Member posts – Alliance for American Rule of Law

A black mural stating "defend truth" in white letters sits on a while building wall, over a city sidewalk

When Belief Becomes Law: The Rise of Executive Rule and the Vanishing of Facts

By Alliance Member Jay Blitzman

During his successful defense of the British soldiers accused of killing Americans in the Boston Massacre of 1770, John Adams, the nation’s second president, famously observed that “facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations or the dictates of passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”

Times have changed. When President Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, saying that the jobs numbers compiled by the agency’s nonpartisan analysts and experts “were RIGGED” some pundits observed that you can fire the umpire, but you can’t change the score.

Unless you can.

A series of armored vehicles travel away from the viewer on a flat road, with the American flag flying from the top of each vehicle

Good Governance vs. Armored Cars: Why America Must Revitalize Its Rule of Law Traditions

By Alliance Member Alain Norman

When leaders fail to respect the law and constitutional norms, any society can enter a downward spiral that ruins the economic well-being and security of nearly everyone within it.

America was very lucky, 250 years ago, to have had good leaders–i.e., Founding Fathers willing to pledge their “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor” to the cause of independence for a nation based on the idea that individuals have inalienable rights, including the rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” To this day, good leaders understand that they should respect laws, procedures, and norms if they wish to preside over successful businesses or nations. Leaders who set bad examples encourage selfishness and misbehavior among others that, in turn, undermines society’s functionality.

What Would Abraham Lincoln Say?

By AAROL Member Homer E. Moyer, Jr.

Imagine for a moment if we could call upon Abraham Lincoln today and ask him to share his thoughts about the challenges our country faces in this anniversary year. What if we asked simply that he update for today the iconic speech he gave at Gettysburg?

Although we can never have his response to that fanciful request, we as a country might well benefit by trying to imagine — admittedly presumptuously — a current version of that short, historic address. Taking cues from what he did say in 1863, preserving much of its elegance, and remembering the national pain of our Civil War and its long aftermath, the original — with lined-out deletions — and an imagined, updated version might look something like the following.

Juries are essential to democracy, and they are under threat in America

By AAROL Member Nicolas Mansfield. Last month a trial jury in the federal district court of Washington, DC acquitted a man for throwing a sandwich at a federal agent. The case had become a local cause célèbre because it took place during the Trump administration’s takeover of local law enforcement in the nation’s capital and […]

Red Lights Flashing: Warning Signs for Our Courts from the Republic of Georgia

By AAROL Member Neil Weinstein. Courts in the U.S. are losing their luster. The approval rating of our courts, especially the Supreme Court, is at an all-time low — in part because of the Supreme Court’s seemingly reflexive acceptance of the Trump Administration’s applications, decided almost always through its “emergency” or “shadow” docket via orders […]

Constitution Day series | Catching Up with Our National Values

By AAROL Member Homer E. Moyer, Jr. Next year we will celebrate the 250th anniversary of our becoming an independent nation, and in just a few days (September 17th) we will commemorate a less celebrated, but no less important anniversary—”Constitution Day,” the day delegates gathered in Independence Hall in Philadelphia signed our Constitution. Both milestones […]

Constitution Day series | The Constitution’s Unsung Cousin: How the Administrative Procedure Act Combats Executive Overreach

By AAROL Member Malcolm Russell-Einhorn. Against the backdrop of America’s Constitution Day on September 17, many pundits and ordinary citizens have asked whether the country is approaching, or in, a constitutional crisis. After all, in recent months, the nation has witnessed the Trump Administration flooding the zone of federal governance with scores of legally dubious, […]