Law touches most aspects of life. Here to help make sense of it is the Stanford Legal podcast, where we look at the cases, questions, conflicts, and legal stories that affect us all every day. Pam Karlan studies and teaches a range of constitutional law-related courses with a special focus on what is known as the “law of democracy,”—the law that regulates voting, elections, and the political process. She served as a commissioner on the California Fair Political Practices Commission, an assistant…
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The Declaration as a “promissory note”—and what it demands now In the final discussion of The Declaration at 250 series, Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, argues that the Declaration of Independence should be read in the Lincoln–King tradition: not as proof that the American…
Former state solicitors general Michael Mongan and Kevin Gallagher discuss the evolving role of state solicitors general and how states work together to shape legal battles before the Supreme Court. --- When states go to court, the battles are not always divided along party lines. State solicitors general often work across state lines to defend shared interests, coordinate legal strategy, and help…
The real crisis isn’t the Declaration—it’s what we’ve stopped teaching. Peter Berkowitz, Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, contends that universities have failed at liberal education—the cultivation of citizens prepared to exercise freedom and responsibility. He attributes the breakdown to politicized classrooms, overreliance on narrow “scientistic” approaches in the…
"The Declaration meets the machine age" In this episode of The Declaration at 250, Michael McConnell frames a question the Founders never confronted: if the Declaration grounds rights in human nature, what happens when machines can generate persuasive, human-like language at scale? Constitutional scholar Alexander Tsesis argues that the Declaration’s conception of rights is inherently…
Stanford’s Allen Weiner examines how the U.S. war with Iran raises questions about the president’s power to wage war and negotiate peace. --- The American war with Iran began with ambitious goals, including preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and potentially bringing about regime change. But the conflict may well be leading to a very different outcome, according to Stanford Law…
“Two competing originalist instincts” In this episode of The Declaration at 250, Michael McConnell introduces Randy Barnett, the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at the Georgetown University Law Center and Faculty Director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution alongside Eugene Volokh, the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), and the Gary T.…
This episode highlights an often-missed story: the Declaration of Independence didn’t just shape the U.S. Constitution—it directly shaped state constitutions, many of which echo its natural-rights language more explicitly than the federal charter. Arizona Supreme Court Justice Clint Bolick argues that reading state constitutional provisions through the Declaration can strengthen enforceable limits…
This episode reframes the Declaration of Independence as more than soaring ideals about equality and natural rights. Former California Supreme Court Justice Mariano-Florentino “Tino” Cuéllar argues the text contains an underappreciated architecture of government: accountability to citizens, managing political conflict across regions, and establishing legitimate authority both domestically and in…
Stanford’s Fred Smith examines the Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship decision, its historical roots in the Fourteenth Amendment, and the questions the Court leaves unresolved. --- The Fourteenth Amendment opens with a simple constitutional promise: that anyone born in the United States is a citizen. In a closely divided Supreme Court decision, that understanding of birthright citizenship is…
Jeff Fisher discusses a term marked by major rulings across executive power, voting, and civil rights, and what they signal about the Court’s trajectory. --- The Supreme Court has wrapped up a consequential term, issuing decisions that could shape executive power, constitutional rights, and the balance between the branches of government for years to come. Rulings on birthright citizenship,…
