This week, we have an all-star duo in Daniel B. Rodridguez, the Harold Washington Professor of Law at Northwestern Law School, and Miriam Seifter, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin Law School! Much to David’s joy, we get Sam deep into the muck of state and local government law. We begin by talking about Daniel and Miriam’s new projects -- The SLoG Law Blog and The State Democracy Research Initiative. Sam then asks our guests which issues in state and local government law they’re thinking about right now. We discuss ongoing battles of state legislatures stripping power from governors, how states and localities are using COVID-related federal aid, and state constitutional law. As part of the conversation, we also get into institutional design of state and local governments and how these institutions promote or hinder majoritarianism.

Cristina Rodríguez, Professor of Law at Yale Law School, and Adam B. Cox, Professor of Law at NYU, join us to discuss their new book, The President and Immigration Law, where they outline how the Executive Branch gained nearly-unchecked discretion over immigration policy, what this system says about the nature of executive power more broadly, and what this all means for future immigration policy.

With the end of Donald Trump’s presidency potentially imminent, debates have begun about how to reform American politics—and the powers of the executive branch in America’s constitutional system. On this episode, we speak with Jack Goldsmith, professor of law at Harvard University, who recently coauthored After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency.