Minnesotans hold a rally at the state capitol in St. Paul to support trans kids in March 2022.
Michael Siluk/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
The question of whether local declarations offering sanctuary for LGBTQIA+ people place local law above federal law depends on what the statements actually promise.
Citizens have sometimes been surprised to find public officials blocking people from viewing their social media feeds.
alashi/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images
The absence of a speaker of the House − a single individual but the linchpin in Congress − could produce a dangerous crisis in America’s constitutional democracy.
Mitt Romney, left, represents an old-fashioned GOP conservatism. Donald Trump, right, doesn’t − and Romney is leaving politics.
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Republicans Mike Pence and Mitt Romney both spoke recently about the conservative ideals that animate their politics − and which Donald Trump has violated. Do voters care?
A display of books that have been banned in various places is on view at a community gathering space in Washington, D.C.
Craig Hudson for The Washington Post via Getty Images
Current precedent relies on a 1982 case in which five justices generally agreed there were limits on a school’s power to ban books, but they didn’t agree on why.
Justices who follow originalism dominate in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images
Only 50 years ago, originalism was considered a fringe movement, hardly taken seriously. Now its adherents dominate the Supreme Court.
Enrique Tarrio, leader of the Proud Boys, at left, and group member Joe Biggs were sentenced to many years in federal prison.
Stephanie Keith/Getty Images
The Proud Boys are more of a loosely affiliated street gang than they are a unified right-wing militia, researchers say. But police ignore the threats from these groups, and their threats grow.
Former US president Donald Trump outside a New York court on April 4 2023.
Lev Radin/Shutterstock
The changes wrought by the new conservative majority in the US Supreme Court are revolutionary.
Janet Protasiewicz is sworn in as a state Supreme Court justice at the Wisconsin Capitol on Aug. 1, 2023.
Sara Stathas for The Washington Post via Getty Images
Impeaching a recently elected Wisconsin Supreme Court justice for conduct neither criminal nor corrupt would negate the people’s votes – and strike a blow at judicial independence.
Donald Trump continues to have − and to exercise − his free speech rights, even while under court orders.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
Trump has not been silenced. The limits on his speech protect fundamental rights − including his right to a fair trial by an unbiased jury and the public’s right to a working justice system.
People gather at the Marion County Republican Party headquarters after discussing Issue 1 on July 13, 2023, in Marion, Ohio.
Maddie McGarvey/For The Washington Post via Getty Images
The recent push in Ohio to pass a constitutional amendment was seen as a move to curb abortion rights. It failed. Two scholars say the ballot measure was really about minority rights in a democracy.
Fulton County Sheriff officers block off a street in front of the Fulton County Courthouse on August 14, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Donald Trump faces ‘double the trouble’ as Georgia charges were added to federal charges brought over his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. And that’s thanks to federalism.
Alabama voters elected Sen. Tommy Tuberville on Nov. 3, 2020.
AP Photo/Butch Dill
The framers decided that members of both the House and Senate would be required to be “an inhabitant” of the state they represent.
Protesters in Utah demonstrate against a school district’s ban on the Bible for having ‘vulgarity and violence’ unfit for young children.
AP Photo/Rick Bowmer
Distinct from civil disobedience, this legal strategy demands complete compliance with the law – even when there are loopholes that the laws’ creators didn’t intend.
Vice President Kamala Harris arrives to cast a tiebreaking vote in the U.S. Senate.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Kamala Harris is on track to be one of the most influential vice presidents in history. This says more about the Senate than the amount of power the vice president actually wields.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump on June 13, 2023, after being arraigned in Miami.
Stephanie Keith/Getty Images
Donald Trump has been indicted for crimes in connection with his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. A legal scholar looks at the law to determine whether he can boycott his upcoming trials.
Rudy Giuliani admits to lying but says the Constitution protects him.
AP Photo/Patrick Semansky
To what degree can the First Amendment be used to protect someone from the consequences of lying?
U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney speaks during a press conference in December 2022, calling to affirm the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
Women’s rights groups and politicians have pushed, ultimately unsuccessfully, for the Equal Rights Amendment to become part of the Constitution for the past several decades.
Harvard students protesting on July 1, 2023, after the Supreme Court’s ruling against affirmative action.
Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
The Supreme Court’s decision to ban affirmative action programs reverses nearly 50 years of its own decisions that ruled diversity was of vital national importance.