Author | Lightnews

Brandon Johnson @bjeromy.bsky.social · 7d

My thanks to @unlcollegeoflaw.bsky.social for supporting the Big Ten Early Career Law Scholars Workshop. And my thanks to all of the brilliant scholars from across the Big Ten community who spent the past two days sharing their time, work, and insights.

Reposted by Brandon Johnson

Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · 8d

Today's "One First" explains why Stephen Miller is wrong that ICE officers have "federal immunity" from prosecution for all actions they take in their official duties, and that anyone attempting to prosecute them is committing a felony.

Supremacy Clause immunity is a thing, but it's *not* absolute:

186. When Can States Prosecute Federal Officers?

Stephen Miller claims that ICE officers have "immunity" for anything they do while enforcing immigration law. Even as an argument about *state* criminal prosecutions, that claim is overstated at best.

www.stevevladeck.com

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Brandon Johnson @bjeromy.bsky.social · Sep 9

Increasingly polarized maneuvers like this were always going to be the result of Rucho shutting the federal courthouse doors to partisan gerrymandering claims.

nebraskaexaminer.com/2025/09/08/w...

White House may discuss mid-decade redistricting with Nebraska lawmakers this week • Nebraska Examiner

The Trump administration is hosting a state leadership conference, but political aides could discuss redistricting, too.

nebraskaexaminer.com

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Brandon Johnson @bjeromy.bsky.social · Sep 3

My essay for the @washulaw.bsky.social symposium, “History, Tradition, and the Franchise,” is now available for download. It highlights the modern Court’s reliance on history & tradition, and cautions against this approach in voting rights, equal protection claims

wustllawreview.org/2025/09/02/h...

wustllawreview.org

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Brandon Johnson @bjeromy.bsky.social · Jul 30

Come join us at @unlcollegeoflaw.bsky.social for an early career scholars workshop this October!! Open to legal educators at Big Ten institutions with less than ten years of teaching experience! Papers at all stages welcome, and there’s a $500 travel stipend available!

law.unl.edu/big-ten-earl...

Big Ten Early Career Scholars Workshop | College of Law | Nebraska

This collaborative workshop will provide an opportunity for participants to present works-in-progress at any stage of development and receive valuable feedback from peers and mentors within the Big Te...

law.unl.edu

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Reposted by Brandon Johnson

Evan Bernick, a finite mode with a smol hooman and a lorg floof @evanbernick.bsky.social · Jul 29

I think we should expect them to attempt to carry it out regardless of what the courts say about it and then be pleasantly surprised if they do not

Andrew Kreighbaum @kreighbaum.bsky.social · Jul 28

Trump's executive order upending birthright citizenship is blocked by multiple courts, but USCIS is making plans to carry it out if allowed to go into effect.

It's released an implementation plan defining which groups of immigrant children would lose automatic birthright citizenship.

USCIS Issues Plan to Fulfill Trump Birthright Citizenship Order

The agency that administers immigration benefits is making plans to carry out President Donald Trump‘s executive order restricting birthright citizenship, even though its currently blocked by the cour...

news.bloomberglaw.com

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Brandon Johnson @bjeromy.bsky.social · Jul 21

FWIW, “Concentration of Powers” (forthcoming UC Davis Law Review) was a “top download” this week in SSRN’s “Bureaucratic Relations” eJournal. You can access the paper here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Concentration of Powers

<p><i><span>This Article critically interrogates the Roberts Court’s evolving administrative law jurisprudence as a paradigm of judicial aggrandizement. It trac

papers.ssrn.com

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Reposted by Brandon Johnson

Lawrence Solum @lsolum.bsky.social · Jul 18

Johnson on Judicial Supremacy, Separation of Powers, and Administrative Law, buff.ly/Sbvv3rb - Brandon Johnson (University of Nebraska College of Law) has posted Concentration of Powers on SSRN.

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Reposted by Brandon Johnson

David S. Cohen @dsc250.bsky.social · Jul 15

This is 100% right - though I think it's deeper than that. People don't necessarily think it's a person who will step in but that the system just does things automatically to stop bad things.

