Leah Litman

Your book inspired me to paint (acrylic painting on canvas) this one to use at a protest.
@leahlitman.bsky.social

I’m about 75% through “Lawless” by @leahlitman.bsky.social, and it’s pretty great. It’s not that I didn’t know about all these cases and issues, but she has a talent for putting them into a broader story that lays bare how contradictory and obviously politically motivated the decisions are.

Thank you so much!!!

it is anti-white racial discrimination to keep whites from discriminating, you see

*squints at the fifteenth amendment while hotboxing federalist society takes*: oh yeah, for sure.

Callais, like Shelby County, is an effort to launder white racial grievances against Black voters into the law of the land. The white voters don’t want Black voters to have the political power, and the political opportunities, the VRA provides. To that end, their brief refers to the Black opportunity districts as “odious racial gerrymander[s]” and “a racial quota.” But it treats white opportunity districts as normal, legal, and something they are entitled to. They urge the Court to say that “Section 2 should no longer supply a compelling interest for racial gerrymanders”; in plain English, they are asking the Court to declare that it is unconstitutional for the Voting Rights Act to try to ensure Black voters have political opportunities to elect the candidates of their choice. The white voters’ arguments in the case parrot a recent executive order from the Trump administration that says that civil rights laws that require entities to avoid policies with detrimental effects on racial minorities are themselves racial discrimination.

w/ SCOTUS's reargument order in Callais, reupping my piece in Sharon McMahon's The Preamble: "The Court's Next Big Decision on Race."

tl;dr: "Callais, like Shelby County, is an effort to launder white racial grievances against Black voters into the law of the land."

thepreamble.com/p/the-courts...

And this piece doesn’t even mention my favorite restaurants in Detroit!!!

Downtown Detroit Is Back (Gift Article) A decade ago, the residential boom downtown would have been hard to imagine.

Great to see my beloved city of Detroit get the glowing press it deserves. If you haven’t been to the Motor City recently, come see what you are missing. Gift link:
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/r...

Thank you!!!

The Supreme Court knocked down one of the two pillars of the Voting Rights Act in 2013 in the Shelby County case. It has now gone out of its way to consider whether it should knock down the other, by rescheduling arguments in a case it could have resolved in June under existing precedent.

Breaking: Supreme Court, in Order Asking for Additional Briefing in Louisiana Voting Case, Appears to Put the Constitutionality of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act into Question #ELB The Supreme Court just issued this order: Louisiana had to create that second majority-minority district in order to comply with the Voting Rights Act, as it had been found to face Section 2 VRA liabi...

****Breaking:**** Supreme Court, in Order Asking for Additional Briefing in Louisiana Voting Case, Appears to Put the Constitutionality of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act into Question electionlawblog.org?p=151301

And tune in tomorrow to listen to the Amicus episode!!

The book has certainly … stayed relevant.

Taylor swift august

On the left:

Washington Post report: Smithsonian removes Trump from impeachment exhibit in American History Museum
www.washingtonpost.com/entertainmen...

On the right:

Background reading, Professor Jason Stanley's vital Sept 2024 book
www.simonandschuster.com/books/Erasin...

I have a real love/hate lolsob relationship with NYT Pitchbot's SCOTUS content. 🫠

The gerrymander in Texas is constitutional. The ones in New York and California are not.

by Sam Alito, Amy Coney Barret, Neil Gorsuch, Bret Kavanaugh, John Roberts, and Clarence Thomas

Thanks, Bec!!!

Sure - but it's not bad faith compliance; we argue they're making specious legal arguments to insist they're complying *when in fact they're not complying*. Sorry if that was unclear!

Anyways here's Dan & my paper: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

And here's our Atlantic piece summarizing it: www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

I'm not ... totally sure that's what Dan & I argue in Legalistic Noncompliance.

We say "Legalistic noncompliance occurs when the administration uses the language of the law as cover to claim that it is complying with court orders when in fact it is not."

NOT that they're complying in bad faith

Since President Trump returned to the presidency for a second term, legal scholars and political writers have wrestled with a particular preoccupation: What if he defies court orders? When actual examples of the administration violating court orders turned out to be hard to find, and contestable in any given case, some commentators broadened the notion of defiance to include so-called malicious compliance (or legalistic noncompliance). The idea here is that even if the president or his agents did comply with the terms of court orders, however unreasonable, they might be doing so in bad faith, with the covert motive of actually evading or circumventing the point of the order.

Thanks (?) to Adrian Vermeule for mentioning Dan Deacon @dtdeacon.bsky.social & my paper Legalistic Noncompliance in his op-ed.... (1/2)

Op-Ed: www.nytimes.com/2025/07/31/o...

Paper: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes

And of course if you'd like to hear more ... you can check out the book, which Simon @simonwdc.bsky.social graciously recommends!!! bookshop.org/p/books/lawl...

How The Roberts Court Is Betraying The Country - My New Interview With Professor Leah Litman Professor Litman is the author of "Lawless: How The Conservative Supreme Court Runs on Grievance, Fringe Theories, And Bad Vibes"

I got to speak with Simon Rosenberg @simonwdc.bsky.social on The Hopium Chronicles @hopiumchronicles.bsky.social about ... LAWLESS: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, & Bad Vibes!

A great convo bridging politics & law! www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/how-the-ro...

Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes

And of course if you'd like to learn more, you can get the book! bookshop.org/p/books/lawl...

YouTube video by Legal AF Supreme Court Tries to RUN AWAY from Their Trump NIGHTMARE

I joined The Court of History (hosted by Sean Wilentz & Sidney Blumenthal) to talk SCOTUS & LAWLESS: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, & Bad Vibes!

We covered a ton of ground - check it out! @legalafmtn.bsky.social
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms_n...

ICYMI - in the second half of this episode of @strictscrutiny.bsky.social, @leahlitman.bsky.social & I took a break from the news cycle to remember the one and only David Souter. Thanks to former Souter clerks Erin Delaney & Alli Orr Larsen for joining us & sharing some lovely Souter stories

Trump's Escalating Tariff Madness, Roy Cooper Breaks Fundraising Records, Senator Alex Padilla On ICE, The Budget, Rescissions And More Noon ET Live Today - The Fight To Preserve America's Global Scientific Leadership With Colette Delawalla and Dr. Jeremy Berg

From Hopium:
- Trump's escalating tariff madness is giving Ds opportunity to go big on affordability and his betrayal of working people
- New intvs w/@padilla.senate.gov, @leahlitman.bsky.social & @reprileyny.bsky.social
- Gov Roy Cooper starts strong! 👇
www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/trumps-tar...

YouTube video by Legal AF Supreme Court Tries to RUN AWAY from Their Trump NIGHTMARE

The Court of History's Sidney Blumenthal & Sean Wilentz are joined by Professor @leahlitman.bsky.social to discuss the Supreme Court and their repeated rulings in favor of the Trump Administration.

#attorneys #CLE #FREECLE #lawyers #StrictScrutiny #democrats @strictscrutiny.bsky.social @texasdemocrats.bsky.social