Was important to produce a book that is accessible by regular people, so people can educate themselves about how the constitution functions as well as our constitutional rights, and then get on that bike and themselves, so that is the why part. Constitutional scholars, including myself, are worried about the state of our democracy, our republic, and whether it can sustain the body blows happening to the separation of powers right now. If people care about having their individual liberties going forward, educating themselves for the sake of their children and their grandchildren about ift to do in this moment, anything, make your own decision, that is important. Whys the wife are part. Now it is almost like an antijaywalking law. Is eroding under our noses, but few people realize it. Can you expand on that . Guest there are two parts of the constitution. One is the separation of powers. We hear about this some of the three branches of government, but it is not actually in the constitution, those words, separation of power, and the second is the bill of rights. Law students for 13 years, and there is nothing to basic or two simple that is not worth writing down for them. So if people in law school need some basic instruction on what is a case, what if they law, and how is a law passed a awgislature different than a l that is created, essentially by the Supreme Court . That kind of Core Concepts my students learn from, and the book is really almost sort of a first year law class. It breaks that down, but it breaks it down in common sense language. You mentioned the jaywalking law. What people do not understand is because vision is like a contracts to renovate your kitchen. If a contractor walks off the job with a 10,000 deposit after demoing your kitchen, but these are paper itself is not going to get your money back. You have to enforce it by going to court. That is expensive, difficult, it takes some blood, sweat, and heres even. That is the same with the constitution feared if this president or the next president for the next president bulldozers over the limit set by congress, do not limit no longer exists, and the president goes into the president ial toolbox for the next president. You might not like our current president or the next one, but if you expand the office of the presidency, then we have a government that is a bully, that has too much power down the line when we care, and it may be too late to put that will back back out. Has three whatn we call vesting clauses, like a job description, that gives congress a lot of powers, namely the power to make laws. It gives the president the power to execute those laws. It does not define the word execution. Think about it prosecutor or Police Officer. A Police Officer does not decide what the speed limit is. The Police Officer sort of flags someone that is violating the speed limit and then hands it off to a prosecutor. In that instance, it is a lot faster these days, we get something in the mail. The idea is the president is not actually make the laws. Laws. Esident enforces the under our system right now, the president of a lot of lawmaking anyway, so we have heard a lot about executive orders. That is not in the constitution. Historically, executive orders have been tolerated, the president will issue an executive order and make a law. Essentially that is the power of congress. Bureaucracy, too much regulation. This is the fight we saw at the Supreme Court level of the citizenship question. That question was not related around residential power, per se, it was about agency power. Congress have the authority to set forth the limits about what goes in the census form. Congress is under the constitution, empowered with enumerating the clause, and congress handed off the baton and said, you know what, you fill in the blanks for us. You make regulations for us, and commerce did. That is the part that the Supreme Court struck down was the agencys lawmaking at the the has of congress. So this is a nuance that is quite complicated, but again, it is front and center, the headline is something people feel strongly about, and people do not really understand. Thanks that happened in the last 20, 30 years, social media, obviously massive amounts of new technology, and we have all kinds of information coming at us that is not exist here when i was a kid, we had a few channels and newspapers, now it is hard to determine what is accurate, what is not cured we know from the Mueller Investigation, the 2016 attack on our electoral process another foreign powers, in this instance, russia, is interested in him planting and misinformation in our inboxes. Theobjective wit book is to break down the language, break down the policies, it is not an easy beach read, it is a serious read for people who want to understand the baseline, so they can rely on their own knowledge and their own analytical abilities and not have to decide, listen, is this real or not real in a world where that is becoming increasingly blurred. Host our guest teaches law at the university of baltimore. Author of the book how to read the constitution and why. If you want to ask her a question, democrats 202 7488000. Republicans, 202 7488001. An independents, 202 7488002. Professor wehle, your personal approach to the cause of vision, there have been debates over whether it is a living document or a static document. Where do you fall on that . Guest where i fall is it is a false economy that it is not a real debate. Very old. It by definition leaves a lot of definitions under five. If we had everything spelled out in the constitution, it would be like the tax code, volumes and volumes and volumes. So by definition, justices have to fill in the blanks. We have to define what is an unreasonable search and seizure under the fourth a minute, for example. The word unreasonable is not defined in the constitution. I introduced this concept with a Wallace Stevens poem. We can talk about different ways of interpreting the poem, as you talk about in high school or college, and how a point of view can sway or affect what you think the meaning of the poem in what your worldview is that moment, and judges are the same way. Some judges will look to their common sense and say this is an obvious reading of the constitution. I think that is a fallacy, in part because we have a lot of 54 decisions, which by definition means there are two ways of reading it, so then the question becomes what is the better reading . Justices, may be more progressive, may say we look to the objectives and goals of the constitution, individual liberty, limited government, for example. The more conservative justices might say we want to look and see what the framers of the time of the framing of the constitution, 18th century, believed that particular term would mean. But of course when you are talking about a thermal imaging machine for determining whether there is marijuana inside a house, Justice Scalia found that was, issued a decision deciding that was a search, for example, we are departing from what the framers reasonably could have anticipated in the 18thcentury, and we are, by definition, going to other sources to determine the meeting. So we can debate which of those sources are better for resolving ambiguity, but the notion that there is a clear way and an outofthebox sorting living i think thatl way, is a fallacy, and i think it is one thing most americans do not understand, and it is not their fault. It is because it is framed that way, and i do not think it is accurate. Host lets go to viewers. We will start off with eric, in seattle, washington, democrats line. You are on with kimberly wehle. Go ahead. Caller thank you. The constitution is obsolete. It was obsolete from the very beginning. It was a flawed document, basically a white manifesto document. By that what i mean is this you can look at the constitution or either polar end of it, no one is right, and no one is wrong. The only thing that matters is the interpretation of the judges. If you go about the Supreme Court, we have juries that are 54, one believes this, one believes that, no one is right, no one is wrong, it is left up to interpretation. It is a fatally flawed document itself because it is led u leftp to arbitrary and capricious decisions, and it should be rewritten. We should have a new constitution written because black people were slaves. When i would like you to address is this no one is right, no one is wrong, slavery was justified under the constitution. Anything was justified, and no one is right, and no one is wrong. Host all right, eric, professor wehle, go ahead. Guest you make a good point, and scholars make this point that the constitution was made gentried, male landowners. It not only excluded black anple, but it also excluded entire category, women. That is a critique of the constitution. I happen to believe that it has far, and it is the best we have, and if enforced, it does create a bar for our elected leaders, and the design of the cost vision and of course the constitution has been amended many times to adjust for some of these inherent problems ied, bylike you identif excluding, for example, and authorizing the enslavement africanamericans, but a document has been amended to address these problems over the years, and today, it is designed, as it was originally, to ensure ultimately that the individual citizen, the individual voter is empowered to govern themselves. The framers of the constitution, the revolutionary war we just celebrated the fourth of july was about not having a monarch, not having a government that had so much power in the king that the king could snap his fingers and arbitrarily throw somebody in jail. This countryng in sometimes. We throw people in jail that do not belong in jail, but the system is set up to limit that kind of arbitrary power. We have a due process clause. Thatve all kinds of rules apply to judges and limit their power, and as a nation, we respect those institutions. If we allowed judges orders, and we have seen this in the last few years, sort of judges order s to be flouted or treated as if they are not real, attacking legitimate opposing ones of you, that is order of destabilizes the whole system. I want it to suggest pick up your point on a new constitution. There are two ways of amending the constitution. One is through an amendment, we have seen that. And the other is to have a brandnew constitutional convention, which it sounds like the caller is thinking about, and the last one we had produced our current constitution that was called to amend the articles of federation, which was a document in place prior. It was supposed to be an amended constitution. They chucked that out, and they started from scratch. My concern, we are a few states away from calling a new constitutional convention. My concern is in this polarized, i think, environment, an environment that is really lacking in compassion and core values, in a lot of ways, the document we could end up with like look like nothing what we have, and we would roll back a tremendous amount of protections in the current document third if we start from scratch, we do not even know what we would get. Even the late justice a conservative justice come on icon of conservative thought, said this is not the century to start over with the constitution. My view is we have to work with what we have, and people understand that it does not mean anything if we bulldoze over it, work with it. Thell it the cop at th and of the block. We needed to enforce it. Host republican line, bill, go ahead. Caller yeah, i was recently reviewing part of the constitution, and i ran into him i think it was article one, introduced and that the idea of compacts between state spirit i familiar with compacts on traffic violations. I believe those are authorized by congress. But according to that section, congress has