Constitutional Law

In conversation with Dean Erwin Chemerinsky of UC Berkeley School of Law, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar discussed soaking up every Supreme Court argument during the two years she clerked for Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan.

Dean Chemerinsky discusses his recent book Worse Than Nothing: The Dangerous Fallacy of Originalism.

The Chronicle’s Bob Egelko reviews Dean Chemerinsky’s latest book, “A Momentous Year in the Supreme Court.”

“Sometimes an especially momentous U.S. Supreme Court term is followed by a quieter year with fewer blockbuster decisions,” writes Dean Chemerinsky. “But that is not what we should expect when the court hands down its rulings for this term in spring 2023.”

“It’s long past time for all Supreme Court proceedings to be livestreamed over video and archived, as is done in many federal appellate courts around the country,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “Yet the high court has traditionally refused to allow any broadcasting of audio or video of its proceedings.”

“The five conservative justices based their decision not on the purpose of Title 42, which is to stop the spread of a communicable disease, but on their partisan agreement with conservatives on immigration issues,” writes Dean Chemerinksy. “We should expect better of the court than that.”

Berkeley Law Professor Khiara M. Bridges discusses the biggest takeaways from 2022 and what to expect in 2023.

“The Roberts court, more than any other court in history, uses its docket-setting discretion to select cases that allow it to revisit and overrule precedent,” Berkeley Law Professor Tejas Narechania found in the study, which will be published in the St. Louis University Law Journal and built on an earlier one in the Columbia Law Review.

“Revising the Electoral Count Act will not remedy other problems in our electoral system, especially the many state laws designed to disenfranchise minority voters,” writes Dean Chemerinsky. “Congress must also pass legislation to further protect voting rights, but that seems unlikely given the likelihood that Senate Republicans would filibuster such a bill.”

Dean Chemerinsky said the appellate court should uphold the decision because “the 1929 statute was the basis for the 1952 reenactment, and it’s the basis of the law that exists today.”