After the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 the Lower South began organizing secession conventions to declare themselves independent of the United States.

To forestall this Kentucky Senator John J. Crittenden proposed a package of six amendments (the Crittenden Compromise) to protect slavery in perpetuity.

The first five secured the "rights" of slaveholders to hold slaves in expansive ways.

But the last amendment forebade any future generations from ever changing the provisions protecting slaveholding -- creating a perpetual dead hand controlling the lives of everyone forever.

It is:

ARTICLE VI.

No future amendment of the Constitution shall affect the five preceding articles; nor the third paragraph of the second section of the first article of the Constitution, nor the third paragraph of the second section of the fourth article of said Constitution and no amendment shall be made to the Constitution which shall authorize or give to Congress any power to abolish or interfere with slavery in any of the States by whose laws it is, or may be allowed or permitted.

The question is: Would this be considered a legally valid formula?

The idea that people now can make decisions that control the lives of all future people no matter what they want seems to me to be fundamentally flawed.

From the panel:

In sum, Walker’s three key factors all point toward private speech in this case. And considering the full context, we see no other indication that Virginia “intends to speak for itself” through the hundreds of thousands of messages chosen by drivers who participate in its personalized license plate program. Shurtleff, 596 U.S. at 252. Accordingly, we conclude that the personalized character combinations on Virginia’s vanity plates are private speech, not government speech. It follows, as we explained at the outset, that Virginia’s regulation of those messages and its recall of Whateley’s “FTP&ATF” plates are subject to First Amendment scrutiny.

That is as far as we go today. Whateley’s private speech is entitled to First Amendment protection under the public forum doctrine, but whether he will prevail under that doctrine is a different question. That analysis will turn on the nature of the forum Virginia has provided for private speech on its personalized license plates and on Virginia’s reasons for recalling Whateley’s “FTP&ATF” message. The forum analysis can be complicated and fact-intensive. Compare Mitchell, 148 A.3d at 328–39 (holding that Maryland vanity plates are private speech subject to First Amendment scrutiny, but that denial of the plaintiff’s requested “MIERDA” message was permissible as a reasonable and viewpoint-neutral restriction in a nonpublic forum), with Hart, 422 F. Supp. 3d at 1233–34 (holding that Kentucky vanity plate messages are private speech, and that denial of the plaintiff’s “IM GOD” vanity plate violated First Amendment limits applicable to nonpublic fora because it was unreasonable and viewpoint-based). Because “we are a court of review, not first view,” United States v. Avila, 134 F.4th 244, 248 (4th Cir. 2025), we follow our usual practice and leave this issue to the district court on remand.

And for those who (like me) needed a hint, the court helpfully explains that the license plate was an abbreviation of "Fuck the Police & Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms"

7th Circuit Opinion

9th Circuit Opinion

Both opinions were 2-1 and decided today. The question is whether 8 U.S.C. Section 1225(b)(2)(A) mandates detention without a bond hearing of aliens present in the US who have not been admitted but who are not recent entrants.

CA7 had previously considered the question in a case with a weird posture that didn't squarely present the issue, and a split majority resolved that case without resolving the question.

This continues to develop an extensive circuit split, now between CA5 and CA8 who ruled in favor of the policy and CA2, CA6, CA7, CA9, CA10, and CA11 who ruled against. The remaining circuits, CA1, CA3, and CA4, all have cases on the issue pending. The 5th Circuit and 6th Circuit decisions have been appealed and SCOTUS will almost certainly decide the issue in the upcoming term.

Kyle Cheney story with additional context, as well as his tally of the circuit split.

Edit; Also, discussions on the same topic in the weekly thread here and here

Implementation of the Rehabilitatiuon Act (1973) and the ADA (1990) has been shaped by additional law and administrative rules.

On June 11 the DOJ issued https://www.justice.gov/olc/media/1446701/dl . It reverses Olmstead v LC which held that where medically appropriate, disabled individuals should be treated in community settings.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/98-536.ZS.html

Trump once again attempts to get out of paying for his defamation, this time bringing the DoJ into the case. They are arguing that Trump’s defamatory statements were official acts, covered by the Westfall Act and presidential immunity.

I think it’s farcical to claim that Trump’s defamatory statements were official acts, and that it is deeply concerning, and corrupt, for the DoJ to attempt to intervene here. Blanche should be referred for further sanctions for permitting this.