to authorize in a big compacts, and i do not think congress has taken any effort to legalize compacts between electoral colleges do you have any idea about that, professor . Guest not that particular question, i would have to do research on that, but you raise an excellent point with respect to congress, and congress does have not just the power to make laws, but as you mentioned, many powers, the power to tax, the power to declare war, for example, the power to appropriate, the power to allow a president to accept emoluments or gifts. Congress has fallen down in the past few years. It is not doing its job anymore in the way because to june envisioned that it would do, the constitution envisioned that it would, that the framers envisioned it would. Lets get together and figure out the problem. Lets come up with options and they threw what the best outcome might be. We have all been in this situation. We are solving a hard problem in our family, at work, you get smart people in the room, people with expertise, and you come up with a good solution. Courtolicymaking, that luncheon is not really happening anymore, because we are so polarized. Something is predetermined, and it is either a yes or a no vote. And the other fees, you mentioned states rights. Federalism is another big important as that is a big word but the idea is states have their own independent rights to make their own laws, to function as independent state spirit that is another check on government powers. The framers were worried about having a federal government that ful, thatwer that individual liberties, my right to walk down the street, but those things would follow part if government got too big, too powerful, because it is human nature to amass power. Host from rate in syracuse, new york, independent line. Caller hi. Great discussion. I would be interested to read the book. I would like to mention that the before this last one ioke about arbitrariness, and think, if it is not in your book, it should be, the reason for the concert should and it is often i rarely hear anyone mention this, but if you read the declaration, then you cannot separate those to come along with the articles, the reason for the constitution is to keep killing each other. It is not meant to satisfy everybody. So it needs to be apolitical solution in pretty much every sense, and that is why we go back and forth between one, the less than the right, to the middle, back and forth. It is ultimately so we do not kill each other. The authore thing, seems to come from one position. She picked the Current Issues of the day, basically, that trump is usurping the congress, and that is a political argument. She should have started with somebody on the other side also, so this usurping did not start with trump, it has happened in every presidency, and of course barack obama ignored the constitution in so many ways. Host ok. We will let our guest responded to all of those things. Guest well, i certainly did not mean to pick a side. The book does not pick a side. I am not interested in picking a side. I agree with you that prior president s, barack obama and others, have utilized and expanded the scope of the president s power. This is not a trump problem. This has been a problem over decades, and it has been a problem with Congress Also not protecting his prerogative to ensure that it maintains its own powers, and that it ensures that the other princes do not step outside of their boundaries. Wehave just, i, you know, are living in a world today where we have a certain president s, and those issues have become for the center, more, i think, than ever before, not entirely for sure, because of donald trump. This is not an antitrump book or protrump book, it is a prorule of law book, and i agree, i do not talk about preventing people in general from killing each other, but absolutely, the idea behind the constitution is to put the power back into people with limits on it, with some rules, some rules of the game, and the rules have to be limited fairly. And i use the analogy, i am a mother, to go to your kids baseball game, if your kid loses and you do not like how the strikes were called, but they were done fairly, pursuant to a robot that was enforced, you feel like, ok, you go home, you take your kid out for a burger, and you go on with your life. Rules were like the changed where the other side had an unfair vantage, then you get angry. I think that is where we are right now in a lot of ways, and the system is set up to protect people, regardless of political stripes. The book is not a red vs. Blue book, it is really a right versus wrong book to think about our limited government so that are protectedhts among any presidency in any congress, not just this one. Host you write the text of the First Amendment outline two Areas Congress must steer clear of, religion and speech. It also says Congress Must be careful when it comes to speech. According to a plain language, congress cannot even hamper speech or the press. It goes on from there, but talk about the issues of free speech. We hear about this a lot, particularly in connection to the amendment. What does it say, and what does it not say . Guest there is religion and speech, and back to your other point, is there a plain reading, the law under the First Amendment is actually extremely later and very complicated, not because the clauses complicated, but because the spring court has set up the Supreme Court has set up many contexts, it depends on who is speaking, it depends on who is limiting the speech, but the primary thing i think you will need to keep in mind is that the framers believed that if the government limits your pretty soon the government is limiting how you can speak. If you limit how you can speak, you start not speaking, you start speaking in ways with which the political whims thank you can speak, and that impacts your thinking here that is a primary infringement on individual