Supreme Court

In ramping up immigration enforcement, the Trump administration has expanded the use of detention. As with many of his policy initiatives, President Donald Trump has added his own rhetorical and policy flourish to aggressive enforcement efforts.

1. President Donald J. Trump

The presently constituted U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t seem to care for climate change litigation or regulation.

For years, the U.S. government has detained immigrants as a way of enforcing the U.S. immigration laws and to deter future flows of migrants to the United States. Over the last 20 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has regularly grappled with legal challenges to immigrant detention. Just last term, for example, the court in Jennings v.

Episode 28 of the podcast "What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law" explores the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation process, and constitutional rules pertaining to justices, including how and when one might be impeached.

President Trump is nominating federal judges, and Supreme Court Justices such as Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who claim to be committed to “originalism.” This approach to constitutional law requires that the Constitution be interpreted to mean today what the text was intended or understood to mean at the time it was written.

Ep. 26 of "What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law" looks as Roe v. Wade as it relates to President Trump, his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, and the Constitution. This episode also examines the unusual trajectory of Roe plaintiff Norma McCorvey's life in the decades following the 1973 Supreme Court decision.

Some first impressions, including pondering how this decision intersects with NCAA v. Murphy

In the end, not a single justice would stand up for the rule of Quill, which rule was that a state can only impose a use tax collection obligation on a vendor if it has a physical presence in the state. All the justices agreed that it was the wrong rule, even apparently, when first imposed in 1967. So then why was this a 5–4 decision?

In Wayfair, the Supreme Court overturned the bright-line physical presence rule imposed by Quill. A state can now require an out-of-state vendor to collect the use tax even if that vendor does not have a physical presence within the state. The underlying standard governing when states can impose a use tax collection obligation remains the same: there must be a “substantial nexus.” But what constitutes a substantial nexus? The Court does not give any general guidance, but does make it clear that this standard was satisfied in this case.

Anthony M. Kennedy's announcement in late June that he was retiring from the U.S. Supreme Court merited a special edition of the podcast "What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law." Episode 25, "Justice Kennedy," is devoted to Kennedy, the mostly conservative justice who delivered swing votes in key decisions on abortion, LGBTQ rights and affirmative action.