The Apportionment Clause forbids a direct tax on wealth. Expanding the 16th Amendment would not only allow such a tax but abolish slavery’s last remnant in the US Constitution as well.
Donald Trump presents a wall design during a discussion on border security.
EPA/Shawn Thew
The partial shut-down has ratcheted up tensions within the Republican party and added to speculation that President Trump will face a primary challenge some time before the 2020 presidential election.
Letter from President Trump to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
AP/Wayne Partlow
After the recent government shutdown and breakdowns in functioning within all three branches, it looks like the separation of powers system is broken or unbalanced. It is – and it isn’t.
U.S. President Donald Trump in McAllen, Texas.
REUTERS/Leah Millis
In the #MeToo era and with more women entering Congress, activists are hopeful another state could ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. But is it too late?
A 1903 drawing by Louis Dalrymple depicts European immigrants as “rats” (in the magazine Judge).
New York Public Library
On Dec. 10, 1903, the US military leased 45 square miles of Cuban territory to build a naval base. How did Guantanamo Bay become an infamous prison for alleged terrorists?
Sen. Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump on the presidential campaign trail, February 2016.
AP/John Bazemore
President Trump has been criticized for the appointment of political allies as attorney general. But history is filled with examples of AGs who were friends and political supporters of the president.
There is one area where the Trump presidency has already been more successful than any in living memory: exposing the weaknesses of the American constitutional order.
Legal scholars offer a vision for appointing Supreme Court justices more fairly. While it wouldn’t require any constitutional amendments, it would require Congress to pass a bill.
Demonstrators in front of the White House, August 2018.
Reuters/Brian Snyder
‘Treason’ is the only crime specifically defined in the US Constitution. The word is being used a lot these days, and a law professor says no one actually appears to know what treason is.
Trump meets with his ‘board.’
Reuters/Kevin Lamarque
An expert argues why the anonymous op-ed in The New York Times can hardly be considered an act of civil disobedience and why it might make things even worse in the Trump administration.
Rob Rosenstein suggested invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from power in Spring 2017, according to the New York Times.
Reuters/Leah Millis
The US Constitution allows the president to be removed from power if his vice president and Cabinet decide that he cannot discharge the duties of his office.
Michael Cohen’s guilty plea has raised questions about the legitimacy of Trump’s presidency.
REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Chris Edelson, American University School of Public Affairs
Congress is supposed to be a check on presidential power, but party politics has muted Republican criticism of Trump. Restoring balance means making a radical change.
President Donald Trump with pastor Paula White during a dinner for evangelical leaders in the White House, on Aug. 27, 2018.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
President Trump has promised to protect religious liberty. But there was a time when evangelicals believed that a religion that needed protection from government had no reason to exist at all.
CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins in front of the White House.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
The Trump administration’s hostility toward journalists is raising new questions about what rights journalists have to access government officials and events.
Beyond a physical inspection, what constitutes a search?
AP Photo/Jessica Hill
A recent US Supreme Court ruling marks a new milestone in the debate over police power and privacy in the digital age.
Gin Lane, a scene of urban desolation with gin-crazed Londoners; a woman lets her child fall to its death and an emaciated ballad-seller.
William Hogarth
When the U.S. broke away from the “mother country,” the dream was to let the common good overruled selfish and private interests. Yet the federal government is arranged so this can never occur.