liberties. The other thing to remember about the First Amendment is that it is about government limiting individuals ability to speak, not the other way around. We have about First Amendment rights of government employees. They have limited first they are rights when actually working in their governmental capacity. That is because they have the power, and the First Amendment worries about individuals having the power over their own selfgovernment. There is some debate as to how to read that. Does the limit on thegovernments ability to infringe on religion extend to beyond just establishing, for example, a National Religion . That would be offlimits, but how much entanglement with religion and government is appropriate . That is something that the ut and continues to hatch out. As the prior caller mentioned, a lot that will be subjective. The people on the Supreme Court of the united states, like it or not, they function like many legislators. They are judges. They are there to resolve individual disputes, but because what they do is essentially read between the lines in the cousin int, they add meaning the constitution, they add eaning and definition to the cuts it cannot be amended by constitution. Meaning and definition to the constitution. It cannot be amended by congress. We do not likee this president , we do not like this member of congress, we do not like who is in power in congress, we are going to switch it. With the Supreme Court of the united states, we do not have that power, and that is another nuance i think people do not understand. Rights, butt about the Supreme Court has the powers that extend vastly beyond that that impact our individual lives, and understanding how that court works and how it functions in relation to the other two branches i think is very important as a matter of civics to every american. Host the book is called how to read the constitution and why. Kimberly wehle joining us for this conversation. From virginia in pennsylvania, republican line, you are next. Caller hello. Believe wholeheartedly in our constitution. I do not think it should ever be changed. Also, i am disappointed with the Supreme Court decision over the citizen question. On the census. I think everyone in the country should be counted for. And host caller, finish your thought. Caller and i just feel like that decision was very wrong. Host . Ok. Lets hear from bill. Bill is in burke, virginia, independent line. Caller hi, professor. I am glad that you have written this book, because in my cover station with folks, so many people do not understand the constitution because they have never read it. They do not understand the basics. Im going to cite the ninth amendment and ask you a question. Deny commitments as the enumeration and the constitution of certain rights shall be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people, whoprofessor randy barnett, i have met down in georgetown, he has written a book about this. Others have written about it, too. I would like to ask your opinion. It seems like the ninth amendment has been dead for years. It is sort of libertarian language. Do you think the ninth amendment will ever be brought back to life . Because when i mention it to people, they have never heard of it. It is in the bill of rights, and they have never heard of it. I would just like your opinion. Examplehat its a great of not enforcing or not finding meaning in a particular part of the constitution, take out your black sharpie it out, essentially. It is not functioning, it is not doing work anymore. Ninthd reading of the amendment would be that even though there is not a right tomerated, you have a right free speech, you have a right to freedom of religion, a right to freedom from searches and seizures, we have the right to bear arms, all kinds of rights that are enumerated specifically in the constitution, but there are a lot that we do not have. We dont, i mentioned earlier, the right to decide how to educate my children. That is not in the constitution. The court has read that into the constitution under the due process clause, the same way, the rightit read in to abortion. There is no express hook for other rights, that we do not want government coming in telling us how to raise our children or what kind of medication they should have, for example. Ise say the night amendment that provision, listen, this is not exhaustive. You can add rights. The court has said, you know, that is so vague and open, and we do not know how to fill that in, so were not going to try. That is just too broad. We saw this recently with gerrymandering decision, on a different legal basis, but a majority of the court said we do not know how to fix partisan gerrymandering, so we are not even going to try. To answer your question do i think it is going to be resurrected . Not with this particular Supreme Court. I am careful about sort of putting labels on justices either way, because we have seen conservatives join with liberals and liberals join with conservatives, so that political divide i think is not accurate at the Supreme Court level. That being said, i do not see a conservative majority identifying many new rights that are not already established in the law under because of fusion. They are not going to read new rights into the constitution. It is unlikely. If that happens, it would have to happen through the congress, and as i suggested before, congress is not really making new policies very often hear theyre not making new laws, new limits, new big programs. Happened during the civil rights era, the americans with disabilities act, all kinds of violations, that sort of massive social reform, environment of reform, etc. , we have not seen that, and we are not likely to see it in the congress or in the court anytime soon, i do not think. Host from hollywood, florida, democrat line. Tom, hello. Caller hi. Thank you, professor, and god bless you for writing this book. I