Hey thank you very much there’s so many
ways I could riff on this like obviously
too late to change my talk I’m quite
intimidated after all these interesting
talks you know now you’re going to get
to hear about American politics or you
know but you probably meant in terms of
Trump so I will have something to say
about that okay so I want to talk to you
about American politics which is one of
my favorite topics and I’m sure all of
you are thinking about American politics
all the time I mean it’s hard to not
think about it you probably are
following the news about the u.s. policy
towards Syria North Korea the Russia
connection but I’m not going to talk to
you about these topics I’m going to try
to challenge you a little bit and to
focus on on something else about
American politics that you might not pay
as close attention to so yep that’s him
and we’re fast approaching the end of
the first 100 days and if you know a
little bit about American politics you
know that for a long time
throughout history basically the first
100 days have sort of gotten quite a bit
of significance and a lot of presidents
are measured against what they have
accomplished in the first 100 days and
so what is that well as an interesting
story last week if you know the the
comedy show the long-running comedy show
Saturday Night Live last week they had a
sketch for President Trump played by
Alec Baldwin I’m sure you’ve seen the
impression very funny is saying in the
Oval Office to his vice president Mike
Pence please read back to me the from
the list of my accomplishments and Mike
Pence opens a folder and says the
nomination of Neil Gorsuch closes the
folder
so and then just yesterday actually
Donald Trump’s sort of seemed to
acknowledge for the first time that
maybe these first 100 days they’re not
quite over yet
might not have gone quite as well and
now is calling the hundred days like a
ridiculous marker and and then also
announced a major new tax policy that he
will unveil next week to the great
surprise of Congress the media and
apparently his aides as well so but
anyways let me get back to it’s at the
nomination of Neil Gorsuch so who is
Neil Gorsuch well Neil Gorsuch is the
ninth justice on the US Supreme Court
and so why do I say the ninth just as
well up until he was confirmed by the
Senate to be the next justice since
February 2016 we actually had only eight
justices on the US Supreme Court
normally it’s nine but in February 2016
one of the justices Antonin Scalia
passed away and it triggered an enormous
political battle between President Obama
and the the Republicans in the Senate
President Obama wanted to nominate
Merrick garland you won’t have to
remember that name it’d just be a
footnote in history he wasn’t ultimately
confirmed and and the republicans in
senate fought this very hard and
suggested that the next president should
be nominating the successor to Antonin
Scalia and they managed to hold out and
then shortly after Trump was elected he
nominated Gorsuch and he was then
confirmed as the Justice okay so you
still might not care about this and
wondering why am I telling you this and
is this really worthwhile like talking
about
tedxtalk I mean this is like so this is
so maybe you you believe me that this is
like an accomplishment but it’s the only
one is really that important and why
does it matter to us well let’s back up
a second let’s to sort of do a very very
brief civic lesson here let me show you
what you probably already know how the
u.s. system of government works we have
three branches right and they are there
to sort of check each other right
they’re independent branches and we have
the legislative branch the executive
branch and the judicial branch and the
Supreme Court is at the top of the
judicial hierarchy and so there’s three
things that you should know about the
Supreme Court it’s an appeals court
it’s the ultimate appeals court it
decides what cases adheres so lots of
cases appealed to the US Supreme Court
but most of them will not be heard by
the Supreme Court’s only a tiny fraction
of cases that the Supreme Court actually
considers and most importantly it
decides on the constitutionality of laws
and it can declare laws that Congress
has passed and the president has signed
to be unconstitutional by way of
judicial review right and over time the
Supreme Court has decided cases in lots
of very very important areas some of
which are listed here
and but you still might say well that’s
interesting and that obviously means
that the Supreme Court plays an
important role in American society but
why should we care wait why is this why
is this something that here in Cardiff
and Wales in the UK in Europe we should
care about right
and I would say sort of that there there
are a few there are a few things to
consider here
this is the car in court and now the way
that we think about constitutional
courts in general I think our first
instinct always is that these
constitutional courts right there
they’re interpreting the Constitution
there are independent I mean all these
people on the Supreme Court our lifetime
appointees and and we kind of assume
that they are impartial right well
they’re not right and this is sort of
one of the one of the things like as a
political scientist that like you know
one of the contributions that political
science has made to the study of
constitutional courts is that these
constitutional courts the individuals
are on these constitutional courts
oftentimes really operate like
politicians and they have a lot of
leeway and they have a lot of
opportunity to sort of let their
personal views influence how they make
decisions and so maybe now it makes
sense to you as well if you didn’t
already know this anyways why these
Supreme Court nominations are oftentimes
so fought over so so much so let me we
