Matt Ford

@mford

Staff writer, The New Republic. Law, democracy, and the courts. 49ers/Dodgers stuff too.

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Matt Ford@mford· 6d

Ohtani has the most random endorsement deals in sports

Matt Ford@mford· 9d

Matt Ford@mford· 12d

A small, sad marker of the times from Justice Jackson. Until the late 2010s the justices rarely had security at all. DC folks would routinely see them alone at bookstores, farmers markets, and so on. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/29/u...

While the two were in agreement about the privilege of serving at the highest levels of public office, both women lamented the adjustment to living in a bubble, accompanied at all times by security.

“I can’t go out in any meaningful way as I used to, and that can be a downside. Just not being able to live a normal life,” the justice said, adding, “I know you know what it’s like to feel confined.”
Both women also discussed the isolation they felt as college freshmen on Ivy League campuses — Justice Jackson at Harvard and the former first lady at Princeton.

Matt Ford@mford· 17d

My toddler when he learned how the hose nozzle worked

Matt Ford@mford· 22d

Good guess. www.espn.com/mens-college...

According to the records, gaming control board agents briefly interviewed Martin at the DraftKings office in Las Vegas on Oct. 23, 2025. They asked Martin why he thought they were speaking with him. "I'm guessing this has to do with sports integrity then?" Martin said, before a person who said he represented DraftKings' legal team asked that the questioning stop, according to the records. The DraftKings spokesperson said they couldn't comment on the gaming control board agents' interview at the company office in Las Vegas.

Matt Ford@mford· 22d

John Adams, on the other hand, clocked the Spartans as psychopathic losers 250 years ago.

That the glory of the descendants of Hercules and of their republic might be the pride of every citizen, and that a superstitious attachment to both might be perpetuated, it was necessary to extinguish every other appetite, passion, and affection in human nature. The equal division of property; the banishment of gold and silver; the prohibition of travel and intercourse with strangers; the prohibition of arts, trades, and agriculture; the discouragement of literature; the public meals; the incessant warlike exercises; the doctrine that every citizen was the property of the state, and that parents should not educate their own children; although they served to keep up the constant belief of the divine mission of Lycurgus, and an enthusiastic passion for the glory of the republic, and the race of Hercules; and although they are celebrated by the aristocratical philosophers, historians, and statesmen of antiquity; must be considered as calculated to gratify his own family pride rather than promote the happiness of his people. Four hundred thousand slaves must be devoted to forty thousand citizens; weak and deformed children must be exposed; morality and humanity, as well as all the comforts, elegancies, and pleasures of life must be sacrificed to this glaring phantom of vanity, superstition, and ambition. Separated from the rest of mankind, they lived together, destitute of all business, pleasure, and amusement, but war and politics, pride and ambition; and these occupations and passions they transmitted from generation to generation, for seven hundred years; as if fighting and intriguing, and not life and happiness, were the end of man and society; as if the love of one’s country and of glory were amiable passions, when not limited by justice and general benevolence; and as if nations were to be chained together forever, merely that one family might reign among them.

Human nature perished under this frigid system of national and family pride. Population, the surest indication of national happiness, decreased so fast, that not more than one thousand old Spartan families remained, while nine thousand strangers had intruded, in spite of all their prohibitory laws. The conquest of Athens gave them a taste of wealth, and even the fear of the penalty of death could not restrain them from travelling. Intercourse with strangers brought in foreign manners. The ephori were sometimes bribed. Divisions arose between the two kings, Agis and Leonidas; one joined with the people, the other with the nobles, and the sedition proceeded to blood. Kings became so fond of subsidies from foreign powers, that Agesilaus received them from a King of Egypt, and his enemy at the same time. Agis was murdered by the order of the ephori, who, instead of honoring the blood of Hercules, according to their oath, took the sovereign power into their own hands. Here the balance broke; Cleomenes, who endeavored, like Agis, to restore the old laws and maxims, fell a sacrifice; and nothing appears afterwards in the history of Sparta but profligacy, tyranny, and cruelty, like that in Rome under the worst of the Cæsars.

Matt Ford@mford· 27d

I would take it no other way!

Matt Ford@mford· Jul 4

Happy Fourth and happy 250th. I find myself re-reading FDR’s third inaugural address often these days. www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/th...

Lives of Nations are determined not by the count of years, but by the lifetime of the human spirit. The life of a man is threescore years and ten: a little more, a little less. The life of a Nation is the fullness of the measure of its will to live.

There are men who doubt this. There are men who believe that democracy, as a form of government and a frame of life, is limited or measured by a kind of mystical and artificial fate that, for some unexplained reason, tyranny and slavery have become the surging wave of the future—and that freedom is an ebbing tide.

But we Americans know that this is not true.

Eight years ago, when the life of this Republic seemed frozen by a fatalistic terror, we proved that this is not true. We were in the midst of shock—but we acted. We acted quickly, boldly, decisively.

These later years have been living years—fruitful years for the people of this democracy. For they have brought to us greater security and, I hope, a better understanding that life's ideals are to be measured in other than material things.

Most vital to our present and to our future is this experience of a democracy which successfully survived crisis at home; put away many evil things; built new structures on enduring lines; and, through it all, maintained the fact of its democracy.

For action has been taken within the three-way framework of the Constitution of the United States. The coordinate branches of the Government continue freely to function. The Bill of Rights remains inviolate. The freedom of elections is wholly maintained. Prophets of the downfall of American democracy have seen their dire predictions come to naught.

No, democracy is not dying.

We know it because we have seen it revive—and grow.

We know it cannot die—because it is built on the unhampered initiative of individual men and women joined together in a common enterprise—an enterprise undertaken and carried through by the free expression of a free majority.

We know it because democracy alone, of all forms of government, enlists the full force of men's enlightened will.

We know it because democracy alone has constructed an unlimited civilization capable of infinite progress in the improvement of human life.

We know it because, if we look below the surface, we sense it still spreading on every continent—for it is the most humane, the most advanced, and in the end the most unconquerable of all forms of human society.

Matt Ford@mford· Jun 30

Gorsuch, who joined Thomas’s dissent, also “harbors doubts” in his own dissent about DOJ’s position that undocumented immigrants can never establish domicile. He signals he could rule otherwise in an as-applied case.

Finally, just because the executive order has some lawful
applications and can survive a facial challenge does not
mean it is lawful across the board and immune from nar-
rower legal challenges. Besides addressing temporary vis-
itors, the order also denies the benefits of citizenship to chil-
dren born in this country to parents who make their
permanent home here, but do so in defiance of federal im-
migration laws. The government insists that aspect of the
order can survive any possible legal challenge, too, because
individuals can secure domicile in this country only if they
do so in compliance with federal law. See ante, at 57–58,
n. 10 (THOMAS, J., dissenting).
About that, however, I harbor doubts. Perhaps Wong
Kim Ark does not squarely foreclose the government’s posi-
tion. After all, that case addressed a child born to parents
who lawfully resided in this country. Still, I wonder: Is a
child born here to parents who have long chosen to make
this Nation their permanent home not a citizen under the
Fourteenth Amendment solely because his parents’ pres-
ence violates statutory law? If those parents are not domi-
ciled here, then where are they domiciled? And if the an-
swer is nowhere, how can we reconcile that conclusion with
this Court’s longstanding recognition that every person is
domiciled somewhere? See Desmare v. United States, 93
U. S. 605, 610 (1877). Because the executive order is not
facially invalid, these questions may not be properly before
us. But their answers are undeniably important to a Nation
committed to a view of citizenship open to all children born
here to parents who can call this country their home

Matt Ford@mford· Jun 30

Interesting footnote in Thomas’s dissent where he suggests that some long-term undocumented immigrants are domiciled and might be covered by his view of the Citizenship Clause.

