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    We Should Play the Constitution Like a Piano

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    Written in the 1780s, it both enlightens and confounds. Its brilliance is undiminished, but the intervening years make it feel distant, at times impossibly so, challenging modern interpreters to understand what an 18th-century text means today.Sadly, our attempt to understand the U.S. Constitution has too often become a mechanistic search for a correct answer, with little nuanced judgment. That is thanks to the ascendance of originalism on the Supreme Court. The originalist justices believe the meaning of the document was fixed when it was enacted, as opposed to living constitutionalists, who argue that the meaning and application of the Constitution should adapt to a changing world and not be bound by the judgments of men who lived centuries ago.The originalist methodology fails to acknowledge the role that one’s individual judgment inevitably plays in interpretation. Total objectivity is an attractive but dangerous illusion that shields the court from wrestling with our society’s complexity and from criticism of its opinions.Today, with a confrontation between the executive and judicial branches seemingly underway, the need for a thoughtful, credible reckoning with the Constitution’s meaning is especially urgent. Legal scholars, judges and constitutional lawyers would do well to consider the way interpreters have wrestled with different but equally challenging late 18th-century texts: classical music compositions.Art and the law, of course, serve vastly different functions in society. But the performing musician’s embrace of complexity is precisely what is needed from the courts at this moment.To a musician, a strictly originalist approach feels intolerably constricting, even perverse. A compelling performance of a piece of music requires both accuracy and creativity, insight and instinct, reverence for the composer and the breath of life brought by the interpreter.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      House Votes to Block California Plan to Ban New Gas-Powered Cars in 2035

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      Republicans, joined by a handful of Democrats, voted to eliminate California’s electric vehicle policy, which had been adopted by 11 other states.The House on Thursday voted to bar California from imposing its landmark ban on the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035, the first step in an effort by the Republican majority to stop a state policy designed to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles.The 246-to-164 vote came a day after Republicans, joined by a few Democrats, voted to block California from requiring dealers in the state to sell an increasing percentage of zero-emission, medium and heavy-duty trucks over time. And, lawmakers also voted on Wednesday to stop a state effort to reduce California’s levels of smog.All three policies were implemented under permissions granted to California by the Biden administration. They pose an extraordinary challenge to California’s longstanding authority under the 1970 Clean Air Act to set pollution standards that are more strict than federal limits.And the legality of the congressional action is in dispute. Two authorities, the Senate parliamentarian and the Government Accountability Office, have ruled that Congress cannot revoke the waivers.California leaders condemned the actions and promised a battle.Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, called the move “lawless” and an attack on states’ rights. “Trump Republicans are hellbent on making California smoggy again,” Governor Newsom said in a statement.“Clean air didn’t used to be political,” he said, adding, “The only thing that’s changed is that big polluters and the right-wing propaganda machine have succeeded in buying off the Republican Party.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      19 States Sue the Trump Administration Over Its D.E.I. Demand in Schools

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      The Trump administration threatened to withhold federal funding from states that did not enforce its interpretation of civil rights law.A coalition of 19 states sued the Trump administration on Friday over its threat to withhold federal funding from states and districts with certain diversity programs in their public schools.The lawsuit was filed in federal court by the attorneys general in California, New York, Illinois, Minnesota and other Democratic-leaning states, who argue that the Trump administration’s demand is illegal.The lawsuit centers on an April 3 memo the Trump administration sent to states, requiring them to certify that they do not use certain diversity, equity and inclusion programs that the administration has said are illegal.States that did not certify risked losing federal funding for low-income students.Rob Bonta, the California attorney general, said at a news conference on Friday that the Trump administration had distorted federal civil rights law to force states to abandon legal diversity programs.“California hasn’t and won’t capitulate. Our sister states won’t capitulate,” Mr. Bonta said, adding that the Trump administration’s D.E.I. order was vague and impractical to enforce, and that D.E.I. programs are “entirely legal” under civil rights law.The Trump administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday evening.The administration has argued that certain diversity programs in schools violate federal civil rights law, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin in programs that receive federal funding.It has based its argument on the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling ending the use of race in college admissions, arguing that the decision applies to the use of race in education more broadly.The administration has not offered a specific list of D.E.I. initiatives it deems illegal. But it has suggested that efforts to provide targeted academic support or counseling to specific groups of students amount to illegal segregation. And it has argued that lessons on concepts such as white privilege or structural racism, which posits that racism is embedded in social institutions, are discriminatory.The lawsuit came a day after the Trump administration was ordered to pause any enforcement of its April 3 memo, in separate federal lawsuits brought by teachers’ unions and the N.A.A.C.P., among others.Mr. Bonta said that the lawsuit by the 19 states brought forward separate claims and represented the “strong and unique interest” of states to ensure that billions of federal dollars appropriated by Congress reach students.“We have different claims that we think are very strong claims,” he said.Loss of federal funding would be catastrophic for students, said Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, an adversary of President Trump who previously won a civil fraud case against him.She noted that school districts in Buffalo and Rochester rely on federal funds for nearly 20 percent of their revenue and said she was suing to “uphold our nation’s civil rights laws and protect our schools and the students who rely on them.” More

