Do we need a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. FEC? Should opponents of the ruling pressure the Supreme Court to reverse course, and also seek changes in the composition of the Court through the appointment process? The answer is yes.
Justice Antonin Scalia created a firestorm last winter when he opined that the 14th Amendment does not protect women against discrimination on the basis of sex. The truth is that this view has been, until recently at least, a bedrock conviction of conservative originalists. In that sense then, the bigger news came at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in October when, confronted on his remarks by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Scalia backpedaled and suggested that the Equal Protection Clause did indeed protect women from state-sponsored discrimination on the basis of sex.
Last week, investigators at the Center for American Progress released a bombshell, making public confidential materials penned by energy tycoon Charles Koch for a conference of well-heeled conservative activists this past June. These materials also included an invitation to far-right money men and women to another gathering scheduled for next January, to plan the takeover of the White House in 2012.
Washington today has serious problems, but we should not blame the city’s namesake for them. Rather, politicians of both parties should support a reform agenda designed to remove from our political system the modern procedural obstacles that have produced our current gridlock.
There is no greater threat to progressive values than this effort to make progress itself unconstitutional. This week, Constitutional Accountability Center and our partner organizations, including the Center for American Progress and People For the American Way Foundation, launched a coordinated effort -- Constitutional Progressives -- to take our Constitution back and rebut the constitutional fairy tales being peddled by tea party leaders.
While Washington has been consumed by the debt ceiling crisis, another serious crisis demands the attention of President Barack Obama and the Senate: the threat to justice by our overworked federal judiciary.
There aren’t enough judges to hear the cases piling up in federal courtrooms across the country — which for countless Americans means justice significantly delayed and denied.
For a group that claims to revere the Constitution, the Tea Party appears pretty determined to deal it a death by a thousand cuts. Its latest attack involves a nasty little piece of constitutional revisionism, complete with a "How can you be against that?" title: the "Balanced Budget Amendment." Putting aside the political questions about whether such a law is wise or practical, it also crashes headlong into the very constitutional principles the Tea Party purports to cherish.
University of Chicago Law Professor Geoffrey Stone and I have both come to Huffington Post many times in recent years to talk about the U.S. Constitution, how to respond to attacks by tea partiers and other conservatives on our Nation's founding charter, and how the Constitution is a progressive document.
When I was growing up, my mom warned me each fall about Halloween candy with a hidden razor blade. As a parent, the thing I'll be most scared about this fall is the prospect of Tea Partiers coming to my child's school dressed up like James Madison to "teach" the U.S. Constitution.
The federal judicial vacancy crisis in America has reached Arkansas, and Sen. John Boozman can do something about it.
Do we need a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. FEC? Should opponents of the ruling pressure the Supreme Court to reverse course, and also seek changes in the composition of the Court through the appointment process? The answer is yes.
Justice Antonin Scalia created a firestorm last winter when he opined that the 14th Amendment does not protect women against discrimination on the basis of sex. The truth is that this view has been, until recently at least, a bedrock conviction of conservative originalists. In that sense then, the bigger news came at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in October when, confronted on his remarks by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Scalia backpedaled and suggested that the Equal Protection Clause did indeed protect women from state-sponsored discrimination on the basis of sex.
Last week, investigators at the Center for American Progress released a bombshell, making public confidential materials penned by energy tycoon Charles Koch for a conference of well-heeled conservative activists this past June. These materials also included an invitation to far-right money men and women to another gathering scheduled for next January, to plan the takeover of the White House in 2012.
Washington today has serious problems, but we should not blame the city’s namesake for them. Rather, politicians of both parties should support a reform agenda designed to remove from our political system the modern procedural obstacles that have produced our current gridlock.
There is no greater threat to progressive values than this effort to make progress itself unconstitutional. This week, Constitutional Accountability Center and our partner organizations, including the Center for American Progress and People For the American Way Foundation, launched a coordinated effort -- Constitutional Progressives -- to take our Constitution back and rebut the constitutional fairy tales being peddled by tea party leaders.
While Washington has been consumed by the debt ceiling crisis, another serious crisis demands the attention of President Barack Obama and the Senate: the threat to justice by our overworked federal judiciary.
There aren’t enough judges to hear the cases piling up in federal courtrooms across the country — which for countless Americans means justice significantly delayed and denied.
For a group that claims to revere the Constitution, the Tea Party appears pretty determined to deal it a death by a thousand cuts. Its latest attack involves a nasty little piece of constitutional revisionism, complete with a "How can you be against that?" title: the "Balanced Budget Amendment." Putting aside the political questions about whether such a law is wise or practical, it also crashes headlong into the very constitutional principles the Tea Party purports to cherish.
University of Chicago Law Professor Geoffrey Stone and I have both come to Huffington Post many times in recent years to talk about the U.S. Constitution, how to respond to attacks by tea partiers and other conservatives on our Nation's founding charter, and how the Constitution is a progressive document.
When I was growing up, my mom warned me each fall about Halloween candy with a hidden razor blade. As a parent, the thing I'll be most scared about this fall is the prospect of Tea Partiers coming to my child's school dressed up like James Madison to "teach" the U.S. Constitution.
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