By the People | Who Owns the Constitution?

By the People | Who Owns the Constitution?

From Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts by Slate Podcasts

July 18, 2026 · 41 min

About this episode

The episode explores the shift of constitutional interpretation from the American people to the Supreme Court and discusses the possibility of restoring popular power in this context.

For the better part of two centuries of U.S. history, the American people understood that they—and not the Supreme Court—were the final arbiters of the Constitution. But in recent decades, nine unelected justices have claimed that mantle for themselves. Now, with the high court's claim of neutrality and legitimacy crumbling, an urgent question must be answered: Can "We the People" restore our power to interpret the Constitution—and if so, how? In the first installment of the series By the People, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern try to find out how and when this notion of judicial supremacy took over, with the help of Larry Kramer, legal scholar and author of The People Themselves: Popular Constitutionalism and Judicial Review. You can read the full package of articles accompanying this series at slate.com/bythepeople The justices publish their opinions a few dozen times a year. Dahlia and Mark share theirs every week. Slate Plus gets you all of it: Amicus ad-free with a weekly bonus segment, and no paywalls anywhere on Slate. Join now. Visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and…

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