University of Illinois law professor Lesley C. Wexler discusses recent decisions by military review boards to retain transgender service members despite guidance requiring their discharge. Professor Wexler argues that these decisions likely constitute nullification and that, although most traditional justifications for jury nullification do not fit this setting, the rationales of checking oppressive government and respecting decision makers’ moral agency may support it.

University of Pennsylvania professor Marci A. Hamilton discusses how Congress should respond to the 2026 midterm elections, in which voters rejected the Trump administration’s and the Supreme Court’s efforts to remake the constitutional order. Professor Hamilton argues that the new Democratic majorities should prioritize restoring constitutional checks and balances by reining in the President and his Cabinet, confronting financial and moral corruption, and reforming the Supreme Court.

Cornell law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses whether the size of the Democrats’ new Senate majority matters, as races in Alaska and Mississippi remain uncalled. Professor Dorf argues that every seat counts, because a larger majority guards against defections, eases the path to the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster, and cushions the party against future electoral losses.

UC Davis law professor Vikram David Amar discusses the federal litigation over HB1, Missouri’s 2025 congressional redistricting law, which lower federal courts tried to put into effect despite a Missouri Supreme Court ruling that a pending referendum petition had suspended it. Professor Amar argues that HB1 backers’ claim that the referendum process undemocratically violates the Elections Clause is flawed, as Missouri voters’ resounding rejection of HB1 confirms that the referendum can protect, rather than thwart, majority will.

Amherst professor Austin Sarat discusses a Reuters/Ipsos poll showing that many Americans support or are open to a second attempt to execute Christa Pike after Tennessee’s failed execution. Professor Sarat argues that this support reflects ignorance of the suffering failed executions inflict, and that fully informed Americans would reject a second attempt as offensive to human dignity.

UNLV Boyd School of Law professor Leslie C. Griffin discusses the Supreme Court’s oral argument in St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy, which asks whether Catholic preschools may receive funding from Colorado’s universal preschool program while refusing to follow its nondiscrimination rules protecting LGBTQ families. Professor Griffin argues that the schools are seeking special treatment, not equal treatment, and that the Court should uphold Colorado’s neutral and generally applicable law.

Amherst professor Austin Sarat discusses the history of public executions in America in light of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s scrapped plan to livestream the execution of Nidal Hasan. Professor Sarat argues that the plan, though stopped, reflects the Trump administration’s contempt for the American public, which it treats as a prop for its displays of cruelty.

UNLV Boyd School of Law professor Leslie C. Griffin discusses Opus Dei’s growing influence on American law and politics and two recent documentaries in which former members describe life inside the organization. Professor Griffin argues that the films expose Opus Dei as a cult that exploits its members as unpaid labor, which should raise serious concerns about its powerful allies, such as Leonard Leo and Vice President J.D. Vance.

Amherst College professor Austin Sarat discusses Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s record-setting pace of executions, using the scheduled November 5 execution of Jesse Guardado to examine DeSantis’s refusal to grant clemency, his sole control over death warrants, and Florida’s history of wrongful death sentences. Professor Sarat argues that DeSantis has turned capital punishment into cruel, arbitrary assembly-line justice that ignores remorse and rehabilitation, disregards the risk of executing the innocent, and serves his political ends.

Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses the Department of Justice’s lawsuit seeking to block certification of Alaska’s U.S. Senate election because two candidates have nearly identical names, along with the broader question of whether states or Congress may act to reduce voter confusion about candidate identity consistent with the First Amendment. Professor Dorf argues that the DOJ suit is meritless on both the law and the facts, and that although prosecuting a same-name spoiler candidate would violate the First Amendment, counter-speech cannot reliably cure confusion about which candidate is which, so motive-neutral measures such as filing deadlines, ballot-access requirements, and ballot designations like “Incumbent” are valid.

UC Davis Law professor Vikram David Amar discusses the Ninth Circuit’s recent decision in United States v. California, which held that the federal government is certain to succeed in its Supremacy Clause challenge to California’s “No Vigilantes Act” (SB 805), a law requiring non-uniformed law enforcement officers, including federal immigration agents, to display identification while on duty. Professor Amar praises the panel for recognizing that a state law directly regulating federal officers on the job is invalid absent federal assent, however small or evenhanded its burden, but argues that the court’s attempt to distinguish the traffic-law dicta in Johnson v. Maryland was unpersuasive and that the better explanation may lie in historical evidence of federal assent.

