to such "scholarship."

#ICYMI: I wrote yesterday about the effort by a handful of academics to create a literature supporting President Trump's birthright citizenship executive order—and how such backfilling has only been encouraged by the way that #SCOTUS has utilized (and cited) legal scholarship in recent years:

219. Drunks, Lampposts, and the Birthright Citizenship Case Efforts to backfill academic support for the birthright citizenship executive order wouldn't have been possible without a Court open to such "scholarship."

“Academic freedom protects scholars’ right to challenge the orthodoxy; it doesn’t insulate them from charges of bad faith in doing so. But the problem here is one of both supply and demand.”

An excellent piece by @stevevladeck.bsky.social.

www.stevevladeck.com/p/219-drunks...

Don‘t skip the footnotes:

That's a remarkably superficial response to a post that goes into detail on the distinction b/w scholarship challenging orthodoxy and scholarship designed to be cited by the government and/or the Court.

But if you have any examples of Warren Court rulings with passages like Gorsuch's, I'm all ears.

219. Drunks, Lampposts, and the Birthright Citizenship Case Efforts to backfill academic support for the birthright citizenship executive order wouldn't have been possible without a Court open to such "scholarship."

"Academic freedom protects scholars’ right to challenge the orthodoxy; it doesn’t insulate them from charges of bad faith in doing so. But the problem here is one of both supply *and* demand. And ... #SCOTUS bears at least some responsibility for the latter."

Me in today's issue of "One First":

I don't want to go down the student-vs.-peer review rabbit hole here. Let me just say that, as someone who has published in both student-run law reviews and peer-reviewed law reviews, I tend to get *more* rigorous feedback from the former.

“The problem has not just been bad history by law professors; it’s been bad history (and demands for bad history) by Supreme Court justices.”

219. Drunks, Lampposts, and the Birthright Citizenship Case Efforts to backfill academic support for the birthright citizenship executive order wouldn't have been possible without a Court open to such "scholarship."

"Academic freedom protects scholars’ right to challenge the orthodoxy; it doesn’t insulate them from charges of bad faith in doing so. But the problem here is one of both supply *and* demand. And ... #SCOTUS bears at least some responsibility for the latter."

Me in today's issue of "One First":

Constitutional lawyer here. I don't think it would violate the Constitution for the VP/Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment, but the intended constitutional remedy for this behavior is impeachment & removal. The fact that that remedy is politically impossible is a scandal and a crisis.

If we are involuntarily teleporting members of the Trump administration, I have suggestions . . .

Exactly this.

I write because the writing *itself* energizes me, and shortcuts like AI would deprive me of that payout.

I discussed some of this in a recent issue of my newsletter:

www.stevevladeck.com/p/bonus-215-...

That's not my point. It's that the *reason* why Bondi has "failed" is because of this pesky, old-timey thing called "law."

One would think that a story about why the nation's chief law enforcement officer has been fired might acknowledge the external constraint that led directly to her "failure."

I don't think Bondi took that duty especially seriously. But in most cases, the AG can't actually accomplish the President's vindictive personal goals without getting courts (which *do* take that duty seriously) to sign off.

It's striking that the role of "law" in constraining the AG is ... absent.

Pam Bondi Wanted a Graceful Exit. But Trump Wanted Her Gone.

It says a lot about where we are that one can read the entire @nytimes.com story on the firing of the Attorney General of the United States without a *single* reference to that officer's duty to uphold the Constitution—which might just sometimes make it just a little hard to do the boss's bidding:

I can't stress enough how excited I am for this book!!

Rachel's work has added so much depth to my understanding of the nineteenth-century Court—in ways that have so many meaningful ramifications for how we talk and think about #SCOTUS today.

I'll pass along a preorder link as soon as it exists.

Bonus 218: Birthright Citizenship and the Cassandra Problem President Trump's attempt to limit birthright citizenship may well be doomed. But that doesn't come *close* to disproving the concerns the Democratic appointees expressed in their dissents last June.

As today's bonus "One First" argues, President Trump's attempt to limit birthright citizenship may well be doomed. But, contra Professor @richardre.bsky.social, that doesn't come *close* to disproving the concerns that the Democratic appointees expressed in their dissents in the CASA case last June:

Opinion | Trump Will Lose the Birthright Citizenship Case. But in a Way, He’s Already Won. The case is open-and-shut on the merits. But its procedural course still leaves plenty of room for Trump administration overreach.

In @nytopinion.nytimes.com

“When the Supreme Court rules against the Trump administration’s attempt to constrict birthright citizenship, we should applaud that result,” Stephen Vladeck says. “We must not lose sight, however, of the opportunities the court won’t have to rein in the administration.”

Opinion | Trump Will Lose the Birthright Citizenship Case. But in a Way, He’s Already Won.

Via @nytopinion.nytimes.com, my quick take on today's #SCOTUS argument in the birthright citizenship case.

TL;DR: The justices labored mightily to make sure Trump will lose *this* case, but in a way that will make it easier for him to avoid at least some similarly resounding defeats going forward:

Opinion | Trump Will Lose the Birthright Citizenship Case. But in a Way, He’s Already Won.

Via @nytopinion.nytimes.com, my quick take on today's #SCOTUS argument in the birthright citizenship case.

TL;DR: The justices labored mightily to make sure Trump will lose *this* case, but in a way that will make it easier for him to avoid at least some similarly resounding defeats going forward:

Not after the arguments.

I mean, we’ll get the ruling at the end of June no matter what.

One First | Steve Vladeck | Substack A weekly newsletter aiming to make the Supreme Court’s rulings, procedures, and history more accessible to all. Click to read One First, a Substack publication with hundreds of thousands of subscriber...

7-2 to block the executive order; maybe 8-1.

This wasn't (and won't be) close.

I'll have more thoughts on why (and what that means) in tomorrow's newsletter:

www.stevevladeck.com

No. The challengers say Congress reenacting the 14A language *after* #SCOTUS interpreted it means that Congress *adopted* the Court's interpretation. That's significantly different.

My understanding is he left during the brief pause in between the end of Sauer's argument and the beginning of Wang's.

No. It's about implicitly accepting jurisdiction in a context in which jurisdiction was meaningfully in question.

Sounds like President Trump left the oral argument at the end of Solicitor General Sauer's presentation.

198. Progressive Judicial Institutionalism There's important daylight between those who are critical of the present degree of judicial power in the United States in general and those who are critical of the current Supreme Court, specifically.

You and Sam both know my views on this:

www.stevevladeck.com/p/198-progre...