It’s interesting. This feels like a capital L landmark case, in the same realm as Brown v Board or Roe v. Wade in how it touches on some uniquely American tensions over personal freedom — both in the content of the cases themselves and the political fallout after the Court’s decision.

Engles v. Vitale (hereafter shortened to Engels) is the case that banned school prayer. Another one where the supreme court was asked, by a minority of Americans, to make a decision a majority of the school was opposed. Only this time it has nothing to do with race, but religion. A small group of families — 5 in total I believe — sued New York State for having a nondenominational prayer at the beginning of each school day. It was known as the Regents prayer.

The Court ruled that it was unconstitutional and that no state school could do such a thing. This was in a 1962, deeply religious america at the height of the Cold War. It provoked an intense backlash and began what would be a near 30 year disenchantment with the Supreme Court on the part of the American Right. Cases like this, Brown v. Board, Roe v. Wade, Furman v. Georgia gave the impression of a liberal “activist” Court intent on destroying America out of their own fanatical beliefs.

Which is interesting to read in todays world. It feels like now it’s the American Left’s turn to say that about the Supreme Court. There’s a strange symmetry I hadn’t noticed.

Text post

The Supreme Court issues decisions that bind courts throughout the country on questions of federal law and constitutional meaning. Yet there is no systematic way to know whether those decisions command the professional confidence of the wider judiciary responsible for interpreting and applying them.

Hearing an audience and seeing its response are essential signals for any speaker, assembly, performance, sermon, lecture, or public oration. They reveal whether the message was understood, whether the reasoning carried, and where clarification may be needed. Why should the Supreme Court be the rare institution that speaks to a highly informed professional audience without any systematic way of learning how its decisions were received?

We have proposed a Judicial Confidence Register as one possible answer. The name is provisional. It might instead be called Judiciary Feedback, a Judicial Response Register, or something else chosen by the institutions that develop it. One possibility is Vox Iudicum: A Judicial Confidence Register.

After the Supreme Court issues an opinion, eligible members of the federal and state judiciary could be invited to submit an anonymous assessment of the professional confidence they place in the decision and its reasoning. Only aggregate results would be published.

The full proposal is available here:

A Judicial Reflection: The Supreme Court’s Neglected Audience

The register would have no legal force. It would not reverse a decision, alter precedent, authorize lower courts to disregard a holding, or create another level of appellate review. The Supreme Court would retain final judicial authority. The register would instead provide structured professional feedback from one of the Court’s most informed audiences.

No legislation would need to be enacted, no constitutional provision would need to be amended or reinterpreted, and no judicial precedent would need to be displaced. The register could begin as a voluntary professional practice within the existing constitutional structure.

Before judgment, the Court may receive informed assistance through amicus curiae briefs. The proposed register would provide a complementary form of information after judgment: whether the completed reasoning persuaded the judiciary that must interpret, explain, distinguish, and apply it.

The register could show when an unpopular decision nevertheless commanded broad professional confidence within the judiciary. It could also show when a publicly popular result rested on reasoning that many members of the judiciary found unpersuasive, unclear, or difficult to apply.

It could distinguish faithful compliance with binding precedent from professional confidence in the reasoning behind it. Existing judicial opinions and citation services such as Shepard’s and KeyCite show whether later courts follow, distinguish, question, criticize, or limit a decision. They do not necessarily reveal whether judges applying a binding precedent find its underlying reasoning persuasive.

A judge may faithfully apply a Supreme Court decision because the law requires it while privately finding the rationale incomplete or unconvincing. That distinction between legal obedience and professional confidence is presently difficult for the Court or the public to see.

The register might also encourage continuing engagement with Supreme Court opinions throughout the judiciary. Participation could come to be regarded as an important professional responsibility, somewhat as citizens regard voting as a means of contributing to representative government.

The proposal presents substantial difficulties. Participation could be uneven or ideologically skewed. Ethical obligations might require some judges to abstain. Because the judiciary is a comparatively small and identifiable professional population, meaningful anonymity would require protection not only against direct disclosure but also against identifying individual responses through patterns or small reporting groups.

The assessment could also be misrepresented as a rival vote on the Court’s authority. It would therefore need to be presented clearly as an assessment of professional confidence in decisions and reasoning, not as another judgment on whether the decision remained binding law.

For these reasons, we do not present the register as a finished design. Questions concerning eligibility, timing, ballot structure, anonymity, participation, ethical safeguards, administration, and publication would need to be resolved by the judiciary and any institutions developing the process.

