Over the course of 2024, CAC’s mission to realize the progressive promise of the Constitution has taken many forms, from our advocacy at the Supreme Court to our groundbreaking scholarship.

At the start of the year, CAC brought important historical context to the Supreme Court in two high-profile presidential accountability cases, arguing that the Constitution’s Framers did not place the president above the law. CAC filed an amicus brief at the Supreme Court explaining that under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment, Donald Trump was ineligible to serve as president. As CAC Appellate Counsel Smita Ghosh explained in Slate magazine, this should have been an easy case for justices who professed to care about the text and history of the Constitution. Yet in an opinion that was, as we put it at the time, “dangerously untethered from constitutional text and history,” the Court essentially rewrote the requirements of Section Three and allowed Trump to remain on the ballot despite the Colorado Supreme Court’s finding that he had engaged in an insurrection. The Court yet again abandoned constitutional text and history just months later in the presidential immunity case, ignoring that the Constitution’s Framers were careful to create a system where the president was not an unaccountable king. Citing our brief on behalf of constitutional scholars, Justice Sotomayor’s dissent explained that the Framers clearly believed that the president could be subject to criminal prosecution.

Those weren’t the only important cases at the Court this past term, and CAC’s Home Stretch event featured discussion of the many cases that made that term a truly momentous one at the Supreme Court. Our briefs provided critically important text-and-history context for the Court in key decisions this summer. Some decisions were ultimately disappointing, such as the Court’s ahistorical decisions shifting power away from expert decisionmakers to unelected judges, making it more difficult to challenge racial gerrymanders, allowing cities to criminalize taking shelter outside, and legalizing bump stocks. However, CAC’s text-and-history arguments also contributed to big victories at the Court for everyday Americans in cases upholding the funding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, protecting consumers, and defending workers’ rights to be free from forced arbitration and sex discrimination.

All year, CAC brought important text-and-history arguments to the circuit courts too, fighting for, among other things, voting rights and corporate accountability by countering conservative attacks on our freedom to vote and the agencies that protect our health, safety, and environment.

The scholarship of CAC’s researchers also continued to blaze new trails for progressive constitutional interpretation this year. We were thrilled to welcome our inaugural Scholar-in-Residence, Professor Alexis Hoag-Fordjour, who has published exciting new scholarship on ineffective assistance of counsel and universal public defense. David H. Gans, Director of the Human Rights, Civil Rights, and Citizenship Program, published powerful work on the right to economic justice, and David’s existing work on the history of police brutality was key to CAC’s most recent Supreme Court brief on policing. And next year, important new scholarship by Equal Justice Works Fellow Anna Jessurun, David Gans, and Chief Counsel Brianne Gorod will be published; their article looks at a dangerous legal theory that has threatened to undermine our elections and explains why under a recent Supreme Court decision, future claims under that theory are extremely unlikely to succeed. Last but certainly not least, Deputy Chief Counsel Brian Frazelle continued our longstanding and often-cited work tracking corporate interests at the Supreme Court.

It’s been a busy year, and there’s every reason to think next year will be even busier. In the new year, CAC will keep fighting for constitutional accountability. As Brianne explained in NBC News, the courts are “on notice that their role as a vital check in our constitutional system will be tested.”

• Gutierrez v. Saenz —The Supreme Court is considering whether a federal court, as part of its analysis of a Section 1983 plaintiff’s standing to pursue a procedural due process claim against state officials, must make a particularized determination as to whether those officials will redress the plaintiff’s injury by following a favorable declaratory judgement. CAC filed a brief in support of the plaintiff, explaining that the redressability test adopted by the lower court is at odds with the text and history of Section 1983. Supreme Court, filed December 10.

• Kentucky v. EPA — The Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is considering the legality of the EPA’s latest motor vehicle emissions standards. CAC filed a brief in support of the EPA, explaining why the major questions doctrine should not apply in this case. D.C. Circuit, filed December 6.

• United States v. Smith — The Second Circuit is considering whether the Fourth Amendment permits law enforcement officers—without a warrant or probable cause—to search and copy the contents of personal electronic devices simply because the owners of those devices are entering or leaving the country. CAC filed a brief urging the court to reject the government’s attempt to expand the “border search doctrine,” an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. Second Circuit, filed November 27.

• Burgess v. Whang — The Fifth Circuit is considering a challenge to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s authority to issue penalties and other supervisory orders. CAC filed a brief in support of the FDIC that explains why the “public rights doctrine,” which allows legal remedies and civil penalties such as those at issue here to be sought in an administrative tribunal, applies here. Fifth Circuit, filed November 21.

• Barnes v. Felix — The Supreme Court is considering whether a police officer’s use of deadly force should be judged in light of all the circumstances of the incident, or whether courts should ignore unreasonable officer conduct that leads to the “moment of threat” in which force was used. CAC’s brief explains that the moment-of-threat doctrine is at odds with the history of the Fourteenth Amendment and its protections from police violence, and that the modern context of expansive policing systems necessitates great vigilance in ensuring reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment. Supreme Court, filed November 20.

• December 5: CAC’s Director of the Human Rights, Civil Rights, and Citizenship Program David Gans was on the National Constitution Center’s We The People podcast to discuss United States v. Skrmetti, the case on medical care for transgender adolescents in which the Supreme Court heard oral argument this month. “Podcast (We the People): Can Tennessee Ban Medical Transitions for Transgender Minors?”

• December 5: CAC was mentioned in an article from AlterNet covering the sign-on letter CAC joined urging the Senate to reject Trump’s plan for preemptive recess appointments and fulfill its “Advice and Consent” responsibility. “Alarm raised over Trump plot to install nominees without Senate approval”

• December 4: CAC joined dozens of organizations in a letter to the Senate urging it to fulfill its “Advice and Consent” responsibility and reject President Trump’s suggestion that he would bypass Senate confirmation with preemptive recess appointments. “Civil Rights and Democracy Groups Join Forces to Oppose Preemptive Recess Appointments”

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