think it was a great idea. So many people do not understand the constitution. I have also read it and had to read it very closely to try to understand it. And i totally agree with you that we should not think at all about getting rid of the constitution. It would be a mistake of biblical proportions. I think in this climate right now, we would have a constitution in favor of the corporate people instead of the individual, which is not what the framers had in mind. Individual rights would go out the window. I do agree that, yes, some president s, even president obama, skirted the line with the constitution on certain things butdid not tow the line, this particular president has made so many egregious violations of the constitution. Not since Richard Nixon have we seen such blatant disregard for the rule of law, which is ridiculous. But i agree with you. We need the congress and the senate so get back to work and do their job and protect the constitution and follow it, since this president has disregarded it so many times in so many ways. Host that is tom in hollywood, florida. Professor, go ahead. Guest yeah, well and this gets toolbox analogy, filling out the belt and suspenders, if we allow the office of the presidency, say we like this resident, to allow the office of the presidency to expand in its our some of that amount of power goes to the next president. There is no president who sits for more than eight years under our constitution of governance, so if you love this president , you dont have problems that you might have problems with barack obama, you might have problems with donald trump. Donald trump has pushed the boundaries in ways we have not seen before, agreed . And the congress is allowing it. We are not seeing push back. Office of the presidency is getting more and more powerful. That amount of power gets headed to the next president. A democratic president , it could be an independent, we do not know, but presumably there will be at some point in most peoples lifetimes a president they do not like. They do not like her policies, they do not like anything about them, we are allowing that office to get that much larger for the next president. Saw over thejust fourth of july, the american revolutionaries did not, men and women did not fight and die independence from england to have a more powerful presidency. They did it to take back their power over their own government and put it back in the people, and im glad you mentioned the concept of Corporate America. The reason i wrote this book, actually, i started writing a more Academic Book that talked about how when Corporate America does stuff for government, the constitution does not apply at all. So the more we shift our government power into the private sector, that is going outside any limits of the constitution, and then of course we have a lot of money coming into campaigns from Corporate America. That is in part because of the Supreme Courts controversial Citizens United decision that held, essentially, that corporations have First Amendment rights, like you and me. Isause of that, the congress arguably working more for these profitmaking centers than for constituents. Al so it is that merit that the normal desire to expand power, for some people, and no bar pulling back on that power, no ticket on the windshield, right, in this one parking spot, that says it is illegal, they never take it, so you park there every time you go to the coffee shop, because you know you will not get a ticket. The day you get a ticket, you will not park there anymore. Not get aesident does ticket or barack obama does not get a ticket, bill clinton does not get a ticket, that oftefice gets additional power, and i hope that comes across regardless of where we are in political spectrum, because we are, ultimately, americans together. Host lets hear from hannah in california, republican line. Caller good morning. Theve a question about enumerated and implied powers of each of the branches of government, and i was hoping thatyou could elucidate area, because a lot of the decisions that are being made about which branch of government folded these powers seems vague sometimes, and i have one other, that i would like to make, and i would like you to respond to. Day. Ch cspan 18 hours a i watch cspan, because i am sick and tired of hearing everybody elses opinions, similar to the reason why you wrote your book. I want to see with my own eyes what is going on. And when you earned your position, and are as old as i am, you see problems, when you are watching congress, that are horrifying. For example, today, i have to watch cspan to see a congresswoman who ranted and raved on the news media, that no citizen should be allowed to make fun of a congressperson, and she intended to see to it that the people that did that were prosecuted. It occurred to me that this woman had probably never read the constitution or the bill of rights. Host ok, caller, i apologize, we have to leave it there, because you put a lot before that. Professor wehle, go ahead. Guest first, you asked about the enumerated powers. If anyone has watched the crown or anything about england, the monarch, imagine that the constitution is like a job disruption, and the monarch, that is us, we the people, Gave Congress the powers, like with a sceptor. You have the legislative power, judges have the judicial power, or i call them sandboxes. You have to play in your sandbox. We also know that there is some blending of powers that is normal. When iteme courts job, takes these cases, in part, is to make sure that each branch stays in its sandbox, because of it takes over a second sandbox sandbox some of it have tyrannical power. Toone who has been washington, d. C. , you see stone buildings as a department of something, those of the executive branch. They answer to the president , and they make laws, regulations. The Supreme Court says that is ok. That is an example where the