Daniel Aaron Lazar » USH: Constitution & Early Years

Interpreting The Constitution In The Digital Era

Dan Lazar — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 20:48:47 +0000

GPS monitors can track your every movement. Brain scans can now see lies forming in your brain. And advancements in genetic engineering may soon allow parents to engineer what their children will look and be like.

These new technologies are “challenging our Constitutional categories in really dramatic ways,” says George Washington University law professor Jeffrey Rosen. “And what’s so striking is that none of the existing amendments give clear answers to the most basic questions we’re having today.”

Listen to this episode of Fresh Air, where Rosen, the co-editor of the Constitution 3.0: Freedom and Technological Change, details how technological changes that were unimaginable at the time of the Founding Fathers are challenging our notions of things like personal vs. private space, freedom of speech and our own individual autonomy.

Barnes v. Glen Theatre and Kitty Kat Lounge

Dan Lazar — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 10:08:18 +0000

“Respondents are two establishments in South Bend, Indiana, that wish to provide totally nude dancing as entertainment, and individual dancers who are employed at these establishments. They claim that the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of expression prevents the State of Indiana from enforcing its public indecency law to prevent this form of dancing. We reject their claim.”

Read this Supreme Court decision written by Chief Justice Rehnquist.

Your Bill of Rights

Dan Lazar — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 11:51:05 +0000

In 1789, the United States sought to make the union more perfect, drawing up 10 amendments to the Constitution now known as the Bill of Rights. In this series of ten short videos, TIME brings to life the words of the Founding Fathers and explores how these deeply felt ideas about liberty and property have evolved into the amendments as we interpret them today.

Supreme Court Rulings 2010-11

Dan Lazar — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 18:01:00 +0000

The US Supreme Court is rendering rulings on the cases from this year’s docket. There are several interesting cases.

Here are all of the slip opinions.

Here is some top-notch editorializing on the rulings from Slate’s Dalia Lithwick who, in my humble opinion, offers remarkably insightful yet accessible court journalism.

How the Tea Party’s fetish for the Constitution as written may get it in trouble.

Dan Lazar — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 07:47:54 +0000

Members of the Tea Party are really into the Constitution. We know this because on Thursday, House Republicans propose to read the document from start to finish on the House floor, and they also propose to pass a rule requiring that every piece of new legislation identify the source of its constitutional authority. Even Roger Pilon of the Cato Institute agrees that these are largely symbolic measures, noting in the Wall Street Journal that as a legal matter, “at least since Marbury v. Madison in 1803, the Supreme Court has had the last word on what the Constitution authorizes Congress to do.”

More on the new constitutional “crisis” from Dalia Lithwick at Slate.

The conservative mission to destroy the Constitution in order to save it

Dan Lazar — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 04:54:07 +0000

Slate’s Dalia Lithwick offers some insights into the Tea Party’s proposal to amend the “divinely inspired” Constitution.

Justice Breyer: The Court, The Cases And Conflicts

Dan Lazar — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 09:20:22 +0000

n Making Our Democracy Work: A Judge’s View, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer outlines his ideas about the Constitution and about the way the United States legal system works.

Breyer, who was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Clinton in 1994, explains that he interprets the Constitution as a living document, in opposition to some of his colleagues — including Justice Antonin Scalia — who see it as a static and literal set of rules that do not change over time.

Breyer argues that the framers knew that the interpretation of the document would continue to change as America evolved — and that members of the Supreme Court should apply the Constitution’s values to modern circumstances.

Breyer Interview

What Tocqueville and his friend really did on their travels

Dan Lazar — Mon, 24 May 2010 08:29:28 +0000

In Tocqueville’s Discovery of America, Leo Damrosch, who teaches literature at Harvard, has seized an opportune moment to scratch the polished surface and explore what lay behind the oracular pronouncements. At a time when generalizations about the American soul seem risky at best, it is somehow reassuring to learn that even the great Tocqueville was often winging it—and that some of his direst fears have not come to pass…

Read on from Slate

Explaining The American Filibuster

Dan Lazar — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 12:57:37 +0000

If high-school government class taught us anything, it’s that getting bills passed through Congress is a game of numbers: The bill with the most votes wins.

Turns out it’s not that simple. These days, the polarized state of American politics means that major bills need at least 60 votes to avoid an inevitable filibuster by the opposition.

Political scientist Gregory Koger’s new book, Filibustering: A Political History of Obstruction in the House and Senate, addresses the institutionalization of the filibuster — and describes congressional loopholes by way of which fast thinking and hard work can beat the numbers. Koger teaches American politics at the University of Miami. He joins host Terry Gross for a conversation about what has happened to simple majority rule.

Listen to Koger discuss the filibuster in an interview with Terry Gross

1st Amendment: The Supreme Court mauls the law banning animal-cruelty videos

Dan Lazar — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 06:09:34 +0000

Witness the American deputy solicitor general in his natural habitat—the Supreme Court. As Neal Katyal roams softly across the cool marble chamber, he has no idea what awaits him. He is here to protect his tribe—the U.S. government—which, in 1999, passed a statute making it a crime to create, sell, or possess “any visual or auditory depiction” of “animal cruelty” if the act of cruelty is itself illegal under either federal law or the law of the state in which the depiction occurred.

Read on from Slate

The high court looks again at religious symbols on public lands

Dan Lazar — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 06:07:45 +0000

There’s just one person at oral argument in Salazar v. Buono this morning who really wants to talk about whether a 5-foot cross on federal government land in the Mojave National Preserve violates the Constitution’s Establishment Clause. But Justice Antonin Scalia really, really wants to talk about it. He looks particularly queasy when Peter Eliasberg—the ACLU lawyer whose client objects to crosses on government land—suggests partway through the morning that perhaps a less controversial World War I memorial might consist of “a statue of a soldier which would honor all of the people who fought for America in World War I and not just the Christians.”

Read on from Slate

Video: Townhall with Howard Zinn

Dan Lazar — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 06:00:57 +0000

Howard Zinn discusses his classic book A People’s History of the United States. James R. Green, Professor of History at UMass, Boston, moderates.

Video: Laurence Tribe

Dan Lazar — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 05:55:07 +0000

Laurence Tribe discusses the evolution of how we interpret our country’s most important document. The renowned legal scholar argues that between the lines of our parchment Constitution, there is an “invisible Constitution.” Tribe purports that some of our most cherished and widely held beliefs about our constitutional rights are not even included in the written document. How does this “invisible Constitution” impact the central constitutional debates of our time from gun control to abortion to wire-tapping? How has this framework for reading the Constitution evolved, and how does it work?

Watch it. 85 minutes

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps

Dan Lazar — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 13:36:39 +0000

From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all.

From the Guardian

Readings on the Functions and Dysfunctions of Political Parties

Dan Lazar — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 09:37:05 +0000

Three Readings on the Functions and Dysfunctions of Political Parties

Response Sheet

Quotes on Political Parties

Mini Lecture on Political Parties

Electoral College Assignment

Dan Lazar — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 12:52:46 +0000

In this lesson your will examine how the Electoral College works in order to better understand how Americans elect their president. This issue has become especially timely since the 2000 election when George W. Bush became president after winning the most electoral votes but losing the popular vote. In 2004, the election was once again a close one.

Your task is to explore the resources below and to respond to the questions provided at the bottom of this post. Be prepared to summarize, analyze and debate the Electoral College in class.

The Federal Electoral College Commission

National Archives: U.S. Electoral College FAQs

Online NewsHour Extra: How the Electoral College Works

Online NewsHour: November 23, 2000

Online News Hour: December 18, 2000

An Op-Ed from the NY Times

Electoral College Response Sheet

On TJ…

Dan Lazar — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 17:54:24 +0000

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of TJ

Where are the Jeffersons of Today

Questions on TJ Documents

Beyond the Assigned Reading…

The Shady Side of TJ

Was the Sage a Hypocrite?

TJ and Hamilton: The Best of Enemies

Order v. Liberty

Dan Lazar — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 17:46:33 +0000

You may think that the Constitution is your security it is nothing but a piece of paper. You may think that the statutes are your security but they are nothing but words in a book. You may think that elaborate mechanism of government is your security but it is nothing at all, unless you have sound and uncorrupted public opinion to give life to your Constitution, to give vitality to your statutes, to make efficient your government machinery.

-Charles Evan Hughes, Chief Justice U.S. Supreme Court, 1930-1941

Dr. Larry Graggs Article

Order v. Liberty Responses

Contemporary Connection…

Lecture on Alien & Sedition and Espionage and Sedition Acts

My Lesson Plan to Connect Alien & Sedition Acts to USAPA

Time Magazine calls Alien & Sedition Acts the Patriot Act of the 18th Century

Librarians are More Rebellious Than Many Think

Feel free to read all 342 pages of this masterpiece here

Naturally, the ACLU would love nothing more than to see the demise of the USAPA