Comstock Zombies

Comstock Zombies

Author: Roman Mars May 31, 2023 Duration: 30:26
19th century "zombie" laws are shambling into the abortion debate

Roman Mars hosts What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law, a series that uses the unprecedented events of a single presidency as a live case study in American government. The core of the podcast comes from constitutional law professor Elizabeth Joh, who found her usual curriculum upended during those four years. Instead of relying solely on settled historical cases, she began scrambling to reconcile the latest presidential tweet or statement with centuries of judicial precedent minutes before walking into her classroom. Each episode digs into one of those real-time constitutional puzzles-questions about pardons, emoluments, executive orders, and presidential power that moved from theoretical to urgently practical. Listening feels like auditing a dynamic, topical seminar where complex legal concepts are unpacked through the lens of recent history. You’ll hear how the foundational document is stretched, tested, and interpreted not in the abstract, but through the actions of the 45th president. This isn’t about politics; it’s about the machinery of the constitution itself, examined at a moment when it was under extraordinary public scrutiny. The podcast makes the often-opaque world of constitutional law accessible and immediately relevant, showing how its principles are constantly being defined by the present.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 93

What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law
Podcast Episodes
Book Banning and the Constitution [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:44
What can the government do about the school library and the classroom and what does the Constitution say about it?
The Administrative State [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 39:05
What two SCOTUS rulings about COVID vaccine mandates tell us about the future of the Administrative State
A Jurisprudence of Doubt [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:15
What are the current precedents when it comes to abortion rights and how solid do they feel right now?
Executive Privilege, SB 8 update, and Rust [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:31
An update on SB 8, Executive Privilege of presidential records, and a short digression into criminal law with the tragic death on a movie set
The Eastman Memo [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 28:27
John Eastman, a mainstream conservative lawyer working for Trump, outlined a plan for VP Pence to declare Trump the winner of the 2020 election regardless of the votes. It didn't happen, but should we be worried about th…
Shadow Docket [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 32:50
The Shadow Docket, Texas's SB 8, and the state of abortion rights in the US
Double Dose of Jacobson [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:18
As people argue over public policy regarding the COVID vaccine, Jacobson V. Massachusetts (1905) is invoked a lot. Plus, Trump is in court and the first Capitol riot conviction.
Bong Hits for Jesus [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 33:32
A quick roundup of three Supreme Court decisions that came down at the end of June
Hate Crimes [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:57
On May 20, 2021, President Biden signed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act. What exactly is a hate crime and what does the Constitution say about them?
Pattern and Practice [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:26
What can a President do when it comes to reforming the approximately 18,000 locally governed police departments around the US?