We Are All Originalists Now

12/22/21 • 48 min

In the landmark ruling District of Columbia v. Heller, Justices Antonin Scalia and John Paul Stevens wrote dueling originalist opinions examining the right to keep and bear arms. They both looked to the Second Amendment’s text, history, and tradition to reach ... opposite conclusions about its original meaning.

Thanks to our guests Paul Clement, David Lat, Clark Neily, and Adam Winkler.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thanks to our guests Paul Clement, David Lat, Clark Neily, and Adam Winkler.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previous Episode

Justice Roberts is Hot ‘n Cold

The idea of “court-packing,”⸺that is, adding seats to the court for political purposes⸺has recently gained steam for the first time in nearly 100 years. The last time we heard about court-packing, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s plan to add more justices was supposedly staved off by the infamous “switch in time that saved nine.” As the story goes, Justice Roberts (no, not THAT Roberts) strategically cast his vote in West Coast Hotel v. Parrish in way that subdued popular support for FDR’s proposal. But a closer look into that case reveals that not everything is as it seems, as well as the perils that come with trying to pack the Court.

Thanks to our guests Mark Tushnet, Barry Cushman, and Ilya Shapiro, and to singer Jenni Kim-Etimos for her jazzy rendition of our court-packing ballad.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Next Episode

Big Tech, Antitrust, and the Supreme Court

Antitrust is making headlines, with figures as diverse as Josh Hawley and Elizabeth Warren seeking to use it as a shiny new tool to rein in big tech. But some of the policies they’re pushing were tried before in the 1960s, and they ended up penalizing perfectly competitive conduct just out of animosity for “big business.” A Supreme Court dissent that paved the way for a consumer-first antitrust standard offers lessons about why we shouldn’t be so eager to return to 1960s anti-trust policy and gives us some insight into why big isn’t always bad.

Thanks to our guests Joshua Wright, Ashley Baker, Yaron Brook, and Hannah Cox.

Special thanks to Judge Douglas Ginsburg for his dramatic reading.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.