This week, Easha, Charlie, and Jason discuss the Trump Administration's lawsuit against California. The lawsuit seeks to prevent the state from enforcing three new state laws that the federal government says will undermine enforcement of immigration law.

The three start the conversation with a summary of the law of federal preemption, which provides that federal laws must trump—no pun intended—conflicting state laws. They then proceed to analyze each law at issue. The first California statute, which is called the “Immigrant Worker Protection Act,” prevents private employers in California from voluntarily cooperating with federal officials who seek to ensure compliance with federal immigration laws in the workplace. The trio agrees this is the most vulnerable law, but they disagree about whether California might have viable defenses. They then discuss the two other laws, and Jason maintains his general pro-preemption stance while Charlie and Easha think California is on fairly strong legal ground.

You can find us at @VersusTrumpPod on twitter, or send us an email at [email protected]. And you can buy t-shirts and other goods with our super-cool logo here.

Notes

• The Complaint and the federal government's motion for a preliminary injunction are all here. California's brief is due on May 4, with a hearing set for June 20.
• Easha mentioned a post by Ilya Somin about whether there is a legal principle that states cannot discriminate against the federal government. That's here.
• Vox has this useful article with some quickie reactions to the lawsuit.

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On a new episode of Versus Trump, we bring you a podcast version of the speech that Take Care publisher Joshua Matz gave at Harvard Law School on April 3, 2018. The talk, titled "The Legal Resistance to Trump," describes themes, achievements, and limitations of various lawsuits challenging the Trump Administration and its policies. Joshua's forthcoming book, which is co-written with Laurence Tribe, is called To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment, and it will be released on May 15. As usual, you can listen online below, and subscribe via this page with any podcast player or here in iTunes. 

You can find us at @VersusTrumpPod on twitter, or send us an email at [email protected]. And you can buy t-shirts and other goods with our super-cool logo here.

Links and Notes

• A video of Joshua's talk can be found here.
• Thanks to Joshua and to the Harvard Law Forum and Lark Turner for allowing us to use the audio of this talk as a podcast.

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In this week's episode, Jason and Charlie revisit two lawsuits in which the Plaintiffs have recently successfully fought off motions to dismiss and been allowed to proceed. And in a new installment of "Sanctions Corner with Uncle Charlie," Charlie answers questions about the FBI raid on the office of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.

Jason and Charlie start the discussion by discussing DC and Maryland v. Trump, an Emoluments Clause case. They discuss the district court's recent decision holding that the state plaintiffs there had standing to proceed, and they explain why parts of the decision make good sense, while other aspects are a bit harder to understand. They then move on to the New York state court case of Summer Zervos v. Trump, in which former Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos has sued Trump for defamation. A trial court judge in New York recently denied Trump's request to kick the case out of court on the grounds that Zervos could not litigate in state court against a sitting President, and Jason and Charlie have good things to say about the court's concise and elegant opinion. Finally, Uncle Charlie—always on the lookout for lawyer misconduct—answers a few questions about the recent FBI raid on Michael Cohen's office, even though he has to rely on press reports because the search warrant has not yet been made public.

You can find us at @VersusTrumpPod on twitter, or send us an email at [email protected]. And you can buy t-shirts and other goods with our super-cool logo here.

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On a new episode of Versus Trump, Jason and Easha discuss lawsuits challenging the Trump Administration's decision to ask a question about citizenship on the 2020 census.

Jason and Easha start the discussion by explaining the purpose of the decennial Census and the history of the Census Bureau's collecting information about citizenship. They then discuss how and when the Trump Administration decided to add a question about citizenship on the next Census, and they explain why the addition of this question may result in a substantial undercount of people in areas with high immigrant populations—and they explain why that would be bad for diverse states like California. That leads to a discussion of the merits of the two claims in the lawsuits: that the Administration's action violates the Enumeration Clause, which requires an accurate count of all "persons" in the U.S., and that the government's actions are arbitrary and capricious. They also wonder why the challengers have not added a third claim explicitly alleging discrimination on the basis of race or national origin.

You can find us at @VersusTrumpPod on twitter, or send us an email at [email protected].

