More Perfect

This week, we revisit one of the most important Supreme Court cases you’ve probably never heard of: Baker v. Carr, a redistricting case from the 1960s, which challenged the justices to consider what might happen if they stepped into the world of electoral politics. It’s a case so stressful that it pushed one justice to a nervous breakdown, put another justice in the hospital, brought a boiling feud to a head, and changed the course of the Supreme Court — and the nation — forever. Voices in the episode include: • Tara Grove — More Perfect legal advisor, University of Texas at Austin law professor • Guy-Uriel Charles — Harvard Law School professor • Louis Michael Seidman — Georgetown Law School professor • Sam Issacharoff — NYU law school professor • Craig A. Smith — PennWest California humanities professor and Charles Whittaker's biographer • J. Douglas Smith — author of "On Democracy's Doorstep" • Alan Kohn — former Supreme Court clerk for Charles Whittaker (1957 term) • Kent Whittaker — Charles Whittaker's son • Kate Whittaker — Charles Whittaker's granddaughter Learn more: • 1962: Baker v. Carr • 2000: Bush v. Gore • 2016: Evenwel v. Abbott Music in this episode by Gyan Riley, Alex Overington, David Herman, Tobin Low and Jad Abumrad. Archival interviews with Justice William O. Douglas come from the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Princeton University Library. Special thanks to Jerry Goldman and to Whittaker's clerks: Heywood Davis, Jerry Libin and James Adler. Supreme Court archival audio comes from Oyez®, a free law project by Justia and the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School. Support for More Perfect is provided in part by The Smart Family Fund. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook @moreperfectpodcast, and Twitter @moreperfect.

To many Americans, Clarence Thomas makes no sense. For more than 30 years on the Court, he seems to have been on a mission — to take away rights that benefit Black people. As a young man, though, Thomas listened to records of Malcolm X speeches on a loop and strongly identified with the tenets of Black Nationalism. This week on More Perfect, we dig into his writings and lectures, talk to scholars and confidants, and explore his past, all in an attempt to answer: what does Clarence Thomas think Clarence Thomas is doing? Voices in the episode include: • Juan Williams — senior political analyst at Fox News • Corey Robin — professor of political science at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center • Angela Onwuachi-Willig — Dean of Boston University School of Law • Stephen F. Smith — Notre Dame Law School professor Learn more: • 1993: Graham v. Collins • 1994: Holder v. Hall • 1999: Chicago v. Morales • 2003: Grutter v. Bollinger • 2022: Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College • 2022: Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina • “The Enigma of Clarence Thomas” by Corey Robin • “Black Conservatives, Center Stage” by Juan Williams • “Just Another Brother on the SCT?: What Justice Clarence Thomas Teaches Us About the Influence of Racial Identity” by Angela Onwuachi-Willig • “Clarence X?: The Black Nationalist Behind Justice Thomas's Constitutionalism” by Stephen F. Smith • “My Grandfather’s Son” by Justice Clarence Thomas Supreme Court archival audio comes from Oyez®, a free law project by Justia and the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School. Support for More Perfect is provided in part by The Smart Family Fund. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook @moreperfectpodcast, and Twitter @moreperfect.

To kick off the new season, host Julia Longoria returns to high school, where she first fell in love with the Supreme Court. She was a star on her high school’s nationally-ranked “Constitution team” (read: nerd Super Bowl). For Julia, the Court represented a place where two sides of an issue could be discussed and debated. A lot has changed since then — and public perception around the Court is polarized, to say the least. Which is why we’re taking a cue from high schoolers: this season on More Perfect, we’re questioning everything. Learn more: • The We the People, The Citizen, and the Constitution Program Supreme Court archival audio comes from Oyez®, a free law project by Justia and the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School. Support for More Perfect is provided in part by The Smart Family Fund. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook @moreperfectpodcast, and Twitter @moreperfect.

In More Perfect's final episode of the season, listen to liner notes for two amendments that contemplate the still-unfinished status of our Constitution. "27" is an album that marks a particular point in our history: this moment when we have 27 Amendments to our Constitution. What will be the 28th? Maybe it will address our nation's capital. The capital has been a bit of a Constitutional anomaly for much of our nation's history — it's at the heart of the democracy, but because it's not a state, people in Washington D.C. have been disenfranchised almost by accident. The 23rd Amendment solved some of the problem — it gave D.C. the right to vote for president. But it left much of D.C.'s representation questions unanswered. D.C. still does not have voting representation in Congress. Instead, D.C. sends a "non-voting delegate" to Congress. For this liner note, More Perfect profiles that delegate, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, and her unique approach to fighting for power in a virtually powerless role. The song for the 23rd Amendment is by The Mellow Tones, a group of students from D.C. high school Duke Ellington School of the Arts, along with their teacher Mark G. Meadows. The chorus, "Why won't you count on me?" reflects on the continued disenfranchisement of our nation's capital. The final amendment of the album, the 27th Amendment, put limits on Senators' ability to give themselves a pay raise, and it has arguably the most unusual path to ratification of all 27. The first draft for the amendment was written by none other than James Madison in 1789, but back then, it didn't get enough votes from the states for ratification. It wasn't until a college student named Gregory Watson awakened the dormant amendment centuries later that it was finally ratified. The 27th Amendment song is by Kevin Devine and tells Watson's story. In Season Three, More Perfect is taking our camera lens off the Supreme Court and zooming in on the words of the people: the 27 amendments that We The People have made to our Constitution. We're taking on these 27 amendments both in song and in story. This episode is best listened to alongside "27: The Most Perfect Album," an entire album (an ALBUM!) and digital experience of original music and art inspired by the 27 Amendments. Think of these episodes as the audio liner notes. You can listen to all of the songs on "27: The Most Perfect Album" on YouTube and watch music videos from the album. Follow us on Instagram, Threads and Facebook @moreperfectpodcast, and X (Twitter) @moreperfect.

