Episodes

  • Judge Shopping For Me, But Not for Thee with Chris Geidner

    Judge Shopping For Me, But Not for Thee with Chris Geidner
    Jul 16 2024
    Over the past year, the Supreme Court has taken a far more active role in reviewing cases reflecting fringe arguments supported by federal district court judges and appellate circuits. The Western and Northern Districts of Texas have become the destination of choice for "judge-shopping" to receive the benefits of far-right conservative judicial ideology. But when attorneys challenging the ban on gender-affirming care used a similar approach to dismiss a case before a hostile right-wing conservative federal judge, the Alabama district court subjected them to a two-year secret investigation for purported "judge-shopping". Chris Geidner, a noted Supreme Court reporter and author of the newsletter "Law Dork" joins SideBar to discuss how federal "judge-shopping" is allegedly being used to manipulate outcomes and how the current Supreme Court is responding.
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    37 mins
  • The Radical Act of Choosing Common Ground with Nisha Anand

    The Radical Act of Choosing Common Ground with Nisha Anand
    Jul 2 2024
    Nisha Anand, the Chief Executive Officer of Dream.org, joins SideBar to discuss how she builds bridges across political divides to find real solutions. Nisha employs the “radical act of finding common ground” with unlikely allies while still staying true to her progressive values. She provides a hopeful message that collaboration can achieve change and overcome polarization and political divides.
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    35 mins
  • Justice Bent, Not Broken with Elie Honig

    Justice Bent, Not Broken with Elie Honig
    Jun 18 2024
    Senior CNN Legal Analyst Elie Honig challenges whether the rule of law is under attack when powerful people square off against judges and juries. As author of Untouchable: How Powerful People Get Away with It and a former federal and state prosecutor, he served on air as a CNN Senior Legal Analyst throughout the first criminal trial and conviction of a former US President.
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    39 mins
  • Constitutional Equal Rights - the Time is NOW! with Katherine Spillar

    Constitutional Equal Rights - the Time is NOW! with Katherine Spillar
    Jun 4 2024
    Kathy Spillar, Executive Director of Feminist Majority Foundation and Executive Editor of MS Magazine joins SideBar to discuss why ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is an essential legal tool to guarantee women's rights. Ratification of the ERA would constitutionally prohibit sex discrimination, recognize systemic inequities across different groups of people, and uplift historically marginalized people to achieve true equality and justice.
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    42 mins
  • How Extremists Stole the Constitution and How We the People Can Take It Back with Madiba K. Dennie

    How Extremists Stole the Constitution and How We the People Can Take It Back with Madiba K. Dennie
    May 21 2024
    Madiba K. Dennie is an attorney, columnist, author, and professor whose work focuses on fostering an equitable multiracial democracy. Dennie is the author of The Originalism Trap: How Extremists Stole the Constitution and How We the People Can Take It Back. She currently serves as Deputy Editor and Senior Contributor at the critical legal commentary outlet Balls and Strikes. As counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice, she addressed democracy issues involving the census, the courts, and attempts to disempower communities of color.
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    38 mins
  • Criminalizing Motherhood and Reproductive Health with Dr. Michele Goodwin

    Criminalizing Motherhood and Reproductive Health with Dr. Michele Goodwin
    May 7 2024
    Since the Dobbs Supreme Court case was decided, we have gained a heightened awareness of the criminal laws surrounding pregnancies, including the decision to terminate one. But the criminalization of abortion isn’t a new post-Dobbs phenomenon. Women, especially women of color, have frequently faced punitive state laws regulating reproductive health. Dr. Michele Goodwin, attorney, law professor, and author of Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood, joins SideBar to discuss her research into the long and continuing history of the government policing and criminalizing women’s reproductive health.
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    36 mins
  • How Women Influenced the Constitution with Mary Sarah Bilder

    How Women Influenced the Constitution with Mary Sarah Bilder
    Apr 16 2024
    Law Professor Mary Sarah Bilder discusses the amazing story of Eliza Harriot, a rare female public lecturer who delivered a University of Pennsylvania program attended by George Washington as he met in Philadelphia with delegates to draft the US Constitution. Harriot’s performance likely inspired the gender-neutral language of the Constitution and her advocacy inspired countless young women to consider a college education and fight back against exclusions based on sex, gender, and race.
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    41 mins
  • We (Who Are Not) the People: Interpreting the Undemocratic Constitution with Milligan and Ross

    We (Who Are Not) the People: Interpreting the Undemocratic Constitution with Milligan and Ross
    Apr 2 2024
    Law Professors Joy Milligan and Bertrall Ross discuss how we should interpret a Constitution that was not written for or drafted by “We the People”. The original constitution excluded women and racial minorities. The drafters and the commentators of the period were exclusively white men. Many of the subsequent amendments were adopted under "undemocratic" conditions and interpreted by courts that did not fairly reflect the population then, or now. However, there is evidence that the language and intent of the drafters was to leave "space" for future interpretation. Milligan and Ross join SideBar to promote the proposition that "We the People" will only be protected by the Constitution if the "history and tradition" of ALL the people are considered in Supreme Court interpretations.
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    46 mins