Ballrooms, ‘Bama and (Very) Bad Behavior

Leah, Kate, and Melissa recap another busy week in legal news, covering the continued fallout from the Voting Rights Act case, Louisiana v. Callais, the ongoing saga of the DOJ’s insurrectionist slush fund, wild twists with the Broadview Six, more ballroom drama, the curious case of the Georgia judge who had loud sex in her chambers and then lied about it, and more. They also cover SCOTUS opinions involving compassionate release for prisoners and compelled arbitration before Leah speaks with University of Michigan law professor Barbara McQuade about her book, The Fix: Saving America from the Corruption of a Mob-Style Government.

Favorite things:

• Kate: Trump's Illegal $250 Bill: A Micro-History of Autocracy • , Ruth Ben-Ghiat (Lucid); How Callais broke the Voting Rights Act and weaponized the equal protection clause • , Issa Kohler-Hausmann & Kevin Z. Yang (SCOTUSblog); Beg For Me (JADE Remix) • , Lilly Allen; Harmeet Dhillon Is Not Wasting Any Time • , Quinta Jurecic (The Atlantic); Brown’s Advancing Impact on Maternal and Reproductive Health Lab •

• Leah: Ronny Chieng’s Harvard speech • ; Hit the Wall • , Gracie Abrams; Midnight Sun • , Zara Larsson

Melissa: Strangers, Belle Burden; her event at Politics and Prose at The Wharf on 6/3/26; Liar's Kingdom: How to Stop Trump's Deceit and Save America, Andrew Weissmann

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2026!

6/20/26 – New York City

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Buy Melissa’s bestselling book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Preorder a signed paperback of Leah’s book, Lawless, here.

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