Average lay person . Its important to read it because we see almost everyday issues of massive constitutional importance in the headline news, the presidency and congress. We have calls for concern over the constitution. As an educator i thought it was important to produce a book accessible by regular people to educate how the constitution functions as well as their constitutional right and get on that bike and ride it themselves, make their own decisions how things are going on in this country. Thats the why part. Many constitutional scholars including myself are worried about the democracy and public and whether it can sustain the body blows sustained by the separation of powers right now. If people care about having their individual liberties Going Forward and educating themselves for the sake of their children and grandchildren, what to do at this moment, if anything, make your own decision, thats the why part. You write today, the constitution is at risk of becoming sort of an antijaywalking law something that can be ignored or violated with no consequences. Its vitality is eroding under our no, sir but few people realize because few people know what the constitution does and says. Can you expand on that . There are two parts of the constitution, the separation of powers, we hear about it, the three branches of government. Its not actually in the constitution, the words, separation of powers. And the bill of rights. I taught law students for 13 years. Over the years i found there is nothing too basic or simple that isnt worth breaking down tore them. For them. They need instruction how is a law different from a law created by the Supreme Court. These kind of core concepts, my students benefit from them. The book is sort of a first year law class. It breaks that down in common sense language. You mentioned the jaywalking law. What people dont understand, the constitution is like a contract to renovate your kitchen. If the contractor walks off on the job with your 10,000 deposit after demoing your kitchen the piece of paper itself isnt going to get your money back. You have to enforce it by going to court. Its expensive and difficult and takes blood, sweat and tears even. Thats the same with the constitution. If this president or the next president or last president bulldozes over some limits set forth for our government, the same for congress, if that happens, all of a sudden that limit no longer exists and goes in the toolbox for the next president who may not be who you want. You may not like our current president or the next president. We are at risk of having a president thats a bully with too much power when we care and when we care it may be too late to take it out. Professor whaley, spell out what the constitution says about powers a president has. It has vesting clauss. It gives congress the power to make laws. Gives congress the power to execute those laws. It doesnt define the word, execution. I tell them to think of a prosecutor or Police Officer. The Police Officer doesnt decide what the speed limit is and hands it off to the prosecutor. Its a lot faster these days, you get something in the mail. The prosecutor doesnt make the laws, enforces the laws. Under our system now the president does a lot of law making anyway. Weve heard about executive orders. Thats not in the constitution. It has been tolerated, and thats essentially the power of congress. We have heard about administrator of bureaucracy, too much regulation. This is a fight we just saw by the Supreme Court about the Citizenship Question. It wasnt about president ial power, per se, agency power. Congress has the authority to set forth the limits what goes in the census form, under the constitution and empowered with implementing the ennumeration law. Congress handed off the baton to the department of commerce and said, you fill in the blanks for us and make regulations for us. Commerce did. Thats the part the courts struck down. It is complicated and theoretical under administrative law. Its front and center in our headlines people feel strongly about and people dont really understand. The other thing thats happened in 20 or 30 years, social media, massive amounts of technology and we have all kinds of social media coming at us. When i was a kid we had a few channels and newspapers. We know from the Mueller Investigation, 2016 attack on our electoral process, other war and powers, in this instance, russia, are interested planting misinformation in our inboxs. My objective with the book is encourage people to go back to the basics. T it breaks down the language of the constitution, not an easy read but for those who want to know the baseline and rely on their own knowledge and not have to rely is this real or not real in a world its becoming increasingly blurred. Our guest teaches law. Call the numbers if you want to talk to us. The constitution is a living or static document, where do you fall on that kind of duality . I fall its a false dichotomy, not a real debate. The constitution is really old, 230 years old. By definition leaves a lot of definitions undefined. If we had everything spelled out, it would be like the tax code, volumes and volumes. By definition, conservative justices and more progressive and liberal justices have to fill in the blanks. Define what is unreasonable search and seizure. The word unreasonable is not defined in the constitution. I introduced this concept with a poem and talk about different ways interpreting the poem if we remember it in high school or college. And explain what you think the meaning of the poem is, what youre going through in life at that moment. Judges are the same way and look at common sense and say this is an obvious reading of the constitution. Thats a fallacy in part, with 54 decisions, which means theres a different way of reading it. Whats the meaning . More progressives may say we look to the goelals of the constitution. More conservative