president is dipping her toe or his tow into the sandbox, because Congress Gave it away in the statute. Here, agency, make laws for me. Expertise, i have to get reelected, i do not want this political hot potato, whatever the reason. And this gets very thorny and complicated. In the book, i lay out ways of , because the question is so good. Newput your finger on the ones of the constitution. Students in law school will get very frustrated when they do not get an answer. No one will pay you a bunch of money as a lawyer if the answer is on wikipedia. It is hard. The book does what you are suggesting. It walks through the three enumerated powers and explains what the plain language me and some of where the wiggle room is, how to fill in those blanks muscle i am glad you put your finger on that particular question, and i cannot call if there was a second one that you wanted answered or not host chapter five, religion and the First Amendment, chapter seven, guns, and the fourth, fifth, sixth, and a amendment, some of the chapters our guests book. Lets go to martin, new jersey, independent line. Caller good morning. Good morning. Thank you. Guest good morning. Caller i would like your guest to address the previous fact president ,evious obama, went around to the senate and of course Public Schools by threatening to withhold public funds for federal funds and forced the Public Schools to allow men and boys to look into innocent girls school bathrooms, and what resulted was with cell phones, using them not only taking pictures, and appropriately, and in one case, sexually assaulting an innocent sixyearold girl. If that somewhere in the constitution, that these innocent children you caller, what are pointing to specifically, as far as violations of the constitution . Caller well, i am asking your guests, that this has resulted in invasion of privacy. Children have been videoed. Host you make your point. We will let our guest to go ahead. Guest i have to say i do not have particular expertise in the narrative or that reporting or what happened with respect to that. It sounds like a sad state of affairs. But i can talk about the of what theality president s list withhold funding, for example. , the prior caller asked where is the line between what the branches do . Congress withholds to the various agencies, and the constitution under article two said the President Shall take care that the laws are faithfully executed. Shall take care. Some people say the word shall is shall. The president has to execute the law as congress requires it. That is every person who violates the speed limit speed laws are local, but i am using that as an example, gets a ticket. You do not pick and choose who gets a ticket. The counterargument is that that is not realistic. That we do not have the enforcement authority, we do not have enough Police Officers and prosecutors to prosecute everybody. But if the president gets the money and then says, i am not going to do anything with that, there is an argument that the president has refused to take care that the laws are executed, is not enforcing laws. I cannot wait in specifically on president obama, but this is a tool in the president s toolbox. And the question becomes, always, what do you do about that . Obama, george bush, there are criticisms of president ial use of power across both political spectrums. What do you do . There are two options. You use the ballot box that person out of the office. Sometimes that is not very good as a solution because you have to wait for the next president ial election. Two, you Tell Congress to do something about that, and congress as we really mean that this money goes x to president , or we really mean what we said, that sort of highlighting the law does not really do anything, and i think President Trump knows that in particular. He knows that he can do what he wants to do, so long as there is not a consequence. And then the third part is to go o to the courts. In your example, if a child was molested in a school, that child might have a claim in court to get money or an injunction against the school, against, maybe even a levels of the presidency. Hat is a complication question but then you go to the courts. That is healthy threebranch system works. One breast does something wrong, then where does the cop give the branch a speeding ticket . Or theither congress courts. If it is neither, then that branch has more power. It has just expanded its authority, and ultimately the idea is, the framers thought, there will be some bad guy, ultimately, for you, and that power, and acquisition of power, that when you do like massive authority in a way you do not like, and it is too late to put the toothpaste back in that tube. You cannot rewind and say, whoa, we did not mean for the presidency to have that much power. Host on the democrats line, anthony comello. Caller . Hello. Thanks for waiting, and cspan, happy fourth of july. Week idemocrat, and last received an official looking letter, which was the Arizona Republican census form. Now that form, it looked andtical, two pages long, ask questions about how do you feel about the president s policies, etc. , etc. Askeden at the end, it for a political donation and directed you to a website. Now on the census form and the census question, hypothetically if you had a 100story building and you have an elevator that stopped at the 50th floor, and 12 people wanted to get on the elevator, it can only hold 10, and they have to wait and you ofe the actual weight everybody, and you did not give it, but something is going to happen on the elevator. Host so the question for our guest, caller, is what . Question for her is when we do not have the proper representation and resources, we do not know if the census is going to give us that. Host ok, that is anthony and, i it was arizona. Professor wehle, you can address that as you wish. Guest one theme that i think comes out of his question