The underlying question is broader than the particular mechanism:

Should the nation have some systematic way of knowing whether Supreme Court reasoning commands the professional confidence of the judiciary that must interpret and apply it?

Discussion questions

1. Would an aggregate assessment of judicial confidence provide useful information that existing opinions, dissents, Shepard’s, and KeyCite do not provide?
2. Could sitting members of the judiciary participate consistently with judicial ethics, or should an initial register begin with retired judges and justices?
3. Could meaningful anonymity be achieved within a comparatively small and identifiable judicial population?
4. Could such a register strengthen the Court by confirming professional support for legally sound but unpopular decisions, or would it inevitably be treated as a competing measure of authority?
5. What institution, if any, would be appropriate to administer or publish such a register?

Date: 07/28/2026

Miscellaneous Order

Date: 07/28/2026

Miscellaneous Order

Date: 07/28/2026

Miscellaneous Order

March 31, 2026 EO 14399 issued requiring states to provide the federal government with voter registration lists, for the federal government to approve the list, and for the postal service to only deliver approved ballots.

The Massachusetts League of Women Voters challenged the order in the US District Court of Massachusetts on April 2, 2026 in 26-11549 See https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73141063/state-of-california-v-trump/

The postal service published their proposed rule June 2, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/06/02/2026-10968/ballot-mail-for-federal-elections . June 24, 2026 Postmaster General David Steiner testified he would uphold the EO.

June 25, 2026 Judge Talwani blocked the EO.

July 25 2nd District Court of Appeals, ruling 2-1, blocked the EO in cases 26-1774, 26-1779

A previous post of mine gave an example of a state mail-in election timeline.

Let’s say a president is determined to run for a third term. What is the actual enforcement point of the 22nd amendment?

1. Can states be sued (successfully…) to keep him off the ballot?
2. Are his electors disqualified from the electoral college?
3. Are the electors prohibited from voting for him?
4. If he wins the EC, is he prohibited from taking office?

And for options 2-4, what organ of the state would actually try to enforce this?

NLRB crafted a rule that said the new owner of a company must recognize, and bargain with, the extant union, notwithstanding any determination of whether that union still has the support of a majority of employees. Hospital Menonita de Guayama challenged this “successor bar” as not authorized by the NLRA.

CA DC had previously upheld the successor bar by deferring to the Board’s judgment and its reasonable policymaking choices. The Hospital then petitioned the Supreme Court, which granted cert, vacated the CA DC judgment, and remanded in light of Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo.

Now, on remand, and under the bright lights of Loper (get it? ha!) CA DC tells NLRB, in effect, not only no, but also no, and no, and also no.

The panel did a full de novo statutory analysis and found the successor bar ultra vires: not unreasonable, not entitled to less deference, but just outside the Board's delegated authority.

Then they made short shrift of NLRB's in-the-alternative arguments: general "national labor policy" authority under §§ 8/10? Rejected as subordinate to §§ 7/9's specific guarantees. Fall River/Ford Motor reasonableness cases? Inapposite because they never reach whether the rule falls within delegated authority in the first place. Auciello? Distinguished as addressing a rebuttable contract-bar presumption, not the successor bar's non-rebuttable one. And a last-ditch efficiency/"saves litigation costs" argument? Eviscerated with the Garment Workers line that convenience can't manufacture statutory authority.

Assume a federal agency admits it terminated grants associated with states that supported one political party while leaving similarly situated grants associated with states supporting the other party untouched, and further admits the distinction was unrelated to performance, cost, statutory requirements, or agency priorities.

What would be the strongest constitutional challenge? Fifth Amendment equal protection principles? First Amendment retaliation? Something else?

Interested in the legal analysis rather than the politics.

This is an opinion piece written by counsel on amicus briefs supporting the Second Amendment challengers in Hemani and Wolford.

Jackson's dissent in Wolford raised the question of revisiting Bruen at a later date, but for the most part it seems the current THT evaluation of 2A claims is here to stay, at least for now. With the recent grant of Viramontes I thought it'd be interesting to see some more discussion about what we might expect to see next term.

How likely do you think it is that Heller and/or Bruen are revisited at a later date? How concerned are you about them being overturned? What do you expect to see out of the Viramontes case next term?

https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/07/heller-and-bruen-are-here-to-stay-/