Alcoholic Originalism

The big opinions are starting to drop, and we're doing our best to keep pace. We first discuss Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections, which concerns religious liberty, the scope of Congress's power to create remedies against individuals under the Spending Clause, and whether there's any redress if government officials literally throw your rights into a trash can. We then turn to United States v. Hemani, where the Court found that a federal law barring gun possession by unlawful drug users violated the Second Amendment and revealed that some of the Justices are surprisingly open-minded about marijuana's role in American society.

Key Topics

[00:07:07] - Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections
[00:08:02] - The facts of Landor’s case and the prison’s decision to ignore prior religious-hair protections
[00:10:52] - RFRA, RLUIPA, and the path from Employment Division v. Smith to modern religious-liberty litigation
[00:14:54] - The Spending Clause theory behind federal funding conditions and why the remedy question matters
[00:19:54] - The majority’s reasoning: why money-damages suits against officials were held unconstitutional here
[00:21:33] - Sabri, the Necessary and Proper Clause, and the debate over third-party liability
[00:26:04] - The parade of horribles: transgender sports, vaccines, and other funding-condition hypotheticals
[00:33:03] - The constitutional background: “general welfare,” the spending clause, and the comma-versus-semicolon debate
[00:38:49] - Why the Court granted the case and whether the facts pushed the legal outcome
[00:42:13] - Hemani and the federal statute banning gun possession by unlawful drug users
[00:44:05] - Historical analogies, habitual drunkards, and how Bruen and Rahimi are functioning together
[00:47:17] - Discussion of the Court’s analogical method and its practical limits in lower courts
[00:54:26] - Justice Thomas’s concurrence on jurisdictional hooks after Lopez
[00:55:31] - Justice Jackson’s concurrence on Bruen and Justice Alito’s surprising marijuana comparison
[00:57:51] - The real-world use of marijuana versus alcohol at the founding, and why the analogy is controversial

Relevant Links

• Divided Argument: https://www.dividedargument.com/

• Podcast merchandise: https://store.dividedargument.com/

• Podcast commentary and blog: https://blog.dividedargument.com/

• RLUIPA overview (Cornell LII): https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/rluipa

• RFRA overview (Cornell LII): https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/religious_freedom_restoration_act

• District of Columbia v. Heller (Cornell LII): https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/554/570

• New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (Cornell LII): https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/597/1

• United States v. Rahimi (Cornell LII): https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/602/230

• South Dakota v. Dole (Cornell LII): https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/483/203

• Sabri v. United States (Cornell LII): https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/541/600