Stanford Legal

Sophia Lin Lakin, JD ’11 (MS ’04, BA ’02), director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, challenges the stated premises behind many current voting restrictions, including claims about widespread non-citizen voting. “If we’re worried about the integrity of our elections,” she tells Stanford Law professor and host Pam Karlan, “we should be worried about making sure that more people are participating in our elections and not chasing a fantasy.”

That concern—how long-standing efforts to restrict voting access can make it harder for eligible voters to participate—runs through the episode, which was recorded shortly before the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Louisiana v. Callais. In a 6–3 ruling, the Court struck down Louisiana’s congressional map, which had created a second majority-Black district, holding that the map was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The decision could make it harder to use Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to challenge maps that dilute minority voting strength.

Lakin and Karlan discuss what is at stake when access to the ballot becomes harder and the rules for translating votes into political power begin to shift. Their conversation focuses on proof-of-citizenship requirements, mail ballots, voter roll purges, and redistricting battles, offering a timely look at the legal fights shaping who can vote, whose ballots count, and whether communities can elect representatives of their choice.

 

Links:

Sophia Lin Lakin >>> ACLU page

Connect:

Episode Transcripts >>> Stanford Legal Podcast Website

Stanford Legal Podcast >>> LinkedIn Page

Rich Ford >>>  Twitter/X

Pam Karlan >>> Stanford Law School Page

Stanford Law School >>> Twitter/X

Stanford Lawyer Magazine >>> Twitter/X

(00:00:00) The Three Buckets of Voting Rights 

(00:02:35) Voter Roll Surveillance 

(00:06:17) The Non-Citizen Voting Myth and the Dangers of Faulty Databases 

(00:10:23) Citizenship Documentation Requirements 

(00:16:19) Mail Voting Rules and the Materiality Provision 

(00:21:00) Section Two of the Voting Rights Act and Redistricting Battles 

(00:28:51) Race, Politics, and the Future of Fair Maps 

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The 14th Amendment to the Constitution says: “all persons born are naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” But on his first day back in office, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that changed that understanding. According to the President's executive order, going forward, the only people who will be U.S. citizens at birth are people who are born in the United States to parents who are citizens, at least one of whom is a citizen, or at least one of the parents is a legal permanent resident of the United States. And what does all of this mean for Native Americans? 

In this episode, Greg Ablavsky, a Stanford Law professor and scholar of federal Indian law, joins Pam Karlan to discuss President Trump's challenge to birthright citizenship--a case now at the Supreme Court.

The discussion centers on the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause and, in particular, the meaning of the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Ablavsky explains why federal Indian law has become part of that debate. He traces the distinctive legal status of Native nations within the United States, the historical exception for members of tribal nations, and the way that history appears in seminal cases such as Elk v. Wilkins.  The conversation also looks at the relationship between Elk and U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, the 1898 case that recognized birthright citizenship for a child born in the United States to Chinese parents. Along the way, Karlan and Ablavsky break down why history matters to the government’s current effort to argue for new limits on birthright citizenship--and more.

Links:

Gregory Ablavsky >>> Stanford Law page

Federal Ground: Governing Property and Violence in the First U.S. Territories >>> Stanford Law page

Connect:

Episode Transcripts >>> Stanford Legal Podcast Website

Stanford Legal Podcast >>> LinkedIn Page

Rich Ford >>>  Twitter/X

Pam Karlan >>> Stanford Law School Page

Stanford Law School >>> Twitter/X

Stanford Lawyer Magazine >>> Twitter/X

(00:00:00) Who qualifies as a U.S. citizen at birth?

(00:03:54) The Origins of the 14th Amendment 

(00:05:58) "Subject to the Jurisdiction Thereof"

(00:11:42) Citizenship at the Supreme Court

(00:17:03) Native Americans, the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act, and the Presidency

(00:18:49) The Supreme Court Oral Argument in Trump v. CASA (Barbara) — Analogies, Originalism, and the Native American

(00:28:31) Practical Chaos, Hard Cases and What the Court Should Do

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On this episode of Stanford Legal, host Professor Richard Thompson Ford talks taxes with Darien Shanske, JD '06, a UC Davis law professor and visiting professor at Stanford Law, who helped draft California’s proposed Billionaire Tax Act, which supporters hope to place on the November 2026 ballot. Shanske explains why he believes critics have often attacked a distorted version of the proposal, not the measure itself: a one-time 5% tax on net worth above $1 billion, payable over five years, aimed at helping California respond to widening wealth inequality and cuts to the social safety net. The conversation explores the legal design of the measure, the politics surrounding it, and the larger questions it raises about tax fairness, concentrated wealth, and what tools states should have when public needs are acute.

