Podcast appearances and mentions of Matthew J Franck

On Monday March 4th, the Supreme Court reversed Colorado's decision to remove President Trump from the ballot. The Court unanimously held that individual states cannot bar insurrectionists from holding federal office under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Five Justices went further, ruling that Congress alone may enforce Section 3. In this episode, constitutional scholars Mark Graber of the University of Maryland Law School and Michael McConnell of Stanford Law School join Jeffrey Rosen to discuss the Court's 9-0 decision to avoid a chaotic “patchwork” of state-level ballot eligibility decisions and the 5-4 majority's view that Section 3 requires Congress to act before an insurrectionist may be disqualified from office. Resources: Trump v. Anderson (2024) Mark Graber, “Trump's apologists say it doesn't matter if he's guilty of insurrection. That's not true”, The Guardian, (March 5, 2024) Mark Graber, The Forgotten Fourteenth Amendment: Punish Treason, Reward Loyalty (2023)  Michael McConnell, “Is Donald Trump Disqualified from the Presidency? A Response to Matthew J. Franck”, Public Discourse, (Jan. 18, 2024) Prof. Michael McConnell, Responding About the Fourteenth Amendment, “Insurrection,” and Trump, Volokh Conspiracy, (Aug. 2023)  Questions or comments about the show? Email us at podcast@constitutioncenter.org. Continue today's conversation on social media @ConstitutionCtr and #WeThePeoplePodcast. Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly. You can find transcripts for each episode on the podcast pages in our Media Library.

In the aftermath of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Billy sits down with Dr. Matthew J. Franck, Lecturer in Politics at Princeton University, as well as Jared Stone ‘24, contributor to the non-partisan news site Elections Daily. Billy and the panelists discuss the election results, the media’s role in this election, shifting demographic coalitions, political polarization, prospective 2024 Republican candidates, and more.

"The overturning of Roe vs. Wade would not — in itself, overnight — change the law of abortion in this country," said Matthew J. Franck, an author and Associate Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, and Lecturer in Politics, at Princeton University. "It would return to the people the right to make the laws concerning abortion in this country. It will wind up being made very differently in different states. It'll be different in Colorado, and New Jersey...in Florida and New York, in Arizona and Illinois." Follow him @MatthewJFranck on Twitter. Proposition 115 on the Nov. 3 ballot would end late-term abortion in Colorado, with an exception for the life of the mother. For more on Prop. 115, go to RespectLifeDenver.org and also see #YesOn115. For an archive of past episodes of Respect Life Radio, go to RespectLifeRadio.com.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death on Friday immediately kickstarted a battle among conservative pundits and politicians over the prudence of pushing through a Supreme Court nominee before November 3. The first problem is that mail-in voting is already under way, meaning Republicans would technically be advancing a nominee during an election. Republicans have also been hypocrites about this in the past with their opposition to Merrick Garland’s hearing in 2016. Steve thinks we should push through a nominee, but David, Jonah, and Sarah are more sympathetic to arguments that Trump should nominate a justice and the Senate should wait to confirm until after the election, keeping in mind Democrats’ threats to throw out the filibuster, pack the court, and add Puerto Rico and D.C. to the union if Republicans have their way with Trump’s forthcoming nominee. David and Jonah propose a deal: If Trump wins, the Senate confirms his nominee; if Biden wins, he agrees not to pack the court. Others argue that confirming a justice during an election year is just politics, meaning whichever party is in power gets to do whatever it wants. But what about principled conservatism? “My main critique of philosophical pragmatism is we are now talking about basically saying power decides every question of principle,” Jonah says on today’s podcast. This puts Republicans and conservatives in a bind, he argues, “particularly because for the last give or take 5,000 years, one of the jobs of conservatives has been to make a distinction between things you can do and things you should do.” Tune in for a conversation about the forthcoming attacks on Amy Coney Barrett’s Catholic faith should she be Trump’s nominee, the upcoming presidential debate next week, and the New York Times’ eagerness to rewrite its ownhistory surrounding the 1619 Project. Show Notes: -“As U.S. Supreme Court nomination looms, a religious community draws fresh interest” in Reuters, “Vote on President Trump’s Nomination, Senators—the Sooner the Better” by Matthew J. Franck in The Dispatch, and the New York Times’ 1619 Project. -Check out our The Dispatch30 day free trial of . See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Matthew J. Franck is the Director of the William E. and Carol G. Simon Center on Religion and the Constitution. He is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Radford University, where he taught constitutional law, American politics, and political philosophy from 1989-2010. He is also a Visiting Lecturer in Politics at Princeton University. As director of the center, he helps maintain the Witherspoon Institute’s relationships with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the Alliance Defending Freedom, the American Religious Freedom Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and the Religious Freedom Project of Georgetown University. Franck earned his B.A. in political science (magna cum laude) from Virginia Wesleyan College and his M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from Northern Illinois University. He was a Henry J. Salvatori Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, 1993-95, J. William Fulbright Professor of American Studies at the Graduate School of International Studies, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea, 1998, and a Visiting Fellow in the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, 2008-09. He is the author of Against the Imperial Judiciary (1996), coeditor of Sober as a Judge (1999), and a contributor to History of American Political Thought (2003), The Heritage Guide to the Constitution (2005, 2012), and The George W. Bush Presidency: A Rhetorical Perspective (2012). His writing regularly appears peer-reviewed sources such as The Review of Politics, American Political Thought, Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics, and Public Policy. He is also a regular blogger for National Review Online’s “Bench Memo’s” page and the “First Thoughts” page at First Things. Twitter: @MatthewJFranck Website: winst.org/about/staff/matthew-j-franck-phd

Matthew J. Franck is the Director of the William E. and Carol G. Simon Center on Religion and the Constitution. He is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Radford University, where he taught constitutional law, American politics, and political philosophy from 1989-2010. He is also a Visiting Lecturer in Politics at Princeton University. As director ...