In January 2023, the Israeli government under newly re-elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed a series of legal reforms that set off a wave of protests and calls of a constitutional crisis. The reforms seek to empower the Israeli legislature, known as the Knesset, to override decisions of the Supreme Court of Israel as well as to control the appointment of justices to the Court, and to limit the power of the Court to review administrative acts. Large-scale rallies and protests across Israel ensued; the protestors and critics, including many lawyers and academics, argue that the reforms undermine judicial independence and threaten Israeli democracy. In this week’s episode, Professor Yuval Shany of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Professor Tom Ginsburg of the University of Chicago join to explain the current situation in Israel and unpack the debate over the proposed reforms; discuss the similarities and differences between the American and Israeli constitutional systems; and how and why the reforms if passed, and taken as a whole, could lead to democratic backsliding. Host Jeffrey Rosen moderates.   Resources   Yuval Shany and Amichai Cohen, “The Israeli President’s Plan to End the Constitutional Crisis,” Lawfare (March 27, 2023)  Yuval Shany and Amichai Cohen, “The New Israeli Government’s ‘Constitutional Law Reforms’: Why now? What do they mean? And what will happen next?,” Lawfare (Feb. 14, 2023)  “A law professor worries Israel could become the next Hungary,” Jerusalem Post (Jan. 9, 2023) Comparative Constitutions Project  Questions or comments about the show? Email us at [email protected]    Continue today’s conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr.    Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.    You can find transcripts for each episode on the podcast pages in our Media Library.

Last week, the North Carolina Supreme Court agreed to re-hear a case that found the state’s redistricting maps unconstitutional under the state’s constitution. The outcome of this decision could affect another case already before the U.S. Supreme Court, Moore v. Harper—a challenge to a decision striking down North Carolina’s redistricting that involves the “independent state legislature” doctrine. Why did the North Carolina Supreme Court strike down the maps in the first place, and why is it revisiting that decision now? Will the U.S. Supreme Court still decide the Moore case and rule on the independent state legislature theory? And what standards should be used to decide whether redistricting maps are politically gerrymandered? To discuss these questions and address the latest developments in these crucial gerrymandering cases, Misha Tseytlin of the law firm Troutman Pepper and Guy-Uriel Charles of Harvard Law School join host Jeffrey Rosen.  Resources   Moore v. Harper, (oral argument: video via C-SPAN; transcript) Amicus Brief by Misha Tsyetlin filed on behalf group of New York Voters, Moore v. Harper  Amicus Brief by Misha Tsyetlin filed on behalf of members of Congress from the North Carolina delegation, Rucho v. Common Cause  Amicus Brief by Guy-Uriel Charles and Deepak Gupta on behalf of Mathematicians, Students and Professors, Rucho v. Common Cause Gill v. Whitford (2018) Rucho v. Common Cause (2019)  Questions or comments about the show? Email us at [email protected]    Continue today’s conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr.    Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.    You can find transcripts for each episode on the podcast pages in our Media Library.

Earlier this month, in United States v. Rahimi, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit struck down as unconstitutional a decades-old law barring people subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms. The ruling comes on the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen last term, which held that the Second Amendment protects the right to carry guns outside the home. Bruen also created a new history-and-tradition test for determining whether gun-control regulations are constitutional, which has led some lower courts to now rule differently on challenges to gun laws—including the Fifth Circuit. In this episode, two scholars and experts on the Second Amendment— Amy Swearer of the Heritage Foundation and Adam Winkler of UCLA School of Law—join to break down the Rahimi decision, which the U.S. Supreme Court may review in a future term, and explore the new landscape of Second Amendment law after Bruen. Host Jeffrey Rosen moderates.   Resources   United States v. Rahimi (5th Cir. 2023) NY State Rifle and Pistol Assoc. v. Bruen (2022) “Senate hears about legal fallout from Supreme Court gun decision,” RollCall (Mar. 2023) “The Essential Second Amendment,” Heritage Foundation ebook  Adam Winkler, Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America (2013)  Questions or comments about the show? Email us at [email protected]    Continue today’s conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr.    Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.    You can find transcripts for each episode on the podcast pages in our Media Library.

March is women’s history month—and in commemoration of the celebration, this week we hosted a conversation exploring the story of the pursuit of women’s rights in early America. Sara Chatfield, assistant professor of political science at the University of Denver and author of Her Own Name: The Politics of Women’s Rights Before Suffrage, and Nicole Evelina, bestselling novelist, biographer, and poet, and author of America’s Forgotten Suffragists: Virginia and Francis Minor, join to explore the different aspects and dimensions of the fight for women’s rights in the 19th and 20th centuries—from economic and property rights, to women’s suffrage and the right to vote. They dig into the origins and consequences of laws guaranteeing married women’s property rights and how and why these laws changed over time, as well as the story of married couple Virginia and Francis Minor, which exemplified a partnership devoted to securing broader rights for women—from property rights to suffrage, through a case brought by the Minors that took the issue of voting rights for women to the Supreme Court for the first and only time in 1875. Host Jeffrey Rosen moderates.  Resources   Sara Chatfield, In Her Own Name: The Politics of Women’s Rights Before Suffrage (2023) Nicole Evelina, America’s Forgotten Suffragists: Virginia and Francis Minor (2023) Minor v. Happersett (1875) Emily Zackin, Looking for Rights in All the Wrong Places: Why State Constitutions Contain America's Positive Rights (2013) Chloe Thurston, At the Boundaries of Homeownership: Credit, Discrimination, and the American State (2018) Questions or comments about the show? Email us at [email protected]    Continue today’s conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr.    Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.    You can find transcripts for each episode on the podcast pages in our Media Library.

This week the Supreme Court heard two separate legal challenges to a student loan forgiveness program proposed by the Biden administration: Biden v. Nebraska and Department of Education v. Brown. The plan aims to cancel up to $20,000 of student debt for low-to middle-income families, and was rolled out last August during the tail end of the COVID-19 pandemic. It relied on the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003 (or the HEROES Act), a law passed after 9/11 that gives the secretary of education the power to make changes to student loan programs during a national emergency. At the heart of the challenges to the plan are major questions surrounding the scope of presidential power; the doctrine of “standing”—or who can bring a lawsuit in court; and whether certain issues are of such “vast economic and political significance” that they should be left to the legislative branch and not decisions of federal agencies. William Araiza of Brooklyn Law School and Anastasia Boden of the Cato Institute join to unpack the arguments on both sides of the cases. Host Jeffrey Rosen moderates.    Questions or comments about the show? Email us at [email protected]    Continue today’s conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr.    Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.    You can find transcripts for each episode on the podcast pages in our Media Library.