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Last night (Jan.

Governor Brown Easily Ranks as the Top Environmental Governor in State History

Don’t it always seem to go

That you don’t know what you’ve got

`Til it’s gone

        –Joni Mitchell (“Big Yellow Taxi”)

On this, the last day of Jerry Brown‘s tenure as California’s governor, it’s appropriate to reflect on Governor Brown’s environmental legacy.  And a most formidable legacy it’s been.

The latest episode of the "What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law" podcast explores President Grover Cleveland's secret surgery, the 25th Amendment, and what the Constitution tells us about presidential fitness, disability and President Donald Trump.

1. President Donald J. Trump

President Donald Trump, determined to demonstrate he is tough on immigration, is attempting to eliminate a path to legal immigration status that American leaders have respected for more than three decades.

Last month, Trump issued an order that would prohibit people who enter the country unlawfully from seeking asylum because they fear persecution. A federal judge rightly concluded that the order violated the law.

California’s housing policies–a topic that for years received precious little attention from state officials–has suddenly become the Golden State’s hottest political and policy issue.  The California Legislature passed no fewer than 15 new housing bills in 2017, and then doubled down on that accomplishment by enacting 16 more laws in its just-concluded 2018 session.  Taken together, they represent incremental (if not sweeping) progress in addressing California’s chronic housing shortage.

Often, the most essential part of lawyering is not brilliant legal analysis, factual investigation, or even winning the case.  Instead, the outcome turns on mundane details such as, say, collecting a judgment, or getting your client out on bail. That lesson was vividly driven home for me last week when I was reading Knight v. State, 161 So.2d 521 (Miss.

Earlier this week President Donald Trump called to abolish birthright citizenship, which few reputable scholars believe would be constitutional. This latest action on immigration demonstrates what is becoming more and more apparent: Trump does not feel bound to the rule of law. His immigration initiatives share two fundamental characteristics. First, he seeks to reduce immigration and specifically to reduce the number of immigrants of color coming to, and living in, the United States.

The presently constituted U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t seem to care for climate change litigation or regulation.

For years, the U.S. government has detained immigrants as a way of enforcing the U.S. immigration laws and to deter future flows of migrants to the United States. Over the last 20 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has regularly grappled with legal challenges to immigrant detention. Just last term, for example, the court in Jennings v.

Episode 28 of the podcast "What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law" explores the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation process, and constitutional rules pertaining to justices, including how and when one might be impeached.

The new tax bill, “Tax Reform 2.0,” is here, and it makes permanent the $10,000 cap on the state and local tax deduction (SALT) created by the Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA) in December 2017.

President Trump is nominating federal judges, and Supreme Court Justices such as Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who claim to be committed to “originalism.” This approach to constitutional law requires that the Constitution be interpreted to mean today what the text was intended or understood to mean at the time it was written.

The California Court of Appeal for the Third Appellate District has issued an important decision declaring that California’s powerful public trust doctrine applies to at least some of the state’s overtaxed groundwater resources.  The court’s opinion also rejects the argument that California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) displaces the public trust doctrine’s applicability to groundwater resources.