One Year of COVID-19 and the Constitution

We the People

National Constitution Center

News, News Commentary, History

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 11 March 2021

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As the world reflects on the anniversaries of COVID-19 lockdowns this week, this episode recaps the variety of constitutional issues sparked by the pandemic. Joshua Matz—a lawyer and partner at Kaplan Hecker and Fink LLP who successfully defended a Kentucky coronavirus-related public health order before the U.S. Supreme Court—and Adam White, a professor at George Mason Law and scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who has studied COVID-19-related constitutional issues—join host Jeffrey Rosen. They explore how the pandemic has fueled debates over governmental power to handle public health crises while balancing individual rights and liberties; the First Amendment rights of religious institutions in the face of shutdowns and other orders; state versus federal power; how courts ruled on voting rights issues during the 2020 election in the midst of the pandemic; how COVID-19 has affected inmates, immigrants, detainees and the criminal justice system, and more. Additional resources and transcript available at constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/media-library. Questions or comments about the podcast? Email us at podcast@constitutioncenter.org.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, and welcome
0:07.6	to We The People, a weekly show of constitutional debate.
0:11.3	The National Constitution Center is a nonpartisan nonprofit chartered by Congress to increase
0:16.7	awareness and understanding of the Constitution among the American people.
0:21.7	As we approach the anniversary of COVID-19
0:23.8	lockdowns across the globe, today we look back on COVID and the Constitution
0:29.0	one year out here to shed light on the many important constitutional and legal debates that have risen during the past year are two of America's leading scholars who have litigated and studied these debates.
0:43.0	Joshua Matz is a partner of Kaplan Hecker and Think, LLP.
0:47.4	He has litigated cases about the rights of immigrant detainees, pretrial detainees, and voters during the pandemic and successfully represented
0:55.4	Governor Bonshire at the Supreme Court in defending his COVID-19 public health orders against
1:01.1	a free exercise challenge. He also served his counsel to the House Judiciary
1:04.7	Committee for both impeachments of President Trump. Joshua, it is wonderful to have you back on the show.
1:10.8	Thank you so much, Jeff. It's a pleasure to be here.
1:13.8	And Adam White is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, as well as assistant professor
1:18.6	of law and the director of the C. Boyden Gray Center for the study of the administrative state at the Antivans Scalia
1:25.0	Law School at George Mason University.
1:27.7	He has written extensively about COVID-19 in the Constitution and discussed these topics in our town halls and on previous
1:36.1	podcast which listeners can check out on our resource page. Adam it's wonderful to
1:40.4	have you back on the show. Jeff it it's always a pleasure to be here.
1:43.9	Thanks for inviting me.
1:45.2	Joshua, as I mentioned in the intro,
1:46.8	you successfully represented Governor Bashir
	...

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