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      An Urgent Supreme Court Order Protecting Migrants Was Built for Speed

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      There are sculptures of tortoises scattered around the Supreme Court grounds. They symbolize, the court’s website says, “the slow and steady pace of justice.”But the court can move fast when it wants to, busting through protocols and conventions. It did so around 1 a.m. on Saturday, blocking the Trump administration from deporting a group of Venezuelan migrants accused of being gang members under a rarely invoked 18th-century wartime law.The court’s unsigned, one-paragraph order was extraordinary in many ways. Perhaps most important, it indicated a deep skepticism about whether the administration could be trusted to live up to the key part of an earlier ruling after the government had deported a different group of migrants to a prison in El Salvador.That unsigned and apparently unanimous ruling, issued April 7, said that detainees were entitled to be notified if the government intended to deport them under the law, “within a reasonable time,” and in a way that would allow the deportees to challenge the move in court before their removal.There were indications late Friday that the administration was poised to violate both the spirit and letter of that ruling. Lawyers for the detainees said their clients were given notices that they were eligible to be deported under the law, the Alien Enemies Act. The notices were written in English, a language many of them do not speak, the lawyers said. And they provided no realistic opportunity to go to court.The American Civil Liberties Union, racing against the clock, filed its emergency application to the Supreme Court on Friday evening — Good Friday, as it happened — and urged the court to take immediate action to protect the detainees as part of a proposed class action.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In Trump Attack on Harvard, Punishment Before Proof

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      The legal underpinnings of the administration’s broadsides against universities and schools stretch precedents and cut corners.In the White House’s campaign against Harvard University, the punishment came swiftly.The Trump administration has frozen $2.2 billion in grants to the school, while seeking to exert unprecedented control over hiring, impose unspecified reforms to its medical and divinity schools, block certain foreign students from enrolling and, potentially, revoke its tax-exempt status.It is a broadside with little precedent. And, as with the White House’s other attacks on universities, colleges and even K-12 schools, the legal justifications have been muddled, stretched and, in some instances, impossible to determine.“It’s punishment before a trial, punishment before evidence, punishment before an actual accusation that could be responded to,” said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education and the U.S. Department of Education’s third-ranking official during the Obama administration. “People talk about why higher ed hasn’t responded. Well, how can you fight a shadow in this way?​”The legality of each threat varies. In more typical times, some of the individual punishments might be validated by lengthy investigations in which a university would have a right to defend itself.But taken together, law professors and education experts said, the immediacy of the sanctions and threats conveyed an unmistakable hostility toward Harvard and other schools in the president’s sights. The broad vendetta, they said, could weaken the legal argument for each individual action.“You can’t make decisions — even if you have the power to do so — on the basis of animus,” said Brian Galle, a Georgetown University law professor who teaches about taxation policy and nonprofit organizations. “Those aren’t permissible reasons that the government can act. And so what’s interesting about the fact that it’s doing all of these things to Harvard at the same time, is that undermines the legitimacy of each of them individually.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      UK Laws Are Not ‘Fit for Social Media Age,’ Says Report Into Summer Riots

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      Outdated legislation prevented the police from rapidly correcting misinformation after a stabbing attack on a Taylor Swift-themed dance class last summer, lawmakers said.British laws restricting what the police can say about criminal cases are “not fit for the social media age,” a government committee said in a report released Monday in Britain that highlighted how unchecked misinformation stoked riots last summer.Violent disorder, fueled by the far right, affected several towns and cities for days after a teenager killed three girls on July 29 at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, England. In the hours after the stabbings, false claims that the attacker was an undocumented Muslim immigrant spread rapidly online.In a report looking into the riots, a parliamentary committee said a lack of information from the authorities after the attack “created a vacuum where misinformation was able to grow.” The report blamed decades-old British laws, aimed at preventing jury bias, that stopped the police from correcting false claims.By the time the police announced the suspect was British-born, those false claims had reached millions.The Home Affairs Committee, which brings together lawmakers from across the political spectrum, published its report after questioning police chiefs, government officials and emergency workers over four months of hearings.Axel Rudakubana, who was sentenced to life in prison for the attack, was born and raised in Britain by a Christian family from Rwanda. A judge later found there was no evidence he was driven by a single political or religious ideology, but was obsessed with violence.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Menendez Brothers Win Ruling in Bid for Resentencing