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On a new episode of Versus Trump, Jason talks to Rick Hasen, a leading election law scholar and purveyor of the Election Law Blog, about what's going on at the voting booth, possible campaign finance law violations by both Trump and Clinton in the 2016 cycle, and Justice Scalia, who is the subject of Rick's new book, The Justice of Contradictions: Antonin Scalia and the Politics of Disruption. 

Jason and Rick start the discussion by looking at this Administration's record on voting rights, including its positions on Voter ID laws and voter registration laws. They then discuss possible campaign finance law violations in three "scandals" arising out of the 2016 presidential campaign cycle: the Trump campaign's contacts with Russians, the Clinton campaign's funding of the Steele dossier, and Trump's attorney's $130,000 payment made in October 2016 to Stormy Daniels as part of a non-disclosure agreement. The discussion concludes with a close look at the jurisprudence of Justice Scalia. Rick explains why he thinks Scalia was a justice full of contradictions, and why Scalia's decisions were not necessarily as consistently guided by neutral principles as the Justice often claimed they were.

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This week, Easha and Charlie take a quick gander at Donald Trump's proposal to seek the death penalty for drug dealers. 

For starters, Easha and Charlie walk through what the Constitution has to say about imposing the death penalty (hint: surprisingly little). They then explain the concepts of felony murder and conspiracy, two theories under which a drug dealer might be found guilty of murder. Charlie gives a quick overview of what the federal death penalty statute already authorizes, and they conclude by deciding that the President probably didn't mean what he said and, in any event, the specter of someone being executed merely for selling opioids would probably lead to the Supreme Court stepping in.

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On a new episode of Versus Trump, Easha, Jason, and Charlie discuss do a near-live episode about Stormy Daniels' lawsuit against David Dennison—we mean, Donald Trump. 

They start the episode by summarizing Daniels' unusual lawsuit, which asks a court to invalidate a non-disclosure agreement that she signed in October of 2016 that is supposed to prevent her from talking about an alleged affair between her and Trump. Daniels claims that the agreement is invalid, both because it was never signed by President Trump and because it was unconscionable; Charlie, Easha, and Jason discuss both arguments. They also discuss the provision that requires disputes about the contract to be heard by an arbitrator, not a judge; the agreement's implications for campaign finance law; whether President Trump could prevent CBS from airing an interview it has supposedly taped with Daniels; and whether Trump's lawyer could be subject to discipline for his conduct.

You can find us at @VersusTrumpPod on twitter, or send us an email at [email protected]. 

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Easha, Jason, and Charlie discuss a recent district court opinion that rejected California's challenge to the Trump Administration's expedited border wall projects in California. 

They start the episode by discussing the boringly-named but legally-interesting opinion in In Re: Border Infrastructure Environmental Litigation. As they explain, the plaintiffs in this case are California and several environmental groups, and all have challenged the Trump Administration's waiver of state and federal environmental laws in order to allow the federal government to build new border fencing in Southern California. After recapping the case, they mention the politics in the background, including the unique fact that the judge who ruled in favor of the Trump Administration—Judge Gonzalo Curiel—was previously demeaned by Trump during the campaign. The trio then grapple with the argument that Secretary of Homeland Security acted without any legal authority at all and move on to several constitutional challenges that the plaintiffs lost on. Easha also brings up an argument not made in the case: that the Secretary's actions were motivated by anti-Mexican animus. The episode ends with a few Trump nuggets.

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On a new episode of Versus Trump, Easha, Jason, and Charlie check back in with the most politically charged of all Versus Trump suits: the Russia investigation.

They start the episode with some commentary on the case of Alex Van Der Zwaan, the former Skadden Arps associate who pleaded guilty to a charge of lying to the FBI. That leads to a discussion of conspiracy liability, why the charges are being brought in the way they have been, and how strange it is to charge a law firm associate with lying to the FBI. Next, the trio turn to Rick Gates's guilty plea and speculate on what it means for Paul Manafort. They end the episode with three Trump nuggets: an update on DACA, plus two responses to listener feedback: one on the power of the House to declassify information and another related to the use of firearms in suicides.  

You can find us at @VersusTrumpPod on twitter, or send us an email at [email protected]. And you can buy t-shirts and other goods with our super-cool logo here.

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