 

Links:

Darien Shanske >>> Stanford Law page

Connect:

Episode Transcripts >>> Stanford Legal Podcast Website

Stanford Legal Podcast >>> LinkedIn Page

Rich Ford >>>  Twitter/X

Pam Karlan >>> Stanford Law School Page

Stanford Law School >>> Twitter/X

Stanford Lawyer Magazine >>> Twitter/X

(00:00:32) Origins of the Billionaire Tax

(00:05:28) Why a Wealth Tax? 

(00:12:07) Will Billionaires Flee? 

(00:19:06) Legal Challenges, Residency, and Retroactivity 

(00:26:48) The National Picture 

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The Trump administration came in promising mass deportation. What has followed goes well beyond border control to matters of local policing, detention, federal power, and the limits of the law inside the United States. On this episode of Stanford Legal, co-host Professor Richard Thompson Ford talks with immigration expert Jennifer Chacón, the Bruce Tyson Mitchell Professor of Law, about the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement agenda and the profound consequences it is having in cities and communities across the country. They discuss racial profiling, ignored court orders, pressure on states and localities, and the widening reach of immigration enforcement into everyday civic life. Professor Chacón, author of a casebook on immigration law, elaborates on some of the themes in her recently published paper “The Law of the Immigration Raid.”

Links:

Jennifer Chacón >>> Stanford Law page

Legal Phantoms >>> Stanford Law page

Immigration Law and Social Justice >>> Stanford Law page

Connect:

Episode Transcripts >>> Stanford Legal Podcast Website

Stanford Legal Podcast >>> LinkedIn Page

Rich Ford >>>  Twitter/X

Pam Karlan >>> Stanford Law School Page

Diego Zambrano >>> Stanford Law School Page

Stanford Law School >>> Twitter/X

Stanford Lawyer Magazine >>> Twitter/X

 

(00:00:00) Immigration Enforcement in 2026

(00:03:47) The Economics of a Closed Border

(00:09:58) Closing the Border to Asylum

(00:10:44) Profiling in Immigration Enforcement

(00:16:48) Courts, Defiance, and Detention

(00:25:40) Sanctuary, Commandeering, and the Weaponization of Immigration

(00:32:26) How States Can Restore the Humane Dimensions of Immigration Law

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When President Trump declared a national emergency and imposed sweeping tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), businesses challenged the move, arguing the president did not have authority under that statute to impose tariffs. The Supreme Court recently agreed. 

On this episode of Stanford Legal, co-host Professor Pamela Karlan sits down with international trade expert Alan Sykes, professor of law and Warren Christopher Professor in the Practice of International Law and Diplomacy, to unpack the Court’s 6–3 decision. Sykes is a leading expert on the application of economics to legal problems and the author of the book The Law and Economics of International Trade Agreements.

At the heart of the case, Sykes explains, was the question of whether a statute that allows the president to “regulate importation” can be stretched to authorize taxes on imports. The majority said no, emphasizing that the Constitution assigns the taxing power to Congress, and that if Congress intended to hand that power over, it would have said so clearly. The conversation explores the statutory arguments, the role of the Major Questions Doctrine, and the unusual alignments among the justices.

But the ruling raises as many questions as it answers, Sykes notes. What happens to billions in tariffs already collected? Do international trade deals struck in the shadow of these tariffs still stand? And with other statutory tools available is this really the end of the tariff saga, or just the next chapter?

Links:

Alan O. Sykes >>> Stanford Law page

The Law and Economics of International Trade Agreements >>> Stanford Law page

Connect:

Episode Transcripts >>> Stanford Legal Podcast Website

Stanford Legal Podcast >>> LinkedIn Page

Rich Ford >>>  Twitter/X

Pam Karlan >>> Stanford Law School Page

Stanford Law School >>> Twitter/X

Stanford Lawyer Magazine >>> Twitter/X

(00:00:00) Tariffs and IEEPA

(00:10:53) Statutory text and the history of tariffs

(00:13:54) “Regulate importation” and the Major Questions Doctrine

(00:17:56) Liquidation Timing, finality, and the 314‑day rule

(00:19:11) The Court of International Trade

(00:29:53) From IEEPA to Section 122 and what’s next under Section 301

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