justices might say we look to what the framers of the time of the constitution in the late 18th century, believe that particular term would mean when youre talking about a thermal imaging machine for marijuana inside a house, Justice Scalia decided that was a search, for example, were determining what the framers could have reasonably anticipated in the 18th century and going to other sources to determine the meaning. We can debate which of those sources are better for resolving ambiguity. But living out of the box constitutional way is a fallacy and one most americans dont understand. Its not their fault. Its framed that way and i dont think thats accurate. Lets hear from viewers. Eric, from seattle, washington, democrats line. Kimberly wehle. Thank you. Caller the constitution is obsolete from the very beginning of it. It is a failed document basically white manifesto document. By that, what i mean is this, you can look at the constitution from either polar end of it. No one is right and no one is wrong. All that matters is the interpretation of the judge and if you go to the Supreme Court, the number of judges. We have judges 54, one believe this, one believe that. No one is right or wrong. Its left up to interpretation, fatalist law document left up to itself for the arbitrary capricious decisions. It should be rewritten because black people were slaves. I would like you to address is this, no one is right or wrong, slavery was justified under the constitution, anything was justified and no one is right or wrong. We leave it here and let our guest respond. Go ahead. You make a good point and scholars make a good point, the constitution was written by white gentried male landowners. It not only excluded africanamericans and slave people, an entire category, women. That is a critique of the constitution. I happen to believe its worked this far and the best that we have. Why i think its important because if its enforced, it does create a boss for our elected leaders. The design of the constitution of course, the constitution has been amended many times to adjust for inherent problems in it, like you identified, by excluding for example and authorizing enslavement of africanamericans. The document itself has been amended to address these problems over the years. Today, it is designed, as it was originally, to insure ultimately, that the individual citizen, the individual voter is empowered to govern themselves. Remember, the framers of the constitution, the revolutionary war we just celebrated the fourth of july was about not having a monarch or government that had so much power in the king that the king could snap his fingers and arbitrarily throw someone in jail. We get this wrong in country sometimes. We throw people in jail that dont belong in jail. The system is set up to limit that kind of arbitrary power. We have a due process clause and rules to limit their power. As a nation, we respect those institutions. If we allow judges orders, and weve seen this in the last few years, judges orders to be flaunted or seen as not real and attacking legitimate opposing points of view, that destabilizes the whole system. I wanted to suggest, pick up your point on a new constitution, there are two ways of amending the constitution, one through an amendment and the other to have a brand new constitution which is what the caller is thinking about. The last time we looked at our current constitution that was calls to amend the document in place prior. It was supposed to be an amendment constitution. They chucked that out and started from scratch. My concern this is addressed in the last part of the book. We are a few states away from calling a new constitutional convention. My concern is in this polarized, i think environment. Environment really lacking in compassion and core values in a lot of ways, the document we could end up with will look nothing like what we have and we will roll back a tremendous amount of protections that are in the current document. If you start from scratch, we dont even know what we would get, even the late Justice Scalia an icon of conservative thoughts 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 have to understand it doesnt mean anything if we bulldoze over it. If we dont enforce it, it wont help ourselves. I call it the constitution cop at the end of the block. We dont have someone at the end of the driveway to make sure the constitution is enforced. We have to do that. Bill, go ahead. Caller i was recently reviewing part of the constitution. I ran into, i think it was article i section 10. Part of that addressed the issue of compacts between states. Im familiar with state compacts on traffic regulations. Im wondering, i believe those were authorized by congress but according to that sections i believe it is congress has to authorize any compacts and i dont think congress has legalized the compacts about electoral colleges. You know anything about that, professor . Not that particular one, i would have to do research on that. You raise an excellent point about congress. Congress does have the power to make laws, including power to tax and declare war for example. The power to appropriate, the power to allow a president to accept emoluments or gifts. Congress has fallen downty in the past few years. It is not doing its job anymore in the way the constitution envisioned that it would do, and the framers envisioned it would do its job in a bipartisan way, where we dont know the answer, lets get together and figure out the problem. We have a problem on the table. Lets come up with options and think through what the best outcome is going to be. We have been through this in our own lives at home or work. You get good people together and come up with a good solution. That policy making and core function is not really happening anymore because were so polarized. Something predetermined and a yes or no vote. The other piece, you mentioned states