But it doesn't work that way. Laws, courts, the Constitution -- nothing happens automatically.

Point Blank Sandwich Hat @kenwhite.bsky.social · Feb 2

I think Americans, blessed with relatively stable government for a long time, assume there is someone, some adult, who will step in and make things right before the President does anything REALLY bad.

There’s not.

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Brandon Johnson @bjeromy.bsky.social · Jul 15

Is this what they’re using that new Grok contract for? This looks like some asked a racist AI to convert Nazi propaganda about the “Volksgemeinschaft” into pioneer propaganda. This is so stupid it would be laughable if it wasn’t at the same time, deeply terrifying and a harbinger of worse to come.

Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · Jul 14

The official DHS account is now tweeting about “your homeland’s heritage”

Homeland Security DHS account on X: Remember your Homeland's Heritage.
New Life in a New Land - Morgan Weistling

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Brandon Johnson @bjeromy.bsky.social · Jul 12

Reupping this for interested folks who may have missed it yesterday!

Brandon Johnson @bjeromy.bsky.social · Jul 11

“Concentration of Powers” (forthcoming in @ucdavislaw.bsky.social Law Review), which analyzes judicial control of agencies, is now available on @ssrn.bsky.social.

I’m working on substantive edits (especially to Part IV) so any and all comments are welcome!

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

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Brandon Johnson @bjeromy.bsky.social · Jul 11

“Concentration of Powers” (forthcoming in @ucdavislaw.bsky.social Law Review), which analyzes judicial control of agencies, is now available on @ssrn.bsky.social.

I’m working on substantive edits (especially to Part IV) so any and all comments are welcome!

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

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Reposted by Brandon Johnson

Connor Ewing @cmewing.bsky.social · Jul 9

Fortunately we know from history that there’s nothing alarming or untoward about referring to your political enemies as vermin or insects.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · Jul 9

Sen. Ashley Moody cheerleads the political persecutions of Comey and Brennan and says, "this is not retribution. This is fumigation. You have had radicals roaming in these institutions like termites."

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Brandon Johnson @bjeromy.bsky.social · Jul 9

We’re at the point where clergy is helping to hide people from a masked, militarized state police. Anyone who has even a passing familiarity with history, knows this state of affairs has never ended well.

Rich Raho @richraho.bsky.social · Jul 9

NEW: Bishop Rojas of San Bernardino has dispensed his Diocese from the obligation to attend Sunday Mass due to ongoing ICE raids.

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Brandon Johnson @bjeromy.bsky.social · Jul 9

If we as a country survive this descent into authoritarian madness, we will need a massively robust reckoning and reconciliation process to come to terms with the horrors our government will have inflicted on our most vulnerable. This is shameful, this is heartbreaking.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · Jul 8

At the DeSantis Everglades detention camp, people with green cards are being held in terrible conditions, with maggots in the food, the lights kept on 24 hours a day, and delayed access to medicine.

One guy had his Bible taken and was told "here there is no right to religion."

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Brandon Johnson @bjeromy.bsky.social · Jul 8

I still hit that point with every paper I write. Hang in there!

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Brandon Johnson @bjeromy.bsky.social · Jul 8

This was always going to be the end result of villainizing agencies, and placing political loyalists in leadership positions, who not only have no experience, but also actively disdain the agency they are supporting be leading. I fear this is going to become an all too familiar pattern.

Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · Jul 8

"Despite Trump officially activating FEMA on Sunday, FEMA has just 86 total staff deployed at this point [to Texas], according to figures shared with staff Monday evening...In the past it would normally be in the several hundreds at this point in the disaster recovery process."

My latest:

FEMA response to deadly Texas floods delayed & deficient with Noem in charge

Staffers sound the alarm.

www.thehandbasket.co

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Brandon Johnson @bjeromy.bsky.social · Jul 8

“Don’t politicize tragedy,” is now a stock response. But there’s a difference between politicizing something, and asking important questions about the policies that either allowed for, contributed to, or made the tragedy more likely. Failing to address those policies will only lead to more tragedy.

Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · Jul 8

*Taking* blame, NYT. Taking.

Trump Looks to Avoid Casting Blame in Texas Flood as Democrats Question Cuts
The White House rebuked critics for raising questions about President Trump's efforts to shrink agencies that deal with disaster preparedness and response.
4 MIN READ

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Noah Shachtman @noahshachtman.bsky.social · Jul 8

I don't mean to sound hysterical but there are some pretty clear historical examples of "force the urban-dwellers to the farms," and none of them are great.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · Jul 8

Brooke Rollins on farm laborers: "There will be no amnesty. The mass deportations continue, but in a strategic way. And we move the workforce toward automation and 100% American participation, which with 34 million able-bodied on Medicaid we should be able to do fairly quickly."

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Brandon Johnson @bjeromy.bsky.social · Jul 8

This feels like a whole new level unlocked. Well done!

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · Jul 7

One reason Stephen Miller is so strong is that much of the rest of the Trump Cabinet is so weak

The crisis, from the immigration raids that sparked the protests to the militarized response that tried to put the protests down, was almost entirely of Mr. Miller's making. And it served as a testament to the remarkable position he now occupies in Mr. Trump's Washington. Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, who reportedly accompanied Mr. Miller on his visit to ICE headquarters, seems to defer to him. "It's really Stephen running D.H.S.," a Trump adviser said. The attorney general, Pam Bondi, is so focused on preparing for and appearing on Fox News that she has essentially ceded control of the Department of Justice to Mr. Miller, making him, according to the conservative legal scholar Edward Whelan, "the de facto attorney general." And in a White House where the chief of staff, Susie Wiles, is not well versed or terribly interested in policy - "She's producing a reality TV show every day," another Trump adviser said, "and it's pretty amazing, right?" - Mr.
Miller is typically

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Brandon Johnson @bjeromy.bsky.social · Jul 7

Number 3 here is hugely important, and not unique to the U.S. system. Even in the German courts of the Third Reich, which were notoriously complicit in the horrors which took place, there were *some* lower court rulings that pushed back on the regime, but these were always reversed by higher courts.

Evan Bernick, a finite mode with a smol hooman and a lorg floof @evanbernick.bsky.social · Jul 7

3 themes in the history of U.S. legal resistance to fascistic forces:

(1) It often works way better than you might expect under the circumstances

(2) It is never enough on its own, and fails to prevent a lot of harm

(3) The Supreme Court specifically is very rarely helpful, usually the opposite

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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · Jul 5

Harvard sociologist/polisci Theda Skocpol explains how the vast expansion of ICE in BBB may be Trump's secret weapon to overcome the barriers of federalism and complete his autocratic takeover of the American state. (History from Germany & Hungary in 20s/30s.) talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/criti...

Critical Read About the BBB, Federalism and the Future of American Democracy

TPM Reader TS (Harvard sociologist/political scientist Theda Skocpol) and I often compared...

talkingpointsmemo.com

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Brandon Johnson @bjeromy.bsky.social · Jul 4

Coming soon: “The Originalist Case for Why the President Actually Does Have a Dispensation Power, which We Totally Knew All Along, but Didn’t Want to Say until We had A President We Trusted to Use It ‘Correctly.’”

Kim Lane Scheppele @kimlanelaw.bsky.social · Jul 4

Trump has turned the constitutional mandate that he ‘take care’ that the laws be faithfully executed into its opposite. He now claims the power to pick and choose the laws to be enforced. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/03/u...

Trump Claims Sweeping Power to Nullify Laws, Letters on TikTok Ban Show

www.nytimes.com

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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · Jul 4

The leadership of our co-chairs @judgeluttig.bsky.social and Dean Erwin Chemerinsky has been extraordinary in gathering us for this effort.

Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · Jul 4

It was my honor to work with distinguished lawyer colleagues on this statement of commitment to the principles that must undergird American democracy. It appears today as full page ad in the @nytimes.com & in papers around the country.
Learn more at @weholdthesetruths.bsky.social

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