Because this case presents a facial challenge and no one disputes
that lawful temporary visitors and some illegal aliens are not domiciled
here, I would reserve for another day the question whether the children
of illegal aliens can be domiciled here.
The Government and several scholars have suggested some reasons
why, they believe, illegal aliens can never be domiciled here. An illegal
alien’s entry and presence violate federal law. See INS v. Lopez-Men-
doza, 468 U. S. 1032, 1038 (1984). He is subject to potential removal at
any time. 8 U. S. C. §§1182(a)(2)(6)(A)(i), 1229a(a)(2). And, some au-
thorities have suggested that domicile requires permission to remain.
Cf. Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U. S. 698, 724 (1893); 1 Z. Swift,
A System of the Laws of Connecticut 167 (1795). Therefore, when

presented with variations on this question in other contexts, some courts
have concluded that an alien who wishes to remain in the United States
in violation of federal law cannot be “domiciled” here because he “lacks
the legal capacity to establish domicile.” Carlson v. Reed, 249 F. 3d 876,
881 (CA9 2001) (O’Scannlain, J., for the court); cf. Kaplan v. Tod, 267
U. S. 228, 230 (1925); Letter from F. Reeve, Acting Solicitor of the Treas-
ury, to W. Windom, Secretary of the Treasury (Mar. 4, 1890), in 11 Doc-
uments of the Assembly of the State of New York, pp. 47–48 (1890);
Wurman, 49 Harv. J. L. Pub. Pol’y, at 324, 448, and n. 503.
That said, many others understandably have suggested that long-term
resident illegal aliens satisfy the elements of domicile because they re-
side here with the intent to permanently remain. As JUSTICE GORSUCH
explains, the children of such aliens may be domiciled here because they
are “born here to parents who have long chosen to make this Nation their
permanent home.” Post, at 3 (dissenting opinion). Such questions are
best resolved in the context of as-applied challenges. See ibid.

Matt Ford@mford· Jun 30

Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion attempts to divine the intentions and desires of the Fourteenth Amendment’s drafters without a single citation of anything they wrote.

Here, that interpretive principle would support
additional exceptions for children born to foreign citizens
unlawfully or temporarily in the country.5
First, significant illegal immigration into the United
States is a new circumstance that was largely unknown as
of 1868 and that the Framers of the Fourteenth
Amendment could not have fully anticipated. And the
Framers likely would not have anticipated (and presumably
would not have intended) the odd result of granting a
substantial birthright citizenship benefit to (i) those foreign
citizens who violate U. S. immigration law and illegally
enter or overstay and then have children in the United
States over (ii) those foreign citizens who follow U. S.
immigration law and have children in their home countries
while seeking to lawfully immigrate to the United States.
Nor presumably would they have wanted to grant
constitutional birthright citizenship to children of foreign
citizens unlawfully in the country while simultaneously
denying constitutional birthright citizenship to children of
tribal American Indians. So too, the issue of temporary
visitors who give birth in the United States presents a new
and different circumstance than in 1868 given the
significant changes in immigration laws and travel.

Matt Ford@mford· Jun 30

My apologies, this decision is actually 5-4 where it counts. Kavanaugh says in a concurring opinion that he thinks Trump’s EO violates a federal statute that restates the Citizenship Clause, but not the clause itself.

JUSTICE KAVANAUGH, concurring in the judgment and
dissenting in part.
Executive Order No. 14160 establishes new exceptions to
birthright citizenship for children born to foreign citizens
unlawfully or temporarily in the country. 90 Fed. Reg. 8449
(2025). The Court today holds that the Order violates the
Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. I respectfully
disagree with the Court’s constitutional holding. In my
view, the Executive Order does not violate the Fourteenth
Amendment. But the Order does contravene a federal
statute, 8 U. S. C. §1401(a). Congress could—consistent
with the Fourteenth Amendment—amend §1401(a) or
otherwise enact new legislation establishing exceptions to
birthright citizenship for children born to foreign citizens
unlawfully or temporarily in the country. But Congress has
not yet done so.

Matt Ford@mford· Jun 30

First up is West Virginia v. B.J.P., the trans student-athlete case. SCOTUS upholds WV’s exclusion of a transgender girl from a HS girls’ cross-country team and finds no 14A violation. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

KAVANAUGH, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS,
C. J., and THOMAS, ALITO, GORSUCH, and BARRETT, JJ., joined. THOMAS,
J., and GORSUCH, J., filed concurring opinions. SOTOMAYOR, J., filed an
opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part, in
which KAGAN and JACKSON, JJ., joined. JACKSON, J., filed an opinion con-
curring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part.

