Outside the Beltway

A wrongheaded solution for a legitimate problem.

In the US, the candidate defines the party, not the other way around.

Embattled Governor Ricardo A. Rosselló has stepped down but succession issues surround the man who took the oath of office late yesterday.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg isn’t very impressed by the proposals made by several liberal politicians lately to increase the size of the Supreme Court to counterbalance the conservative tilt created by the Gorsuch and Kavanaugh confirmations.

The Supreme Court handed the President a victory last night, ruling that the Plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging his funding of the border wall did not have standing to challenge his diversion of Defense Department funds. This may only be a temporary victory, though.

Just over nine years after retiring from the Supreme Court, former Associate Justice John Paul Stevens has passed away at the age of 99.

A federal appeals court has ruled that DC and Maryland officials have no right to bring the suit.

Another court loss for Trump and his border wall.

A law professor reads too much into a cryptic concurrence.

The Republican Party is ruining the country. But so are the Democrats?

The President is once again claiming Executive Privilege to prevent Congress from getting access to certain documents.

A Federal Judge in Washington, D.C. dismissed a lawsuit against Trump “national emergency” to fund the border wall, but his ruling did not reach the merits of the lawsuit’s claim.

A Federal Judge has put at least a partial hold on President’s Trump’s effort to use a “national emergency” to fund his border wall.

A longstanding legal question may finally come to a head.

In an effort to block the release of the full report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the Trump Administration is invoking Executive Privilege.

More Madisonian musing on the current state of our constitutional order.

Back to Fed 51 and this moment in oversight: we have to remember what ambitions drive politicians.

As I have noted before: party trumps institutional pride. The Barr testimony is just another example.

President Trump claims that he’d challenge any effort to impeach him in court, but the law makes clear that he can’t.

The House of Representatives is asking a Federal Judge to block the President’s emergency declaration to fund his border wall.

In case anyone needs a refresher.

A WaPo writer takes a round-about path to demonstrate the obvious.

There appear to be enough votes in the Senate to pass the resolution disapproving President Trump’s border wall “emergency,” but there’s not enough Republican support to override an expected veto.

The House of Representatives voted yesterday to block the President’s declaration of an “emergency” at the southern border. Now the matter goes to the Senate.

Republicans face a choice in the coming days. Do they support the Constitution, or do they support Donald Trump? You can count on them making the wrong choice.

While not subject to filibuster, it’s still subject to Presidential veto.

The American Civil Liberties Union has joined the list of groups with lawsuits against the President’s declaration of a “national emergency” at the southern border.

The lawsuits against President Trump’s “national emergency” have begun. Except more.

There is a bit of a disjuncture between the terminology and the reality (but that does not excuse Trump’s current actions).

President Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border while at the same time undercutting his own case for doing so.

President Trump’s impending decision to declare a national emergency to get funding for his border wall will quickly face serious legal challenges. It may be more vulnerable than the White House suspects.

Lindsey Graham is telling his fellow Republicans that they better back the President if he decides to declare a national emergency to get funding for his border wall.

The Northam situation shows the rigidity of separation of powers systems.

Don’t expect the Congress (i.e., the Senate) to pull us out of this shutdown mess.

President Trump’s latest attack on the Federal Judiciary prompted a rare rebuke from the Chief Justice of the United States.

When do we stop pretending that Fox News Channel is anything other than State Run Media for the Trump Administration?

The Kavanaugh fight is just another indicator of our national divide.

Brett Kavanaugh is expressing some regrets over his performance last Thursday, but it’s largely far too little, far too late.

We should take Congressional officers out of the line of succession.

The second day of questioning for Judge Brett Kavanaugh was a bit rockier than the first, but nothing happened that seriously threatens his eventual confirmation.

A Federal Judge in Texas has declined to grant a request to bring the DACA program to an end, but its days appear to be numbered unless Congress acts.

A Federal Appeals Court has found that a Trump Administration policy purporting to punish so-called sanctuary cities is unconstitutional.

Senate Democrats appear to be recognizing that there’s basically nothing they can do to stop the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

There is a frustration and a growing sense that the American political system is illegitimate.

Madison was right about politicians and ambition. He just didn’t see the how it would all play out.

The dean of conservative columnists argues that the Republican Congress must be taught a lesson.

The Federal Government is signing on to an effort by Texas and several other states to have the DACA program declared unlawful.

Another Federal Judge has held that the Trump Administration’s efforts to punish so-called ‘sanctuary cities’ violates both Federal law and the Constitution.

A new lawsuit seeks to have the 2012 DACA program declared unconstitutional.

An essay from earlier in the year by Jacob T. Levy underscores some of the points I recently tried to make about democratic norms in the current era.