Your Weekly Constitutional

Steven Waldman has been writing about religion and spirituality for a long time. He is the co-founder of Beliefnet, a website devoted to such issues. More recently, he has written a book about the history of religious freedom in the United States. It’s called Sacred Liberty.

Join us for a spirited, and spiritual, discussion.

Recently, Montpelier installed a time machine in the Potter Family Studios. Stewart had the honor of being the first to try it. So, of course, he set his dials for the founding era, and, of course, his first guest was James Madison.

With a little assistance from Colonial Williamsburg interpreter Bryan Austin, Stewart had a delightful conversation set in two pivotal years: 1776 and 1787. Then Bryan broke character to tell us about his exciting career and the unlikely path that led him to Williamsburg.

Birds migrate. So do monarch butterflies. And so do constitutions.

So says A.E. "Dick" Howard, the White Burkett Miller Professor of Law and Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. And he should know--over the past fifty years, whenever constitutional ideas migrated from the United States to other countries, Dick Howard seemed to be there.

We finish our two-part interview with our go-to guy on all things Brexit, British barrister William Walton of the University of Hertfordshire.

Will Brexit happen, despite the lack of an agreement with the EU? What about Ireland? What about Scotland? What about Wales? Is the UK on the verge of a breakup? Will the world economy crash? With Parliament suspended, is democracy in Britain dead?

Think we’re overstating it? Think again.

The Queen has suspended Parliament at the request of Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Is this the end of British democracy? Or just another quirk of that fascinating, amorphous thing called the British Constitution?

We talk to our go-to guy on all things Brexit, William Walton.

Matthew Reeves, the Director of Archaeology at James Madison's Montpelier, tells us about his next big project: the reconstruction of the overseer's cabin.

Montpelier doesn't hide its history as a slave plantation. It's one reason we're so very honored to associated with James and Dolley's historic home.

Josh Douglas teaches at the University of Kentucky, where he studies voting in the United States. Despite the current political environment, he sees lots of good being done.

He’s written about it in a new book, Vote for US, in which he tells the stories of people who are working in their communities to secure voting rights for themselves and their fellow citizens.

Join us for an inspiring conversation.

Is the ban on military service for transgender people unconstitutional?

Eric Merriam thinks so. He’s a law professor at the University of Central Florida who previously worked for the Air Force, both as a Judge Advocate General Corps officer and as a professor at the Air Force Academy. He thinks the ban, allegedly justified by something called “unit cohesion,” is actually based upon unconstitutional animus aimed at trans people.

What’s up with all the new laws on abortion? What do they contain? Why now?

Mary Ziegler, a law professor at Florida State University, has written several books on abortion. She puts everything in historical context, and speculates on what might happen next.

Trigger warning: this episode includes some explicit discussion. It may not be appropriate for younger listeners.

Does the Supreme Court need saving?

Ganesh Sitaraman thinks so. He teaches constitutional law at Vanderbilt University, and, like many of us, he is troubled by current political challenges to the Supreme Court’s legitimacy. Unlike most of us, however, he has some concrete proposals to save it. He and co-author Daniel Epps have put their ideas into writing in an article that will soon appear in the Yale Law Journal.

As Stewart points out, some of the proposals in the article are pretty radical, but Ganesh has thoughtful and interesting arguments in favor of them.

Join us for a deep dive into the highest court in the land.