is that has to do with the reliability of information that we get. Think i mentioned this earlier the data, technology, cable shows, all of this has really distorted our understanding of what the law is , what facts are, how to think about these things, what is real, what is not real. I think one of the prior callers mentioned this idea, too, of watching cspan to get some grounding, and i encourage, like i encourage my students, people, do not take my word for it, not take commentator, legal analysts on a tv shows word for it, not taken oped writers word for it, we need to retrain ourselves and go back to source principles and sources. Getconstitution is to call into just read and understand, in part because the Supreme Court has added onto it. So that is the objective of the book, but do not just take my word for it. You can do additional reading. There are all kinds of sources cited in the book. But we just went through the Mueller Investigation for two years. If you want to know what mueller really decided, do not take bill barrs word for it, read the summaries of the report. If you want to know what the russians allegedly or did because most of our intelligence officials believe that, it has not been refuted, in 2016, read the indictment. I think there was one in july in which the agency or, excuse me, greatr lays out in detail. That is happening for 2020. So read it yourself and then make your own conclusions or you take a little more time, but i think this is a skill we all need to get back to, kind of so that we cans, make these decisions ourselves based on actual fact it we have a grounding. This is real. We can debate what to do about it, and whether a president or congress is using power, right or wrong. We unfortunately cannot rely on elected officials even anymore for the accuracy of what is coming out of through the television screen. We need to educate ourselves. Host texas is next, tom, on the republican line. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call, and kimberly, thank you for coming on. I do have a question, and it is to you, kimberly, but before that, my quick comment is trump bashing has become a blood sport in america and the world. Liberal vs. Conservative has become so oversaturated with information, as you said, from 24 7 news cycle. It is very difficult for someone like me, 70 years old, who loves his country i am a veteran i really do love america, and i and moved by the other night, watching the blue angels. My question to you, kimberly, and your constitutional smarts, the way i read the cause, and i am an unusual person. I have letter to letter. The president does have the to put the census question on the 2020 census. What i understand is that judge roberts decided that he did not like the way it was presented, in other words, the reasons, and he kicked it back to lower court, and that is pretty much a delay. I believe we need that question on there. Just it is my viewpoint. I believe if we are going to count, we are going to spend billions of dollars to count, the question needs to be on the and there are underlying reasonsre,. Theywe need to know who are, where they are, and that is a big deal, to decide our future for 10 years. Host ok, that is thomas in texas. We will let our guest respond. Guest thomas, i want to make one point, on reaction to your first point, which is about the polarized nature of our conversation and how unfortunate law,is, most of life, like it is not black and white, it is gray, and we are in black and white camps all the time, team x, team y, whether it is strong or liberal or whatever. I agree completely. That is a very toxic way of muddling through difficult problems. And framers, i think congressman just in a mosh, a congressman from michigan, he quote just let the republican party, he quotes george washington, wh flinches at the notion of a republican party. The constitution does not say anything about political parties. We can have that conversation another day. The fact that it is party versus party versus Country First is a problem, across the board. Itthe citizenship question, is has come of a couple of times, so let me get into it in a little more detail, because it sounds like people want to understand it, and it is an important conversation. The enumeration clause in the cause of vision actually gives Congress Power to conduct the census. And the constitution makes clear it is about head counting, it is about it is not about counting citizens, it is about counting human beings. Spring court that wilbur ross, the secretary of commerce, President Trumps secretary of commerce, did not violate the enumeration clause in wanting to add the citizenship question. So there are two part series are one of the constitution itself is not care about citizenship. Number two, by adding it, it was not a problem with the constitution. The problem with the whole citizenship thing is actually the power goes to congress, Congress Gave it to an agency that answers to the president. The president does not get the power under the constitution to conduct the census. It goes to an agency, and the agency is basically exercising Congress Power. The connection. It is weird, because the agency is actually in the president s chain of command, and some holars, Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court thanks that that is totally unconstitutional. Congress should be doing it. Should not even give it to wilbur ross. But basically what the Supreme Court sai if when an agency makes laws for congress, they have to dot their is and dot their ts. Higher standard, because they cannot be thrown out of office like. Congress can they are in the president s chain of command. That is the part that Justice Roberts said was done improperly, and youre right, they could go back and do it better. But they would not be able to do it in time for this particular census, and the implications are big, for in terms of common