Presidential Immunity from Criminal Prosecution in Trump v. United States
On July 1, the Supreme Court issued a divided 6-3 opinion in Trump v. United States addressing, for the first time, the existence and scope of a constitutionally based presidential immunity from crimi...
NATO’s July 2024 Washington, DC Summit: In Brief
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) 2024 summit, marking the alliance’s 75th anniversary, is scheduled to be held in Washington, DC, July 9-11. In addition to highlighting NATO’s past achi...
Botswana
Botswana, dubbed “an excellent democratic partner” by the State Department, generally performs well on governance, economic, and human development metrics. The arid, landlocked, and sparsely populated...
Erlinger v. United States: Supreme Court Rules on Jury Determination for Prior Offenses for ACCA Sentencing Purposes
Introduction
Near the end of its term, the Supreme Court in Erlinger v. United States held that the right to a jury trial, complete with proof beyond a reasonable doubt found by a unanimous panel, att...
The Twenty-Fifth Amendment: Sections 3 and 4—Presidential Disability
The Twenty-Fifth Amendment, proposed by Congress in 1965 and ratified by the states in 1967, provides for presidential succession, vice presidential vacancies, and presidential disability. Presidentia...
United States v. Bannon: Criminal Contempt of Congress and Bad Faith
On May 10, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (D.C. Circuit) decided United States v. Bannon, an appeal of Stephen Bannon’s conviction under the criminal contempt of Congress statute...
Considerations for Implementing Congressionally Directed Spending: How Federal Agencies Administer Earmarks
The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (P.L. 117-328), and the community projects detailed in the joint explanatory statement, provided approximately $15.3 billion for community project funding (al...
Tribal Self-Determination Authorities
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1 DOI, "Indian Entities Recognized by and Eligible to Receive Services from the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs," 89 Federal
Register 944, January 8, 2024; 2 P.L. 93-638, §3; 3 P.L. 103-413, ...
Campus Protests, Federal Funding, and the First Amendment
Recent protests at college campuses regarding the Israel-Hamas conflict have gained nationwide attention, raising questions as to when authorities may, within the bounds of the First Amendment, take a...
Government Coercion of Private Speech: National Rifle Association (NRA) v. Vullo
On May 30, 2024, the Supreme Court released its opinion in National Rifle Association (NRA) v. Vullo, a case addressing the First Amendment limitations on coercive government speech. Although the Firs...
The Impact of Proposed Rescheduling of Marijuana on D.C. Regulatory Authority
In 2014, voters in the District of Columbia (the “District”) approved Initiative 71, a ballot measure that, as a matter of local D.C. law, repealed the local prohibition on the recreational use of mar...
Supreme Court Overrules Chevron Framework
In what has the potential to be one of the most consequential decisions in federal administrative law, the Supreme Court on June 28, 2024, overruled Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense C...
De Novo Banks: Policy Issues for the 118th Congress
While the size of the banking system has grown in terms of assets, the number of banks has steadily fallen over the past four decades. For example, in the 1980s, there were more than 18,000 banks. Tod...
Supreme Court Declines to Decide Whether Sixteenth Amendment Requires “Realization” to Tax Income
On June 20, 2024, the Supreme Court decided Moore v. United States, an appeal challenging a one-time “Mandatory Repatriation Tax” (MRT) on U.S. shareholders of a foreign corporation for accumulated, b...
Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD) Appropriations for FY2024
The House and the Senate Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD) Appropriations subcommittees are charged with providing annual appropriations for the Department of ...
United States Trustee v. John Q. Hammons Fall 2006, LLC: Congressional Intent in Determining Remedies for Violations of the Bankruptcy Clause Uniformity Requirement
On June 14, 2024, the Supreme Court issued a 6-3 decision in United States Trustee v. John Q. Hammons Fall 2006, LLC that specified the appropriate remedy for individuals affected by the Court’s 2022 ...
Federal Material Witness Statute: A Legal Overview of 18 U.S.C. § 3144
This is an overview of the law under the federal material witness statute, 18 U.S.C. § 3144, which authorizes the arrest of material witnesses, permits their release under essentially the same bail la...
Department of Defense Contractors and Efforts to Mitigate Foreign Influence
Some U.S. firms, including some Department of Defense (DOD) contractors, receive foreign investment or have other ties to foreign entities, including foreign firms and foreign governments. Some DOD co...
The Biden Administration’s Proclamation and Rule, Securing the Border, and DHS Operational Constraints
Citing record high levels of enforcement encounters at the Southwest land border (SWB), President Biden signed a Presidential Proclamation on June 3, 2024, that suspends and limits the entry of certai...