Steve Vladeck

I’m really excited about this — and about the chance to work with Allison Lorentzen and the entire @vikingbooks.bsky.social team!

This @washingtonpost.com editorial doesn’t make it past the second paragraph without a glaring (and telling) factual error. President Washington didn’t create the War Department in 1789; *Congress* did: www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/...

Two things can be true: 1) The President has legal authority over the D.C. police and the D.C. National Guard that he doesn't have *anywhere else* in the country; & 2) Even if this doesn't set a legal precedent, it sets an ominous *political* precedent for pretextually overriding local government.

#SCOTUS all-but overruled a unanimous, 90-year-old precedent through an unexplained "administrative" stay this morning, and that's only the second-most-problematic thing it did before lunchtime.

By what is effectively a 9-6 vote, the en banc Fourth Circuit has vacated an injunction blocking DOGE from accessing Social Securit data (that #SCOTUS had previously stayed). Much of the drama is over the precedential effects of #SCOTUS's June 2025 intervention: georgetown.box.com/v/AFSCME-CA4...

Back in January, I wrote about how I think about/balance the obligations law professors (and especially public law professors) undertake when doing scholarly work during a time of increasing lawlessness. Given recent events, I thought I should re-up that post (and remove the paywall). Here it is:

“At least seven prominent law professors.” As I suggested on Monday, this is just like Justice Gorsuch’s “battle of law reviews.” It’s not about the frickin’ scoreboard: www.stevevladeck.com/p/219-drunks...

Even as the #SCOTUS's emergency docket has gotten busier than ever, the Court has all-but gotten out of the business of intervening in capital cases—especially to block executions. Today's "One First" bonus issue looks at how we got here—especially how things changed after Justice Kennedy retired:

There are books you want to read for fun; books you want to read for work; and books you have to read for work. (Okay, and books you have to read for book club, if you're in a book club.)

Now this, I can get behind.

There's a reason why important agreements of all kinds are written down and signed.

My brother-in law, my sister-in-law's husband, and I are 11 episodes deep into a new podcast. It's called "Uncles-in-Law," and it's a mix of news, parenting, sports, & other family stuff. I hope you'll check it out! Video: www.youtube.com/@Uncles-in-Law Audio: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/u...

You know what to do.

#ICYMI: I wrote yesterday about the effort by a handful of academics to create a literature supporting President Trump's birthright citizenship executive order—and how such backfilling has only been encouraged by the way that #SCOTUS has utilized (and cited) legal scholarship in recent years: