28 May 2025
A Blow to Our Constitutional System
A little-noticed Supreme Court order may pave the way for a dramatic expansion of presidential authority—overturning a 90-year-old precedent and weakening the independence of key regulatory agencies. In the hands of a would-be autocrat, the Supreme Court decision has delivered a serious blow to the constitutional system. Continue reading >>
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16 May 2025
Undoing the American Rechtsstaat
Donald Trump’s return to the forefront of U.S. politics brings an urgent constitutional question back into focus: Can the American administrative state survive another presidency driven by executive absolutism? Recent developments before the Supreme Court, especially in Trump v. U. S., suggest that long-standing norms and legal safeguards are under siege. This post explores how a second Trump term might exploit structural vulnerabilities in U.S. public law, with consequences that extend far beyond American borders. Continue reading >>
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25 April 2025
Expressive Empörung
Hat der US Supreme Court genug von Donald Trump? Continue reading >>
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25 April 2025
Outrage Matters
Is the Supreme Court of the United States Getting Fed up with Donald Trump? Continue reading >>13 March 2025
Die Judikative in der Herrschaft des Bullshits
Die politische Situation in den Vereinigten Staaten hat ihren Siedepunkt noch nicht erreicht. Jede Eskalation scheint bloße Etappe, jede Etappe wiederum von flüchtigster Dauer. Die New York Times hat einen Liveticker für den in toto akuten Vorgang namens Trump-Administration eingerichtet, der die Demontage des Staates immer etwas atemlos protokolliert. Entlang einer von langer Hand vorbereiteten Strategie („Project 2025“) lässt sich der konfuse Furor nicht mehr nachvollziehen und auch das liberale Schreckgespenst der frühestens seit Reagan, spätestens seit G. W. Bush im republikanischen Ideenreservoir befindlichen unitary executive theory verspricht keinen spezifischen Erkenntnisgewinn. Die konkrete Lage nötigt andere Beschreibungen ab. Continue reading >>
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29 January 2025
TikTok’s last dance
“On January 19, we still have President Biden, and on January 19, as I understand it, we shut down.” With these words—foreshadowing the final ban of the TikTok app in the United States—Noel Francisco, legal representative of ByteDance, the Chinese parent company, addressed the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments on January 10, 2025. One week later, the Supreme Court issued its ruling: TikTok’s appeal was dismissed. The court’s reasoning merits examination, while the implications remain uncertain, particularly as a Trump executive order temporarily blocks the ban’s enforcement. Continue reading >>
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06 August 2024
A Setback for Homeless Rights in the United States
On June 28, 2024, the United States Supreme Court handed down its decision in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson (Grants Pass), its most significant case on homelessness in decades. The decision overturned the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal’s 2018 decision in Martin v. Boise (Martin), which mandated that cities allow unhoused individuals to sleep in public spaces when shelter beds were not available. The decision fails to consider the root causes of homelessness in the United States and exacerbates the already fragmented regulatory landscape governing the vulnerable community of the unhoused. Continue reading >>
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11 July 2024
Online Speech at the US Supreme Court in Moody v. Netchoice
The First Amendment of the US Constitution raises some of the most difficult legal hurdles for regulating the global digital public sphere today. In Moody v. Netchoice, the US Supreme Court heard appeals from two judgments, an appeal from a decision of the Fifth Circuit declaring that Texas’ social media law H.B. 20 did not violate the First Amendment, and an appeal from a decision of the Eleventh Circuit finding Florida’s social media law S.B. 7072, instead, unconstitutional. These laws are similar in that they both attempt to impose must-carry and non-discrimination obligations on social media platforms, which in practice amounts to requiring them not to discriminate against conservative users’ posts. The compatibility of these two laws with the First Amendment cuts across a plethora of crucial issues on the future of social media regulation which the court could, but didn’t fully, address. Continue reading >>
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04 July 2024
The Supreme Court v. the Administrative State II
The outlook is not rosy for Democrats, neither politically nor in court. Democrats’ hopes that President Biden – who, according to some polls, is trailing Trump in all seven swing states – could turn the odds in his favor in an early debate have been dashed by his disastrous performance. To add insult to injury, in three 6-to-3 rulings along ideological lines, the Supreme Court further reigned in on administrative agencies, putting Biden’s regulatory agenda at risk. The most far-reaching of these decisions is, undoubtedly, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. This case marked a milestone for the conservative legal movement’s fight against the administrative state. Continue reading >>04 July 2024