rights. Federalism is another important thats a big word but states having their independent rights to make their own laws, to function as independent states. Thats another check on government power. The framers were worried about having a federal government that was so powerful, individual liberties, my right to walk down the street and raise my children the way i want, take for granted, to go from one state to another that would fall apart if government got too big and powerful because its human nature to am mass power. Ray, from the independent line. Caller great discussion. Id be interesting reading that book. I would like to mention the next caller before this past one, spoke about ashby stairriness ar arbitrariness. If you read the part about separation you cannot separate those two. The reason is to keep us from killing each other, not meant to satisfy everybody. It needs to be a political solution in pretty much every sense. Thats why we go back and forth from the left to the right and to the middle and back and forth. Its ultimately so we do not kill each other. One more thing, the author seems to come from one position. She picked the Current Issues of the day basically that trump is usurping the congress and thats a political argument. The should have started with somebody on the other side also. This usurping didnt start with trump. Its happened in every presidency, of course, barack obama ignored the constitution in so many ways. Okay. Well let our guest respond to all those things. I certainly didnt mean to pick a side. The book does not pick a side. Im not interested in picking a side. I agree with you, prior president s, barack obama, 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 been a problem with Congress Also not protecting its prerogative to insure it maintains its own powers and that it insures the other branches dont step outside their boundaries. We just we are living in a world today we have a certain president and those issues have become front and center, more, i think, than ever before, not entirely because of donald trump. Its not an antitrump book or pro trump book. Pro rule of law book. I dont talk about in particular to keep people from killing each other. The idea behind the constitution is put the power back in the people with limits on it, with some rules. Some rules of the game. The rules have to be implemented fairly. Ill use the analogy, im a mother, you go to your kids baseball game. If your kid loses and you dont like how the balls and strikes were called but done fairly pursuant to a rule book enforced, okay, you go home and take your kid out for a burger and go on with your life. If you feel the rules were changed where the other side had an unfair advantage, you get angry. I think thats where we are right now in a lot of ways. The system is set up to protect people, regardless of political stripe. The book is not a red versus blue book, really, a right versus wrong book how to think about our limited government to insure our individual rights are protected across any presidency or congress, not just this particular congress. Professor, you write the text of the First Amendment thus outlines two major areas that Congress Must steer clear of religion and speech. Congress cant even hamper speech or the press. It goes on from there. Talk about the issues of free speech. We hear this a lot particularly in connection with the amendment. What does it say and not say . Theres two big parts of the amendment, religion and speech. Back to the other point, is there a plain reading . The law under the First Amendment is extremely layered and complicated. Because the Supreme Court has set up many tests, depends on the kind of speech, depends who is speaking and who is limiting the speech. The primary thing to keep in mind is that the framers believed if the government limits your speech pretty soon the government limits how you think. If youre limited how you speak, you start thinking in ways consistent with the way the political winds say you should speak and then it affects your thinking. That is a primary infringement on individual liberties. The other thing to remember about the First Amendment, its about government limiting individuals ability to speak, not the other way around. We hear about First Amendment rights of governmental employees. They have limited capacity because they have the power and worries of individuals having power over their own selfgovernment. Religion, theres some debate as to how to read that. Does the limits on the governments ability to infringe on religion extend to beyond just establishing, for example, a National Religion . That would be offlimits but how much entanglement . That is something that continues to be hashed out. As the prior caller mentioned, that is subjective. The people on the Supreme Court of the United States, like it or not, function like mini legislators. They are judges what they do is read between the lines of the constitution. The constitution cannot be amended by congress. It has to go through a laborious process. When the Supreme Court reads about the constitution its as set in stone as american law. The folks elected cannot decide we dont like this president , we want a different president. We dont like this member of congress or whos in power in congress, we will switch it. With the Supreme Court of the United States, we dont have that power. Its something we dont understand. We talk a lot about abortion rights at the Supreme Court level an important issue on both sides. The Supreme Court has powers that extend vastly beyond that, that affect our individual lives and its extremely important as a matter of core civics for every american. The book is how to read the constitution virginia, republican line, youre next. Caller hello. I believe wholeheartedly in our constitution. I dont 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. And caller, finish your thought. Caller and i just feel that that decision was very wrong. Okay. Lets hear from bill. Bill is in burke, virginia, independent line. Hi. Caller hi, professor, im glad to hear youve written this book because in my discussions with folks so Many Americans dont understand the constitution because theyve never read it and dont understand the basics. I will cite the ninth amendment and ask you a question. The ninth amendment for our viewers says the enumeration in the constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. Professor Randy Barnett who you probably have met down at georgetown has written a book about this and others, too. I would like to ask your opinion. It seems like the ninth amendment has been dead for over 100 years, sort of libertarian language. I would like your opinion. Do you think the ninth amendment will ever be brought back alive. When i mention it to other people theyve never heard of it. Its in the bill of rights. Id like your opinion. Thats a great example of not enforcing or not finding meaning in a particular part of the constitution, take out your black sharpie and cross it out, its not functioning or doing work anymore. A broad reading of the ninth amendment would be even though theres not a right enumerated, a right to free speech, a right of freedom of religion, a right to freedom from searches and seizures and a lot enumerated in the constitution. Theres a lot we dont have. I mentioned the right to decide how to educate my own children. Thats not in the constitution. The court has read that into the constitution under the due process laws the same way it read in a right to abortion. Theres no express hook for a lot of these other rights. We certainly dont want government coming and telling us how to raise our children or what kind of medication theyre allowed to have for example. Some believe the ninth amendment is that provision. It doesnt mean its exhausted, you can add rights. The problem, as the court mentioned, that is so vague and open and wiggly, we dont know how to fill that in so were not going to try. Its too broad. We saw this recently with the gerrymandering decision, the Supreme Court said we dont know how to fix partisan gerrymandering so we woercht even try. To answer your question, do i think it will be best record . Not with this particular Supreme Court. Im careful about putting labels on justices either way. We have seen in this particular term conservatives join with liberals and liberals join with conservatives. That particular divide is not accurate at the Supreme Court level. I dont see a conservative majority identifying many new rights that arent already established in the new law under the constitution. Theyre not going to read new rights into the constitution. If that happens it would have to happen through the congress. As i suggested before, congress isnt making new policy very often. Theyre not making new rights and laws and limits and new programs. A lot happened in the civil rights era, civil rights act, disabilities act, all sorts of legislation, that sort of massive reform, social reform, environmental reform, were not likely to see it in the congress or court any time soon, i dont think. From hollywood, florida, democrats line, hello. Hi. Thank you, professor. God bless you for writing this book. I think its a great idea. So many people dont understand the constitution. I have also read it and had to read it very closely to try to understand it. I totally agree with you, 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, yes, some president s, even president obama skirted the line with the constitution on certain things and didnt 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 to get back to work and do their jobs and protect the constitution and follow it, since this president has disregarded it so many times in so many ways. Thats tom in hollywood, florida. Professor, go ahead. Yeah. Well, this gets back to my tool backs analogy, filling out the belt and suspenders, if we allow the office of the presidency say we like this president , you allow the office of the presidency to expand in its powers, that amount of power goes to the next president. Theres no president who sits more than eight years under our constitutional system of government. If you love this president , you dont have problems, you might have problems with barack obama and donald trump. The idea is donald trump has pushed the boundaries in ways we have never seen before historically, and the congress is allowing it. Were not seeing pushback. That office of the presidency is getting more and more powerful. That amount of power gets handed to the next president. It could be a republican president , it could be donald trump, it could be a democratic president , it could be an independent. We dont know. Presumably, there will be, at some point in peoples lifetime, a president they dont like. They dont like their policies or anything about them, we are allowing that office to get that much larger or the next president. We just celebrated fourth of july. The american revolutionaries, men and women did not fight and die for independence from england to have a more powerful presidency. Did it to take back power over their own government and put it back in the people. Im glad you mention the concept of Corporate America. The reason i wrote this book i started writing a more Academic Book. I have a contract for a very Academic Book talking about how when Corporate America does stuff for government the constitution doesnt apply at all. The more we shift government power to 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. And thats in part because of the Supreme Courts controversial Citizens United which held that corporations which are legal fixes have First Amendment rights like you and me. Because of that the congress is arguably working more for these profit making centers than for their individual constituents. So its that marriage