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federal judiciary
April 28, 2025
Matt Ford
The Trumpian Plot to Take Over the Federal Courts
The conservative legal movement’s latest broadside against the judiciary is likely to fail, but it illuminates how far they’re willing to go to dismantle the rule of law.
March 21, 2025
Michael Tomasky
Trump v. Boasberg: If This Isn’t a Constitutional Crisis, What Is?
Attorney General Pam Bondi has joined the president’s campaign to get the judge impeached. This is attempted dictatorship.
April 5, 2024
Matt Ford
Sonia Sotomayor’s Retirement Is Not the Point
Calls are mounting for the liberal justice to take her leave. Instead, Democrats should focus on winning elections.
March 21, 2024
Matt Ford
The Most Conservative Jurists in America Have Lost the Supreme Court
The Fifth Circuit’s well-documented judicial shenanigans have earned a surprising rebuke from the high court.
April 27, 2023
Grace Segers
Don’t Look Now, but a Bipartisan Plan to Rein in the Supreme Court Has Arrived
Clarence Thomas’s news-making scandals have senators eager to rein in the high court. At least one Republican has signed on to the effort.
April 11, 2023
Alex Shephard
The Democrats (Still) Have a Dianne Feinstein Problem
The bad news is that the California senator is gumming up President Biden’s important work. The good news is that this is all very easily resolved!
March 16, 2023
Simon Lazarus
Sorry, Clarence Thomas, but Supreme Court Ethics Reform Is on the Table
A plan to save the high court from its own excesses—with bipartisan buy-in—is gathering steam. Here are the next steps to build on the unexpected momentum.
February 7, 2023
Matt Ford
Biden Should Embrace Executive Privilege—To Weaken It
How much leeway will the Supreme Court give a president who wants to stonewall House Republican investigations? There’s only one way to find out.
January 31, 2023
Matt Ford
The Blue Slip Is the Hot New Senate Tradition That Democrats Should Abolish
Republicans did away with the arcane practice when it suited their purposes.
January 26, 2023
Simon Lazarus
Bipartisan Supreme Court Reform Is Not a Pipe Dream
By backing the implementation of ethics reforms already practiced in the lower courts instead of more radical solutions, liberals can make a case with which conservatives might agree.
January 6, 2023
Matt Ford
Biden’s Judicial Revolution Marches On in 2023
The White House’s commitment to filling vacancies on the bench got a big boost when Democrats lucked into an expanded Senate majority.
December 29, 2022
Tori Otten
Biden’s Bid to Diversify the Federal Judiciary Hits a High-Water Mark
The president has made the most of Democratic control of the Senate.
October 6, 2022
Matt Ford
Maybe Federal Law Clerk Hiring Practices Should—Just Spitballing Here—Be More Normal?
A recent spat between a judge and Yale Law School forces us to consider whether the federal judiciary should continue to be a spoils system for the well connected.
July 7, 2022
Matt Ford
The Rise of the Hereditary Judiciary
As more and more judges engineer their own end-of-career successions, the rule of law is starting to warp in dangerous and unsustainable ways.
April 8, 2020
Matt Ford
The Amateurs and Yes-Men in Trump’s Army of Judges
There’s a simple formula for getting on the judicial bench in the MAGA era.
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