members of congress each state gets and how much money from the federal government based on that. But the reason it is important is agencies do all kinds of other things to regulate our lives, to make sure that planes do not crash into each other in the sky, for example, they regulate the environment, they regulate the economy, they do all kinds of things. We do not want agencies having so much power that really belongs to congress that is unchecked, and that is the there. Host from ohio on it up in a line, jim. Caller hi. Call. For taking my the Second Amendment, a role regulated militia being. Ecessary for a free state we are all familiar with the second part. I want to talk about a wellregulated militia. What does wellregulated militia mean . I think it is ambiguous. What does wellregulated mean . It is there for us, we the people, here and now, to decide what will regulate it is. Host ok, jim, we will leave it there for our guest. Guest wellregulated militia, presumably in gifts power to angress to put limits on militia, militia being a Citizens Army that can be pulled together to fight against, you know, england. The revolutionaries did not have an organized army. There was no federal government. They wanted to preserve the ability to do that. Originally, the Supreme Court read the Second Amendment as just protecting that in a case, and the howard case v. District of columbia, the court actually changed its point of view on the reading of the Second Amendment and held that there is a right to bear a handgun and a home for self protection. That is the limit to the Second Amendment based on the last pronouncement from the Supreme Court. Determine as how to what well regulated means, in a famous case, harper reed madison v. Madison way back when, the Supreme Court held, the Supreme Court decided how to breathe because of vision, so that terminology that came up in a , may be adispute government did not regulate a militia, for example, or did in a way that people were unhappy with, that case would have to be filed into a lower court and go all the way to the Supreme Court to get a definition of wellregulated militia. I do not know the answer to that right now. Joseph in neweph, jersey, republican line, hello. Caller hello. I would like to strongly recommend a publication called the Supreme Court, by which w published cspan in 2009, and use excerpts from a number of interviews by brian man anothers, the Supreme Court justices that were sitting at and it is a fascinating insight into how the Supreme Court works, how cases are chosen, etc. It is my understanding that about 8000 cases or 8000 petitions are made each year for theSupreme Court, and of 8000, only about 80 or 90 cases were actually heard. And it is my understanding also that each Supreme Court justice has four clerks that are working for them, and my question is how much influence do those clerks have on the various cases being considered . It is my understanding they do a lot of the work in preparing for cases for the Supreme Court justices to review. Host . Ok. Thank you. Guest everything that you said i did not click on the Supreme Court, so i do not have personal knowledge, but i do know a number of clerks, former clerks on the Supreme Court, and one or more Supreme Court justices. The Supreme Court also has a band of lawyers that work for the Supreme Court as a court that manage some of its business as well. The motion that come in over the summer, for example. I think the relationship i didnt clerk for a federal jude. Judge. A lower clerk in my experience, at least at the lower court level, some judges would ask their. Lerks for insights others would say this is how i wanted to come out, write the opinion. The clerk is very important, because of the clerk is putting pen to paper on behalf of the justice, which happens sometimes , how those words or friend can have a tremendous influence on many, many cases later than that, because, as i said earlier, because there are so few cases that go to the Supreme Court, and because the Supreme Court if the entity, not congress, that upheld what the constitution means, those tea freshest, and lawyers carefully, carefully look at them and try to discern them in the next case and the next phase and the next case. So a clerk is a person that decides a turn of have a tremene going forward. At the Supreme Court level, i should say much more than a lower district port. Most federal judges are well versed in the cases before them. The Supreme Court judges personally understand the ins is outs of what everybody bringing. They understand those issues. The clerks are presumably a very big part in informing the justices. Summarizing the various points of view. That is some tailoring that requires an exercise of judgment. It is the team behind the court that produced the Supreme Court decisions. Is called how to read the constitution and why by gary locke, former commerce secretary and former ambassador to china discusses his role with the coalition and current u. S. Trade policy. Be sure to watch washington journal five at 7 00 eastern monday morning. Join the discussion. Look at what is live monday on the cspan net works. A forum on economic and financial sanctions on north korea hosted by the u. S. Institute of speech of peace. Pompeory of state mike and National Security advisor john bolton. Cspan2 is live for remarks by Vice President pence. The sentence gavels in at 3 00 p. M. At 9 30 am, a review of mexican the mexican president S Administration and of forum on how terrorist groups and criminal organizations abuse their access to the u. S. Surveys taken between 2000 and 2017, Andrew Jackson dropped from 13 to 18th place. Dwight eisenhower rises from the ninth two the fifth spot. Where does your favorite president rank . Learn about the lives and leadership leadership skills of 34 president s. Its great vacation reading. Available wherever books or sold or at www. Cspan. Org