of the normal desire to expand power for some people. And you know, no boss pulling back on that power. No ticket on the windshield, right, in the one parking spot that says its illegal they never ticket so you park there every time. Gou for the coffee shop because you know you never get a ticket. The day you get the ticket you dont park there anywhere. If this president doesnt get a ticket or bill clinton or president obama doesnt get a ticket. They get the power. Thats the message i hope to some degree comes across regardless where we are in the political spectrum. We are americans together. And i dont think anyone wants a government that with o can bully us or our children. Lets hear from hannah, republican line. Good morning, i have a question about the enumerated and implied powers of each of the brafrms of government. I was hoping you could ee lose date that area. Because a lot of the decisions made about which branch of government, especially congress or the president , hold these powers is seems vague sometimes. And i have one other comment lied id like to make and id like you to respond to. I watch cspan 18 hours day. I watch cspan because im sick and tired of be hearing everybodys elses opinions similar to the reason you wrote your book. I want to see it with my own eyes whats going on. When you are in a position to watch this all day long, as i am, you see things when you watch congress that are horrifying. For example, today dsh and you have to watch cspan to see this. There was a congresswoman ranting and arrived on the needs media that no citizen smub allowed to make fun of a congress person. And she intended to see to it the people that did that were prosecuted. It occurred to me this woman had probably never read the constitution or the bill of rights. Okay, caller, i apologize well have to leave there because you put a lot before that. But professor wehle, go ahead. Yeah, well, first you asked about the enumeration the enumerated powers i like to think if anyone has watched the crown for anything about the crown or a anything about a month arc. Imagine the constitution is a Job Description and we the people Gave Congress certain powers. You have the legislative power. President has the executive power. Judges have the judicial power i call them sand boxes they have to play in their sand box. We also know there is some blending of powers. Thats just normal. But what the Supreme Courts job when it takes the cases in part to make sure that each branch stays in their sand box because if they take over a second sand box or third sand box then we have tyronnyicle power. If anybody has been to washington, d. C. And you drive around washington and you see the big stone buildings Say Department of something, those are all within the executive branch. Those all answer to the president. And they make laws. We call them regulation. Regulations. The Supreme Court said thats okay. Thats an example where the. Is dipping his toe or her toe in the sand box of congress. Taking some of that power. Because Congress Gave it away in the statute. Here agency, make laws for me. You have more expertise. I have to i have to get reelected. I dont want this political hot potato whatever the reason thats an example. And this gets very thorny and complicated. In the book i lay out ways of thinking about i mean the question is so good because it puts your finger on how nuanced the constitution really is. Its not black and white. People want it black and white. My students in law school get very frustrated when they dont get an answer. And i say nobody is paying you a bunch of money if the answer is on wikipedia. The the books walks through the three enumerated powers and explains the language mean. Where the wiggle room is and how to fill in the blanks. Im glad you put your finger on that particular question. I cant recall if there was a second one you wanted answer. Chapter five speech religion and the chapter 7 crime and the fourth, fifth a and sixth and eighth amendments. Some of the chapter titles from our guests book. She is on to talk about the for the next 20 minutes or so. Lets go to mark in new jersey, independent line. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you. Good morning. Liked your guest to address the fact that our previous president obama went around the congress and the senate and forced Public Schools by threatening to withhold federal funds and forced the Public Schools to allow men and boys to walk into innocent girls School Bathrooms and what resulted was males with cell phones not only using them by taking pictures, inairportly and in one case sexually assaulting an innocent 6yearold girl . Is that somewhere in the constitution that the children have rights. What are pointing to you to specifically as the vials of the constitution. Im asking your guest, the fact is this has resulted in invasion of privacy. Children have been videoed. You made those points and well let our guest go ahead. So i have to say, i dont have particular expertise in that that that narrative or that reporting or what happened with respect to that what sounds like a sad state of affairs. But i can talk about the constitutionality of when a president decides to withhold funding for example. The provider caller asked where is the lines between what the various branchs do . Congress appropriates money to the presidency, the various agencies. And the constitution under article ii says the President Shall take care that the laws are faithfully executed, shall take care. Some people say the words shall is shall. That is the president has to execute the law as congress requires it. That is every person who violates the speed limit i mean the speed laws are local but i use that a example gets a ticket. You dont pick and choose who gets tickets. The counterargument is thats not realistic. That the we dont have the enforcement authority. We dont have enough Police Officers and