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      The men, who killed their parents in 1989, are pursuing several efforts to be released after decades in prison.An effort to resentence the Menendez brothers can proceed after a Los Angeles judge cleared the way Friday for additional hearings next week.The ruling by the judge, Michael Jesic, in a Los Angeles courtroom, advances Lyle and Erik Menendez on one front in their push for freedom after decades in prison for killing their parents. If the brothers are ultimately resentenced, they could almost immediately walk free.Separately, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a Democrat, is weighing clemency for the brothers and has scheduled parole board hearings for Lyle and Erik Menendez on June 13. The ruling by Judge Jesic has no effect on the brothers’ bid for clemency.The Menendez brothers brutally murdered their parents inside the family’s home in Beverly Hills, Calif., more than 35 years ago. They were eventually convicted of first-degree murder with special circumstances, and were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.For a time, it appeared their best chance to walk free would be through the resentencing efforts playing out in court this month. But those efforts have been complicated by the election of a new top prosecutor in Los Angeles, Nathan Hochman, who opposes any resentencing.The purpose of the hearing on Friday was to deal with a motion Mr. Hochman filed. Last year, Mr. Hochman’s predecessor as district attorney, George Gascón, asked a court to resentence the brothers, declaring, “I believe they have paid their debt to society.”Mr. Hochman subsequently sought to withdraw the resentencing motion filed by Mr. Gascón. On Friday, Judge Jesic denied Mr. Hochman’s request to pull back his predecessor’s resentencing motion. The parties will reconvene late next week to argue the issue more broadly.Lyle and Erik Menendez attended the Friday hearing virtually, appearing via video in blue jumpsuits.The brothers killed their parents in 1989 when Lyle was 21 and Erik was 18. Their first trial, in 1993, ended in a mistrial after separate juries deadlocked and was closely watched by a national audience on TV. In their second trial, the judge limited testimony about sexual abuse they had said they had suffered at the hands of their father and banned cameras in the courtroom. The brothers were convicted in 1996.Their case has garnered renewed interest and momentum over the last year or two, thanks in part to a hugely popular docudrama and a documentary on Netflix and an advocacy campaign powered by young people.With Mr. Hochman looking on, prosecutors spent much of the morning on Friday laying out what they said was a series of lies the brothers had told during their initial trial. The prosecutors displayed graphic photos of the crime scene, leading the brothers’ lawyer, Mark Geragos, to fervently object.In the end, Judge Jesic said that many of the arguments prosecutors brought forward would better serve them at next week’s hearings. More

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      House Passes G.O.P. Budget After Conservative Revolt Collapses

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      The House on Thursday narrowly adopted a Republican budget blueprint for slashing taxes and government spending, after hard-line conservatives concerned that it would balloon the nation’s debt ended a revolt that had threatened to derail President Trump’s domestic agenda.Approval of the plan, which was in doubt until nearly the very end, was a victory for Republican leaders and Mr. Trump. It allowed them to move forward with crafting major legislation to enact a huge tax cut, financed with deep reductions in spending on federal programs, and pushing it through Congress over Democratic opposition.“It is time for us to act so that we can get on with the real work,” Representative Kevin Hern, Republican of Oklahoma, said during debate on the floor. “In passing this budget framework, we are unlocking the process to deliver on unleashing American energy production, permanently securing our southern and northern borders, and making tax cuts permanent for small businesses and working families.”But approval came only after a mutiny on the House floor on Tuesday night that underscored the deep divisions Republicans still have to bridge in order to push through what Mr. Trump has called his “big, beautiful bill.” It forced Speaker Mike Johnson to delay a planned vote on the measure after he spent more than an hour Wednesday night huddled with the holdouts, trying without success to persuade them to support it.The vote on Thursday was 216 to 214, with two Republicans opposing the measure. All Democrats present voted against the plan, which they said would pave the way for cuts to Medicaid and other vital safety net programs that would harm Americans, all to pay for large tax cuts for the wealthiest.“You target earned benefits and things that are important to the American people, like Medicaid,” Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic leader, said, addressing Republicans. “And what are you doing it for? What is it in service of? All to pass massive tax breaks for your billionaire donors like Elon Musk.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      House Votes to Curb National Injunctions, Targeting Judges Who Thwart Trump

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      The House passed legislation on Wednesday that would bar federal district judges from issuing nationwide injunctions, part of an escalating Republican campaign to take aim at judges who have moved to halt some of President Trump’s executive orders.The bill, approved mostly along party lines on a vote of 219 to 213, would largely limit district court judges to issuing narrow orders that pertain to parties involved in a specific lawsuit, rather than broader ones that can block a policy or action from being enforced throughout the country. It would make an exception in cases that were brought by multiple states, which would need to be heard by a three-judge panel.It faces a slim chance of becoming law because of the obstacles it faces in the Senate, where seven Democrats would have to join Republicans to allow it to advance. So far, similar bills have not been approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee.House Republicans have framed the legislation, named the No Rogue Rulings Act, as a necessary constitutional check on what they claim is an abuse of power by judges attempting to wield political influence from the bench.Citing an increase in nationwide injunctions since Mr. Trump took office, Republican lawmakers have argued that an unelected federal judge in one district should not be able to block the executive branch from implementing nationwide policies, a duty they say should be left to appeals courts or the Supreme Court.The Supreme Court “must reach a majority in order to make something the law of the land, and yet a single district judge believes that they can make the law of the land,” Representative Darrell Issa, the California Republican who introduced the bill, said on the House floor on Wednesday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More