The 25th and 26th Amendments — ratified in 1967 and 1971, respectively — are some of the newest additions to our founding document. However, they tackle some pretty basic questions: who gets to rule, and who gets to vote? If a president dies or is incapacitated, who takes over? And how old do you have to be in order to participate in American democracy? In recent months, the 25th Amendment has swirled in and out of news cycles as Americans debate what it takes to declare a president unfit for office. But this episode looks back, even before the 25th Amendment was ratified, at a moment in 1919 when President Woodrow Wilson became bedridden by stroke, and his wife, Edith Wilson, became our country’s unofficial first female president. The 26th Amendment is best encapsulated in a Vietnam-era slogan: “Old enough to fight, old enough to vote.” Eighteen-year-olds at the time argued that if they were old enough to be drafted to fight in the war, they were old enough to have a voice in our democracy. But what about today, when even younger Americans are becoming victims of gun violence and finding themselves at the center of national political debates? Does it mean we should lower the voting age even further? When you're done with the episode, check out songs by Devendra Banhart and Suburban Living inspired by Amendments 25 and 26 on "27: The Most Perfect Album." In Season Three, More Perfect is taking our camera lens off the Supreme Court and zooming in on the words of the people: the 27 amendments that We The People have made to our Constitution. We're taking on these 27 amendments both in song and in story. This episode is best listened to alongside "27: The Most Perfect Album," an entire album (an ALBUM!) and digital experience of original music and art inspired by the 27 Amendments. Think of these episodes as the audio liner notes. You can listen to all of the songs on "27: The Most Perfect Album" on YouTube and watch music videos from the album, including this one from Devendra Banhart. Video illustration by Justin Buschardt.Video animation by The Mighty Coconut. Special thanks to The White House Historical Association. Follow us on Instagram, Threads and Facebook @moreperfectpodcast, and X (Twitter) @moreperfect.

Amendments 13, 14, and 15 are collectively known as the Reconstruction Amendments: they were passed as instructions to rebuild the country after the Civil War. They addressed slavery, citizenship, equality, and voting rights for Black people. This week, the More Perfect team explores the legacy of the amendments beyond the Civil War — the ways the promises of these amendments changed the country and the ways they've fallen short. First, More Perfect Executive Producer Suzie Lechtenberg and Legal Editor Elie Mystal explore the loophole in the 13th Amendment's slavery ban that's being used in a strange context: college football. We share songs about the 13th Amendment from Kash Doll and Bette Smith. Then, producer Julia Longoria shares a conversation with her roommate, Alia Almeida, exploring their relationship to the amendments. Inspired by the 14th Amendment's grant of equal protection and citizenship rights, Sarah Kay's poem tells the story of her grandmother, a U.S. citizen who was interned during World War II in a Japanese American Internment camp. Despite the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause, the Supreme Court upheld the internment of U.S. citizens based solely on their Japanese heritage in a case called Korematsu v. United States. In 2018, the Supreme Court said Korematsu was "wrong the day it was decided." The Court went on to uphold President Trump's controversial travel ban in Trump v. Hawaii. "Korematsu has nothing to do with this case," wrote the majority. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Sotomayor accused the majority of "redeploying the same dangerous logic underlying Korematsu" when they upheld the ban. Finally, hear songs inspired by the 15th Amendment by Aisha Burns and Nnamidi Ogbonnaya. In Season three, More Perfect is taking our camera lens off the Supreme Court and zooming in on the words of the people: the 27 amendments that We The People have made to our Constitution. We're taking on these 27 amendments both in song and in story. This episode is best listened to alongside "27: The Most Perfect Album," an entire album (an ALBUM!) and digital experience of original music and art inspired by the 27 Amendments. Think of these episodes as the audio liner notes. You can listen to all of the songs on "27: The Most Perfect Album" on YouTube and watch music videos from the album. Follow us on Instagram, Threads and Facebook @moreperfectpodcast, and X (Twitter) @moreperfect.

The first eight amendments to the U.S. Constitution are literal, straightforward, and direct. But when we get to Amendments Nine, 10, and 11, things get hazy. These are some of the least literal amendments in the Constitution: they mean more than they say, and what they say is often extremely confusing. So in the third episode of the new More Perfect season, we take these three blurry amendments and bring them into focus, embarking on a metaphorical, metaphysical, and somewhat astronomical journey to find the perfect analogies to truly understand each one. Episode Three reaches for lofty metaphors of moon shadows, legal penumbras, and romantic relationships — as well as more guttural, frankly gross ones, like the human appendix, to describe the three amendments that define the nature of our union and the powers of the government and the people. And when you're done with the episode, listen to the songs by The Kominas, Lean Year, and Field Medic inspired by Amendments Nine, 10 and 11 on "27: The Most Perfect Album." In Season Three, More Perfect is taking our camera lens off the Supreme Court and zooming in on the words of the people: the 27 amendments that We The People have made to our Constitution. We're taking on these 27 amendments both in song and in story. This episode is best listened to alongside "27: The Most Perfect Album," an entire album (an ALBUM!) and digital experience of original music and art inspired by the 27 Amendments. Think of these episodes as the audio liner notes. Follow us on Instagram, Threads and Facebook @moreperfectpodcast, and X (Twitter) @moreperfect.

Last year in the wake of the attack in Las Vegas, reporter Sean Rameswaram took a deep dive into America's twisty, thorny, seemingly irreconcilable relationship with guns. It's a story about the Second Amendment, the Black Panthers, the NRA, and a guy named Dick Heller, who in 2008 brought the Second Amendment to the Supreme Court for the very first time.