prosecutors to prosecute everybody. But if the president gets the money and then says, im 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 the laws. I cant weigh in effectively on president obama. But this is a tool in the president s tool woks o box, okay. Then the question becomes always, what do you do about that . Whether its obama, clinton, george bush . There are criticisms of president ial use of power across the political spectrums. What do you do . There are two pgs options. You use the ballot box and take that person out of post office. Sometimes thats not a god solution because you have to wait for the next president ial election. Two, you Tell Congress to do something about it. But in this instance its like what does Congress Pass a law we really mean this money goes to x, president or mean what we said. Thats sort of highlighting the prior law doesnt 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 you go so court. In your circumstance if a child was molested in a school, that child might have a claim in court going money or injunction against the school, against maybe even at the levels of the presidency. Thats a complicated legal question. But then you go to the courts. So thats how the three Branch System works. One branch does something wrng. The first question we ask where is the cop to give that branch a speeding ticket . Its either congress or a court. If its neither, then then that branch has more power. Its just expanded its authority. And ultimately the idea is the framers thought there will be some bad guy ultimately for you in that power wsh in that position of power that will utilize that massive authority in a which you dont like. Its too late to put the tooth pace back in that tube. You cant rewind and say we didnt mean for the president to have that much power. Exacts line antingly, hello. Good morning, hello, and cspan happy fourth of july. Id like to make the professor wore im a affect and within the last week i received an official looking letter which was the Arizona Republican census form. Now that form i filled out census forms before. It looked identical, two pages, long sheet, front and back and then it asked questions about how do you feel about the president s policy, et cetera, et cetera. And they at the end it asked for a political donation and directed you to a website. Now, additionally on the census form and the census question, hypothetically if you had a 100 Story Building and you had an elevator stop at the 50th floor and 12 people wanted to get on the elevator could only hold ten and it had a weight limit and you asked the actual weight of everybody, then if they didnt give it, then something is going to happen on that elevator. So the question for our guest caller is what. The question for her is, when we dont have the proper representation and resources we dont know if the census is going to give us that so. Thats anthony i think it was arizona. Professor wehle, you can address that as you wish. Yeah, well what i one theme i think that comes out of his question is it has to do with the reliability of information that we get. I think i mentioned this earlier, big data, technology, 24 7 cable shows, all of this has really distorted our understanding of whats what the law is, what facts are, how to think about these things, whats real, whats not real. I think the prior 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 to not take my word for it, not take commentator legal analyst on a tv show word for it not take an oped writers word for it. We need to retrain ourselves to go back to First Principles and sources. The constitution is too complicated to just read and understand in part because the Supreme Court has added on to it through a lot of cases. Thats the objective of the book but dont take my word for it. You could do Additional Reading there is all kinds of sources cited in the book. But i say we just went threw this Mueller Investigation for two years. If you want to know what mueller really decided, dont take bill barrs word for it. Read the summaries of the report. If you want to know what the russians allegedly or did i say did because most of our intelligence officials believe that and it hasnt been refuted in 2016, read the indictments against the russians. There was one in i think february and one in july in which the agency are excuse me mueller lays out in great detail. I mean thats happening probably for 2020. Read it yourself. And then make your own conclusions. It takes a little more time. But i think this is a skill we all need to get back to, kind of First Principles so that we can make decisions ourselves based on the actual facts. We have a grounding. This is real, this is we can debate what to do about it and whether a president or congress suesing power right or wrong. But we unfortunately cannot rely on elected officials even anymore for the accuracy of whats coming out of through the television skroens. We need to educate ourselves. Texas is next. Thomas on our republican ryan. Good morning. Thank you for taking myocall 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 book a blood sport in america in the world. Liberal versus conservative has become so oversaturated with information, as you said from 24 7 news cycle. Its very difficult for someone like me, 70 years old, who loves this country im a veteran. I really do love america. And i was awed and moved the other night watching the blue angels. My question to you, kimberly and your constitutional smarts. The way i read the constitution. Im an unusual person. I have read it letter to letter. The president does have the right to put the census question on the 2020 census. What i understand is judge roberts decided that he didnt like the way it was presented, in other words the reasons. And he kicked it back to the lower court. And thats pretty much a delay. I believe we need that question on there, just its my viewpoint. I believe