In the second installment of a two-part column, University of Pennsylvania professor Marci A. Hamilton discusses the Catholic Nationalists who have joined the push for theocracy in the United States, focusing on the postliberal, or integralist, theorists led by Patrick Deneen and Adrian Vermeule and on Opus Dei and its allies, including Leonard Leo, Vice President JD Vance, and the architects of Project 2025. Professor Hamilton argues that these movements seek to impose Catholic natural law on Americans through an authoritarian elite, that they wrongly cast the many religious Americans who disagree with them as secular, that integralism has repeatedly failed elsewhere, and that because both groups need an authoritarian at the top, theocracy is on the ballot this fall.

UC Davis Law professor Vikram David Amar discusses the federal government’s lawsuit seeking an emergency injunction to bar California election officials from counting federal ballots cast next month by about 20,000 individuals the United States suspects are noncitizens, situating it among the Trump administration’s broader efforts to intervene in state administration of the midterm elections. Professor Amar argues that the suit is likely to fail because the federal ban on noncitizen voting can rest only on Congress’ immigration power, which the anti-commandeering principle of New York v. United States and Printz v. United States limits, so the federal government cannot compel California to investigate and set aside suspected noncitizens’ ballots, and neither its preemption nor its aiding-and-abetting theory, nor the request for relief so close to an election, changes that result.

In the first installment of a two-part column, University of Pennsylvania professor Marci A. Hamilton discusses how the 2026 midterm election will test the religious identity of the United States, focusing on the White Evangelical Christian Nationalists who claim America is a “Christian country” and their growing influence in the Trump Administration through figures like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Project 2025, and allied groups such as the Alliance Defending Freedom. Professor Hamilton argues that these nationalists rely on a revisionist history that erases the nation’s founding religious diversity, that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority and a compliant Republican Congress have helped them pursue theocracy without amending the Constitution, and that because most Americans reject Christian Nationalism, voters should use the midterms to stop it.

Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses the Supreme Court’s new Term, which looks relatively quiet, and the major legal changes the conservative supermajority has already made. Professor Dorf argues that the Court has largely finished dismantling the liberal-era precedents it targeted, leaving few blockbuster cases, though future changes depend on who appoints the next Justices.

Amherst professor Austin Sarat discusses President Trump’s authorization of a firing-squad execution for Nidal Hasan, the first U.S. military execution since 1961, placing it within the history of military executions, the current military death row, and Secretary Hegseth’s push to revive the practice. Professor Sarat argues that reviving military executions reflects a cruelty-focused “warrior ethos” that departs from the modern military’s tradition of mercy, and that it will damage the teamwork and community on which military effectiveness depends.

UNLV Boyd School of Law professor Leslie C. Griffin discusses the Massachusetts Attorney General’s report on 70 years of clergy sexual abuse in the Fall River, Springfield, and Worcester Dioceses, including the church’s cover-ups and its post-2002 reforms. Professor Griffin argues that those reforms remain incomplete and that Massachusetts must do more to protect survivors, including eliminating civil statutes of limitations and the charitable immunity cap, improving trauma-informed oversight, and disclosing abusers’ names.

Illinois Law professor Lesley M. Wexler discusses three U.S. strikes in Iran (Kuhestak, Qeshm, and Lamerd) and new UN and Bloomberg findings on the earlier Minab school strike, examining their International Humanitarian Law implications. Professor Wexler argues that these incidents reveal systemic failures, including outdated intelligence, rushed targeting, overreliance on AI, cuts to civilian harm mitigation staff, and questionable weapon choices, and that the U.S. has yet to acknowledge responsibility or release its investigations.

Amherst professor Austin Sarat discusses the botched lethal injection of Christa Pike in Tennessee in the context of America’s long history of failed executions and court rulings allowing states to try again. Professor Sarat argues that Pike’s case is unlikely to end lethal injection because states rarely abandon an execution method after it fails, and switching methods is costly and no guarantee of improvement.

Amherst professor Austin Sarat discusses Judge Timothy Kelly’s temporary restraining order requiring President Donald Trump to restore the White House press credentials of CNN, MS NOW, and Politico reporters. Professor Sarat argues that the White House revoked the passes over negative coverage, that its national security justification was a sham, and that Kelly correctly applied binding precedent requiring due process before a press pass is revoked.