Matt Ford@mford· Jun 30

Good morning, folks, and welcome to the last day of the 2025-2026 term.

“The Roberts Court” as a TNG title screen

Matt Ford@mford· Jun 29

The Supreme Court really doesn’t like Congress. newrepublic.com/article/2125...

Matt Ford@mford· Jun 29

Roberts, on Cook and the Federal Reserve: “We see no reason to leave the public in limbo, or to sow doubt as to the status of one of our Nation’s (and the world’s) most important financial institutions.”

response to a dissent—is not reducible to any mechanical
formula; it is ultimately a matter of prudence, upon which
reasonable minds can (and often do) disagree. See Mira-
belli v. Bonta, 607 U. S. 492, 501 (2026) (BARRETT, J., con-
curring) (“Interim applications routinely require the Court
to balance the lock-in risk of saying too much against the
transparency cost of saying too little”); compare Trump v.
Illinois, 607 U. S. ___ (2025), with id., at ___ (KAVANAUGH,
J., concurring in judgment) (slip op., at 6), and id., at ___
(GORSUCH, J., dissenting) (slip op. at 2). In this extraordi-
nary case, we have had the benefit of not only amici and
oral argument but months of internal consultation and de-
liberation. We see no reason to leave the public in limbo, or
to sow doubt as to the status of one of our Nation’s (and the
world’s) most important financial institutions. Although
we appreciate that others may see matters differently, we
would not so quickly unsettle this “special arrangement
sanctioned by history.” Consumer Financial Protection Bu-
reau v. Community Financial Services Assn. of America,
Ltd., 601 U. S. 416, 467, n. 16 (2024) (ALITO, J., dissenting).

Matt Ford@mford· Jun 29

All three of the court’s liberals dissented from a cert denial in a QI case that included a strong critique of the majority’s overall approach to qualified immunity and summary reversal.

The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE KAGAN and
JUSTICE JACKSON join, dissenting from the denial of certio-
rari.
In late November in Green Bay, Wisconsin, two prison
officials intentionally locked petitioner Antonio Smith in a
freezing-cold prison cell, naked and without any way to
keep warm for 23 hours. The Seventh Circuit held that the
officers violated Smith’s Eighth Amendment right to be free
from cruel and unusual punishment but nevertheless
granted them qualified immunity, reasoning that the Cir-
cuit “had never held it unconstitutional on closely analo-
gous facts to house an inmate in a cell that ranged in tem-
perature from 25 to 57 degrees over a 23-hour period
without clothes or a way to keep warm.” 140 F. 4th 359,
372 (2025). The Circuit’s grant of qualified immunity is
clearly wrong, and I would summarily reverse.

Summary reversal is “‘a rare disposition, usually re-
served by this Court for situations in which the law is set-
tled and stable, the facts are not in dispute, and the decision
below is clearly in error.’” Andrus v. Texas, 596 U. S. ___,
___–___ (2022) (SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting from denial of
certiorari) (slip op., at 23–24). This Term, however, the
Court has exercised its discretion to summarily reverse
supposed errors that were far less clear than the one here.
See, e.g., McCarthy v. Hernandez, 607 U. S. ___ (2026)
(per curiam); Zorn v. Linton, 607 U. S. ___ (2026) (per cu-
riam); see also Smith v. Scott, 608 U. S. ___ (2026) (sum-
marily vacating and remanding denial of qualified-immun-
ity in light of Zorn). If those cases were clear enough for
summary action, the Court here should have readily con-
cluded, based on precedent and basic human decency, that
it is beyond debate that it is cruel and unusual to lock some-
one intentionally in a freezing prison cell completely naked
for 23 hours.
The Court’s decision not to do so today exacerbates its
asymmetrical trend of declining to intervene when courts
wrongly afford officers the benefit of qualified immunity,
but unflinchingly summarily reversing when it believes
courts have wrongly denied officers the protection of quali-
fied immunity. See, e.g., Zorn, 607 U. S., at ___–___
(SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 8–9); Kisela v.
Hughes, 584 U. S. 100, 121 (2018) (SOTOMAYOR, J., dissent-
ing). Reversing only denials of qualified immunity sends
the regrettable message that, when choosing between
shielding government officials from liability and vindicat-
ing individuals’ constitutional rights, this Court will almost
always choose the former. Because this decision emboldens
government officials, like the correctional officers here, to
act with impunity, I respectfully dissent from the Court’s
refusal to summarily reverse.

Matt Ford@mford· Jun 29

Another notable cert grant today: SCOTUS will hear a challenge to two WA laws on transgender youth homelessness, which a right-wing legal organization claims are an attack on parental rights.

CERTIORARI GRANTED
RISEANDSHINE CORP. V. PEPSICO, INC.
HOFFMANN, LEONARD W., ET AL. V. WBI ENERGY TRANSMISSION, INC.
INTERNATIONAL PARTNERS, ET AL. V. FERGUSON, GOV. OF WA, ET AL.
WASSILY, TAMER S., ET AL. V. BLANCHE, ACTING ATT'Y GEN.
REPUBLICAN NAT. COMM. V. MI FAMILIA VOTA, ET AL.
The petitions for writs of certiorari are granted.
MONTOYA PALACIOS, KEVIN I. V. LIGGINS, VERNON, ET AL.

Matt Ford@mford· Jun 26

My Protestant ancestors are livid right now

Matt Ford@mford· Jun 25

In dissent, Kagan takes issue with the Doe majority’s claim that the Trump admin. offered a race-neutral reason for TPS revocation, citing Trump’s numerous racist statements.

of appellate review. The discriminatory-purpose in-
quiry is predominantly factual, so a lower court’s conclusion
must stand unless clearly erroneous. See Anderson v. Bes-
semer City, 470 U. S. 564, 573 (1985). Here, the District
Court found that the existing record (which future discov-
ery could supplement) “strongly suggests that [the] decision
to terminate Haiti’s TPS designation was motivated, at
least in part, by racial animus.” 2 App. 703; see id., at 698
(observing that the President’s statements “repeatedly in-
voked racist tropes of national purity,” and evinced “anti-
black” animus). Under clear-error review, that finding gov-
erns so long as it is “plausible.” Anderson, 470 U. S., at 574.
It is more than plausible: Even putting the clear-error
standard aside, the Haiti plaintiffs have carried their bur-
den. The evidence they have offered includes statements
by the President so repellent and racially inflected that the
majority declines to put them in print. (Indeed, one meas-
ure of the President’s way of speaking about Haitians is to
compare it with the majority’s, which is unfailingly

respectful.4) So here are some of those statements. Hai-
tians are “eating the dogs . . . . They’re eating the cats.
They’re eating—they’re eating the pets of the people that
live [in Springfield, Ohio].” 2 App. 802; see id., at 644. And:
Haitians are also eating “other things too that they’re not
supposed to be.” Id., at 698–699. And: Haitians in the
United States “probably have AIDS.” Id., at 698. And:
Haiti is a “shithole country,” which is “filthy, dirty, [and]
disgusting.” Id., at 698–699. And: Haitian immigration is
“like a death wish for our country.” Id., at 698. And: Hai-
tians, along with some others, are “poisoning the blood” of
our country. Id., at 698. And: “Why is it we only take people
from shithole countries” like “Haiti [and] Somalia”? “Why
cannot we have some people from Norway [and] Sweden?”
Id., at 699. The majority briefly replies that those remarks
are not “overtly racial,” ante, at 21, but it is hard to know
what that means. Haitians are Black. (Norwegians and
Swedes not so much.) The references—of filth, disease, and
primitiveness—are shot through with racial stereotypes
and tropes. It is hard to imagine the statements being
made today of any White community. No very “sensitive
inquiry,” of the kind Arlington Heights compels, is needed
to see them for what they are, 429 U. S., at 266; judges, as
we often say, are “not required to exhibit a naiveté from
which ordinary citizens are free,” Department of Commerce,
588 U. S., at 785. The statements fairly shout, in their ra-
cial undertones and overtones alike, that race entered into
the President’s resolve to remove Haitians from this coun-
try.

Matt Ford@mford· Jun 25

Thomas says in a concurring opinion that the Commerce Clause only allows Congress to regulate interstate “commerce,” not “manufacturing” or “agriculture.” (????)

JUSTICE THOMAS, concurring.
I agree with the Court’s interpretation of the Federal In-
secticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act and its applica-
tion of our preemption precedents. I therefore join its opin-
ion in full. I write separately to call attention to some of the
underlying constitutional infirmities in the Act.
First, the Act likely exceeds Congress’s authority under
the Commerce Clause, which authorizes Congress to regu-
late “Commerce . . . among the several States.” Art. I, §8,
cl. 3. This power allows Congress to regulate “selling, buy-
ing, and bartering” across state lines. United States v.
Lopez, 514 U. S. 549, 585 (1995) (THOMAS, J., concurring).
It does not allow Congress to regulate “agriculture” or
“manufacturing,” activities entirely “separate” from “com-
merce.”

Matt Ford@mford· Jun 23

Interesting choice by Gorsuch for the first hypothetical in this paragraph in today’s ruling in Landor. We’re still awaiting SCOTUS’s ruling on trans athlete bans.

Federal authorities
would have no need to show that their regulations repre-
sent proper exercises of Congress’s limited and enumerated
powers found in the Commerce Clause, the Bankruptcy
Clause, or any other. All they would have to show is that a
recipient who consented to a funding condition spent some
formerly federal money in transactions with a third party.
Just like that, the federal government could directly regu-
late the third party’s conduct. Take some examples. On
Mr. Landor’s theory, Congress could require coaches at uni-
versities that receive federal funds to permit transgender
athletes to play women’s sports—or face personal liability
in suits for damages. Likewise, Congress could bar doctors
at medical practices that accept federal funds from admin-
istering certain vaccines to children—again on pain of dam-
ages. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 37–43. None of that fits with our
system of limited and enumerated federal powers where all
others are reserved to the States and the people.

Matt Ford@mford· Jun 21

Shout-out to my perfect little dude. Father’s Day rules because of you.

Matt Ford@mford· Jun 20

My brother-in-law showing up at my in-laws’ house after my toddler has exhausted everyone else there

Matt Ford@mford· Jun 18

Normal thing for a kid to write

Zuckerberg once texted Trump a photo of a letter written by one of his grade-school-age children, who wrote that they “looked forward to the golden age of America,” a slogan Trump had repeated at rallies during the presidential campaign.

Matt Ford@mford· Jun 18

I’ll have to read this one more closely to summarize it well, but it does have an extremely unusual 5-4 split.

SOTOMAYOR, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which THOMAS,
ALITO, KAVANAUGH, and JACKSON, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., filed a concur-
ring opinion. BARRETT, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which ROBERTS,
C. J., and KAGAN and GORSUCH, JJ., joined.

Matt Ford@mford· Jun 15

Three new SCOTUS grants this morning for merits review next term. Two criminal cases and one immigration case. www.supremecourt.gov/orders/court...

CERTIORARI GRANTED
25-886 GENALO, DIR., ET AL. V. BLACK, CAROL W., ET AL.
The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted as to
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Case No.
22-70. In addition to the questions presented by the petition,
the parties are directed to brief and argue the following
question: Whether G. M.'s case is now moot.
25-1003 GUERRERO, DIR., TX DCJ V. JOHNSON, DEXTER
The motion of respondent for leave to proceed in forma
pauperis and the petition for a writ of certiorari are granted.
25-6623 KIAN, HAMED V. FLORIDA
The motion of petitioner for leave to proceed in forma
pauperis and the petition for a writ of certiorari are granted.

Matt Ford@mford· Jun 12

Gutter-level clickbait framing from NYT here, to the point of actively deceiving readers. The editors and reporter should be ashamed of themselves.

Major League Baseball Will Question the Dodgers’s Doctor About Banned Drugs

The inquiry comes after a report that Dr. Neal ElAttrache, the physician for the team, supported the U.F.C. star Conor McGregor in using performance-enhancing drugs while recovering from an injury.

Matt Ford@mford· Jun 9

Matt Ford@mford· Jun 8