if were going to count were going to spend billions of dollars to count, that the question needs to be on there. Then there is underlying reasons. Yes, we need to know who they are, who we are, and thats a big deal. It would decide our future for ten years. Okay. Thats thomas in boone, texas. Well let the guest respond. Okay. So thomas i wanted to make one point on your first reaction to your first point which was about the polarized nature of our conversation and how unfortunate that is. Most of life like law most of law is not plaque and white. Its gray. And were in black and white camps all the time, team x, team y. Whether its trump or liberal whatever. I agree with you ketly. Thats a very, very toxic way of noodling through difficult problems. And the framers i think justin amash. Congressman who of michigan who left the republican party. He wrote a piece for the washington pds on the fourth which quotes he quotes George Washington how jornl washington mentions, you know, kind of sort of flifrmgs at the notion of fliktle parties. The constitution says nothing about enacts and republicans. That wasnt part of the plan. We can have another conversation around that another day. The fact that its party, party versus party versus you know Country First is a problem across the board. On the Citizenship Question and in has come up a couple of times. Let me get flew it a little more detail. Because it sounds like people want to understand it. It sounds like of an important question. The ee nurmgs clause in the question actually gives congress the power to to conduct the census. And it the constitution makes clear its about head counting. Its not about counting citizens. Its about counting human beings. The Supreme Court held that wilbur ross, the secretary of commerce, President Trumps secretary commerce did not violate of enumeration includes in wanting to ask the Citizenship Question. There is two parts. The constitution doesnt care about citizenship. Number two by adding it it wasnt a problem with the constitution. The problem with what what the whole citizenship thing is actually the power goes to congress. Congress gave it to an agency. That answers to the president. And the president does to it get the power under the constitution to conduct the census. It goes to an agency. And the agency is basically exercising congresss power, its thats the connection. Its just kind of its weird because the agency actually is in the president s chain of command. And some scholars Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court think that thats totally unconstitutional. Congress should be doing this is the argument shouldnt even give it to wilbur ross. But basically what the the kwort said is under the other statute called the administrative procedure act. When an agency makes laws for congress, they have to cross their dot their is appear cross thir ts there is a higher stad because they cant be thrown out of office Like Congress can. Theyre in the president s chain of command. Thats the part that Justice Roberts said was done improperly. And youre right, that next time they can go back and do it better. But they wont be able to do it in time for the particular census. And the implications are big for in terms of how many members of congress each state gets and how much money they get from the federal government based on that. But the reason thats important is that agencies do all kinds of other things to regulate our lives. You know, to make sure that planes dont crash into each oerp in the sky for example. You know, the they regulate the environment, regulate the economy. Do all kinds of things. We dont want agencies having so much power that that is really belongs to congress thats unchecked. And thats the linkage there. From ohio, independent line, jim, hi. Hi. Good morning thanks for taking my call. I want to start a conversation about the Second Amendment, a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged. Were all familiar with the second part. I want to talk about a well regulated militia. What does wellregulated militia mean . I think it was there its ambiguous what does wellregulated mean. Its therefore for us we the people here and now to decide what wellregulated is, do i. Jim apologies. Leave there for our guest. Yeah, so wellregulated militia presumably gives the power to congress to put limits on militia. A militia being a Citizens Army that can be pulled together to fight against, you know, england. We didnt have the revolutionaries did not have an organized army. There was no federal government. They wanted to preserve the ability to do that. And originally the Supreme Court read the Second Amendment as just protecting that in a case in the heller case versus 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 in a home for selfprotection. Thats the limits of the Second Amendment based on the last pronouncement from the Supreme Court. But as far as how to determine what regulated well regulated means in a famous case mar berry versus madison way back with when. The court held the Supreme Court decides how to read the constitution. So that terminology if it came up if a case in a dispute, maybe dsh maybe a government didnt regulate a militia for example or maybe did in a way people are unhappy with. That case would have to be filed into a lower court and go to the Supreme Court to get a definition of what well regulated militia. Ip havent studied that. Its possible the court weighed in on that i dont know the answer right now. From joseph, joseph in new jersey, republican line, hello. Hello. Yes, first, id like to strongly recommend a publication called the Supreme Court publish by cspan i think in 2009. And its excerpts from a number of interviews by brian lam and others with each of those Supreme Court justices sitting at that point. And its a fascinating, fascinating insight into the how the Supreme Court works, how cases are chosen, et cetera, et cetera. Its my understanding that about 8,000 cases or 8,000 petitions are made each year to the Supreme Court. And of that 8,000 only about 80 or 90 cases are actually heard. Its my understanding also that each Supreme Court justice has four four clerks that are working for him. And my question is, how much influence and how much how much influence do those clerks have on the various cases that are being considered . Its my understanding they do a lot of the work in preparing preparing the cases for the Supreme Court justice to review. Okay. Thank you. So, i think everything that youve said i did not clerk on the Supreme Court. So i dont have personal knowledge of how that works. 