In a 4-3 ruling, the Supreme Court of Virginia struck down a proposed redistricting amendment that Democrats passed through the General Assembly after more than 1.3 million Virginians had already cast their ballots — with as little as four days remaining in the 45-day voting window. The court found the maneuver violated Article XII, Section 1 of Virginia's constitution, which requires a proposed amendment to clear two separate legislatures with an intervening election so voters can weigh in before the second vote.

The court was direct: "Under this thesis, early Virginia voters unknowingly forfeited their constitutionally protected opportunity to vote for or against delegates who favor or disfavor amending the Constitution by not anticipating a legislative vote on a constitutional amendment four days before the last day of voting."

Attorney General Jay Jones called the ruling a silencing of Virginians' voices. The court called it the only reading that makes the words of the constitution mean anything. The Founders built procedural guardrails for exactly this reason — because process is not bureaucracy. It is the constitutional order itself.

ABC filed with the FCC on Friday accusing the commission of violating its First Amendment rights, as Chair Brendan Carr scrutinizes whether programs like 'The View' qualify as 'bona fide news' — a distinction that affects constitutional protections Congress extended to broadcasters. The filing called Carr's review 'unprecedented, beyond the Commission's authority, and counterproductive to the Commission's stated goal of encouraging free speech and open political discussion.'

The commission separately called Disney-owned local stations in for early license renewal — one day after President Trump publicly demanded ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel be fired. ABC settled a defamation suit brought by Trump for $15 million in 2024.

The Founders built the First Amendment precisely so government could not use the licensing power — or any power — to bring a press to heel. The republic should be suspicious of any administration that discovers 'public interest' violations the week a comedian makes the wrong joke.

The Court of International Trade ruled Thursday that President Trump's 10% across-the-board tariffs — imposed under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, a provision never before used — are illegal. Duties will continue collecting while the administration appeals, according to Axios.

The Founders did not build a republic to be governed by emergency workarounds. Article I of the Constitution assigns the power to regulate commerce and levy duties to Congress — not the executive — for exactly this reason: concentrated power answers to no one.

The duty here belongs to Congress. Every year it loans its authority to the executive branch and calls it convenience. Courts enforcing the constitutional order are not the enemy of good trade policy — they are the last check on a legislature too comfortable surrendering the powers it was elected to hold.

A federal prosecution that put a Cincinnati city councilman in prison — not for taking cash, not for personal enrichment, but for accepting a lawful, publicly disclosed campaign donation from people who shared his stated policy views — has now been repudiated by two branches of the federal government.

The Supreme Court unanimously ordered the Sixth Circuit to vacate its prior ruling. President Trump issued a full and unconditional pardon. Yet the charging theory that made P.G. Sittenfeld a federal inmate still stands — ready to be used again.

Said the federal prosecutor, on the record, when the trial judge asked whether policy agreement plus campaign donation was enough to send a case to a jury: "I think that would be right."