I'm Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, and welcome to We The People, a weekly show of constitutional debate.

The National Constitution Center is the only institution in America chartered by Congress to disseminate

information about the US Constitution on a nonpartisan basis. Today we'll

examine the Assembly and Petition clauses of the First Amendment, which state, quote,

Congress shall make no law, abridging the right of the people, peaceably to assemble,

and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Joining me to discuss this fascinating part of the Constitution

are two leading First Amendment scholars who wrote about the Assembly and Petition

Clauses for the National Constitution Center's wonderful new interactive Constitution,

which I want you to check out at Constitution Center.org. I am thrilled to report that only three

months after it launched the interactive Constitution has now attracted more than 2 million

unique visitors which is just wonderful news.

And I'm also excited to share that Podbeam has just named

this We The People Podcast, number nine out of a hundred and twenty

thousand podcasts so we thank you our wonderful loyal listeners for joining us for

these great programs of education and debate.

Bert Newborn is the Norman Dorsen Professor of Civil Liberties and founding legal director

of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law and John Anasu is an

Associate Professor of Law and Associate Professor of Political Science at the

Washington University School of Law.

Bert, John, thank you so much for being here.

Delighted to be here.

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