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 motions that come in over the summer for example. I think the relationship i did krerk for a federal court judge, a lower court judge, the relationship between the clerks and the judge or justice is very personal. At least at the lower court level. Some judges would actually ask clerks for insight and their thoughts and views how to come out on a case. Other judges might say, this is how i want it to km out. Write the opinion, for example. And i cant speak on the Supreme Court. But at either extreme the clerks are really important, because if the clerk is putting pen to paper on behalf of the justice, which happens sometimes, how those words are framed can have a tremendous influence on many, many cases later than that because as i said earlier, because there are so few case that is go to the Supreme Court and because the Supreme Court is the entity, not congress, that tells us what the constitution means, when a court issues a decision in one case those tea leaves become precious and lawyers sort of like carefully, carefully look at them and tri to discern them. In the next case and next case and next case. If a clerk is the person that decides a turn of phrase that can have a tremendous influence Going Forward. At the Supreme Court level wsh i should say much more than the district court, the trial court level, most federal judges are very, very well versed in the cases before them. But the Supreme Court justices personally understand before they sit down at oral argument the ins and outs of all of what everybody is bringing before the various parties. They understand those issues cold. The clerks are a presumably a big part in informing the justices. They might do a bench memo summarizing the points of view. Thats some tailors that exercise of judgment. Its a team behind the court not just the individual justices that produce what we know a Supreme Court decision. Announcer the book includes the complete text of the United States us discussion hop to you read the constitution by professor kim wehle and why. Thanks for being with us this morning. Thanks for having me. It was great. A a number of House Democratic freshman women will talk about the political process and their experiences on capitol hill. Hosted by the bipartisan policy center, our live coverage begins at 6 45 p eastern on cspan3. On friday the house plans to debate extending the 9 11 Victim Compensation fund, created to provide Financial Support to people suffering from serious medical issues as a result of the 2001 terrorist attacks. The house is in at 9 00 a. M. Eastern live on cspan. And tuesday, the house will vote and a resolution citing attorney general william barr and commerce secretary wilbur ross for contempt concerning the 2020 census. A reminder, you can follow our coverage online at cspan. Org and with the free cspan radio app. This month marks the 50th anniversary of apollo 11, mans first landing on the moon opinion thes news space sfri on spaps sfloergs finds that Neil Armstrong and buzz aldoctrine still have widespread name recognition. Also nearly 60 of 18 to 34 ylds have watched the 1969 luna or landing. The number increases with each generation. To 90 among those over 65. Nasa itself also continuing to be popular among americans with a. 77 approval rating. Over ten times those who dont see nasa favorably. Well discuss the survey tomorrow morning pat 7 00 a. M. Eastern on cspans washington journal with cliff young, president of ispos public affairs. And be sure to read the complete results of the survey on Space Exploration now online at cspan. Org. Pifrmgts there has been discussion about and appearance before congress. Any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report. It contains our findings and analysis and the reasons for the decisions we made. We chose those words carefully, and the work speaks for itself. And the report is my testimony. I would not provide information beyond that which is already public in any appearance before congress. Former special Counsel Robert Mueller is set to appear before two committees of congress on wednesday, july 17th, at 9 00 a. M. Eastern he gives testimony to the house judiciary committee. And later in the day he will take questions from the house intelligence committee. Both open sessions. Our coverage of Robert Muellers congressional testimony will be live on cspan3. Online at cspan. Org or listen with the free radio app if youd like to hear the complete report volume one aires on friday and saturday at 7 00 p. M. Eastern. And volume 2 will air monday and tuesday, also at 7 00 p. M. Eastern. Former Trump Administration National Security advisers h. R. Mcmaster joined this Hoover Institution discussion at Stanford University on threats to free and open societies. This is about 90 minutes. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is tom ilagan im the director of the Hoover Institution. I want to welcome you to this fourth session of our krentel Speaker Series entitle add century of ideas for a free society. This Series Features 11 Panel Discussions over the course of the year to showcase the scholarship and Research Central to the
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