On October 4, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in Merrill v. Milligan, a case about Alabama's racially gerrymandered congressional map. The question looming over this case is whether the Supreme Court will destroy what remains of the Voting Rights Act. Lindsay Langholz speaks with Bradley Heard from the Southern Poverty Law Center about the case, take aways from the oral argument, and what to expect when the Court hands down its decision next year.
Episode Host: Lindsay Langholz, Senior Director of Policy and Program
Episode Guest: Bradley Heard, Deputy Legal Director, SPLC's Voting Rights Practice Group
Links:
Email the Show: Podcast@ACSLaw.org
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The Supreme Court started its new term on October 3rd, and we are bracing for more cases where the Court could ignore precedent and judicial restraint, and eliminate safeguards to our civil rights and to our democracy. We preview several of the cases on the Court's docket and discuss their potential ramifications. These cases cover voting rights and gerrymandering, affirmative action, the death penalty, LGBTQ+ rights, and more.
Episode Host: Jeanne Hruska, Sr. Advisor for Communications and Strategy
Episode Guest: Christopher Wright Durocher, Vice President of Policy and Program
Episode Guest: Lindsay Langholz, Senior Director of Policy and Program
Links:
Email the Show: Podcast@ACSLaw.org
Technical production provided by Flint Stone Media
In America, it is a fantasy to believe that people accused of a crime will have their case decided by a jury of their peers. The reality is that most convictions are achieved through plea bargains controlled by prosecutors. Is there a way to unwind this broken system of fast-tracked convictions? Christopher Wright Durocher speaks with Dan Canon, author of the book Pleading Out: How Plea Bargaining Creates a Permanent Criminal Class, about the unjust practice of plea bargaining and how we fix it.
Episode Host: Christopher Wright Durocher, Vice President of Policy and Program
Episode Guest: Dan Canon, Author of "Pleading Out"
Links:
Email the Show: Podcast@ACSLaw.org
Technical production provided by Flint Stone Media
On this episode, Jeanne Hruska is joined by the co-authors of the new book, "The Constitution in Jeopardy," Russ Feingold and Peter Prindiville to discuss a dangerous effort by factions of the Right to radically rewrite the U.S. Constitution. Russ and Peter explain why more attention needs to be paid to this effort and why we need a "new kind of Constitutional politics" in this country.
Episode Host: Jeanne Hruska, ACS Sr Advisor for Communications and Strategy
Episode Guest: Russ Feingold, ACS President and co-author of "The Constitution in Jeopardy"
Episode Guest: Peter Prindiville, Non-Resident Fellow at the Stanford Constitutional Law Center and co-author of "The Constitution in Jeopardy"
Links:
Email the Show: Podcast@ACSLaw.org
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On this episode, we discuss sex, gender identity, and the Constitution. That's because we are talking about the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and the argument that it is already the 28th Amendment to the Constitution. Lindsay Langholz is joined by Kate Kelly, author of "Ordinary Equality," to discuss the ERA’s long journey, the women and queer activists who kept the project going for so long, and why their work and their fight are still relevant today.
Episode Host: Lindsay Langholz, ACS Director of Policy and Program
Episode Guest: Kate Kelly, Author of Ordinary Equality
Links:
Email the Show: Podcast@ACSLaw.org
Technical production provided by Flint Stone Media
This is a call to action! The U.S. Senate is back in session this month, and inevitably it has competing priorities between now and the end of the year. That's where this episode comes in. Jeanne Hruska speaks with Russ Feingold, President of ACS, and Zack Gima, Vice President of Strategic Engagement at ACS, about why the Senate should prioritize judicial nominations, how it can do that, and how listeners can help ensure it happens.
Episode Host: Jeanne Hruska, ACS Sr. Advisor for Communications and Strategy
Episode Guest: Russ Feingold, ACS President
Episode Guest: Zack Gima, ACS Vice President of Strategic Engagement
Links:
Email the Show: Podcast@ACSLaw.org
Technical production provided by Flint Stone Media