talk about the current caste and like
and and so the nomination of Nell
Gorsuch is so recent that the latest
official picture that is actually online
is the one where Antonin Scalia is still
on and so they haven’t taken a new
picture yet so apologies for sort of
superimposing him on this okay so the
court has conservative justices we kind
of think in terms of being a vibe
between conservative and liberal
justices if you think you know in in
European language probably means more
right leaning versus left-leaning judge
justices and after the passing of
Antonin Scalia and now with the
nomination and Confirmation of neil
bortz which we have four conservative
justices and i’m not going to talk much
about like these individuals that would
just take too much time and then we have
four liberal
justices or more left-leaning justices
pictured here and then we have somebody
who is oftentimes referred to as the
swing justice as Anthony Kennedy it was
nominated by President Reagan so don’t
care okay
well consider this right who provides a
check on President Trump right
is it Congress it’s unlikely at the
moment anyways can anybody tell me who
that person is in the picture Devin unas
I heard it yeah okay so he’s the
disgraced chair of the House
Intelligence Committee that had to
recuse himself from the Russia
investigation because he was clothed too
close to the Trump administration now is
it the Supreme Court well maybe let me
take you back to like 2006 and 2008
right and specifically think about this
one justice that I refer to as the swing
Justice Anthony Kennedy there was a case
in 2006 the Hamden case where the US
Supreme Court decided that the military
commissions that the Bush administration
had set up to try the detainees at
Guantanamo Bay were in violation of the
Geneva Conventions and that Supreme
Court decision ended in a five-to-four
split against these commissions and the
person you can probably guess that was
the swing vote here was Anthony Kennedy
now in 2008 there was another case
midian versus Texas and in that case
with another five-to-four decision this
time Kennedy was on the conservative
side and it was a case that established
that in
national treaties and rulings by the
International Court of Justice are not
automatically effective in the US and in
the u.s. unless there is sort of
something is stated in the Constitution
or Congress has sort of given the
president the power to enforce these
right so you can see the two decisions
here are quite in contrast right and
Kennedy supported one or Kennedy was in
the majority of both of them even though
they’re quite quite different so you
might say okay well the court doesn’t
give a blank that that’s sort of the
positive message from this right the
court doesn’t give a blank check to the
president right we had a case where the
decision was against sort of executive
power and then one that was for
executive power it’s true but let me
bring you back to the the current cast
of the court we’re faced with an ageing
Court right and at the moment the oldest
judges are on the liberal side all right
there are Sandra Day O’Connor here in
the in the bottom corner they are
Stephen Breyer at 78 up top and Anthony
Kennedy himself at 80 so after the next
confirmation you can you can imagine
that there is a pretty strong likelihood
that within the next four years there
will be another justice retiring and
there will be another opening for Trump
to nominate another justice and at that
point Kennedy has been swinging back and
forth could be relevant why is this
important and why should you care what
happens on the US Supreme Court well
think about the travel ban right we all
know about the travel ban which
[Music]
president Trump issued by way of
executive order these executive orders
have been challenged in court and are
currently making their way through the
judicial hierarchy and they will
undoubtedly end up in the US Supreme
Court and here just two of those cases
that are currently at the appeals court
stage so how does that impact all of us
well recently I found a blog post by two
Stanford researchers that pointed out
that one of the things that we keep
forgetting about is that trumps travel
ban actually violates international
treaties so what are the real
consequences for everybody not just for
people in the u.s. of this well first of
all US policy can be used as a cover by
other countries to implement their own
policies where they restrict certain
freedoms this could lead to the erosion
of civil liberties and social justice it
could lead to restrictions on
immigration in other countries and it
could aggravate the refugee crisis and
it could impact international security
so while it is very tempting to sort of
focus on the big items that the news
reports most of the time over here I
think it’s worthwhile to keep an eye on
the US Supreme Court and I thought I’ll
share that I share that message with you
because it is in my area of interest and
hopefully I could challenge you a little
bit to sort of think more about this
actor that typically outside at least
outside of the u.s. we don’t really
think about
[Applause]
ways I could riff on this like obviously
too late to change my talk I’m quite
intimidated after all these interesting
talks you know now you’re going to get
to hear about American politics or you
know but you probably meant in terms of
Trump so I will have something to say
about that okay so I want to talk to you
about American politics which is one of
my favorite topics and I’m sure all of
you are thinking about American politics
all the time I mean it’s hard to not
think about it you probably are
following the news about the u.s. policy
towards Syria North Korea the Russia
connection but I’m not going to talk to
you about these topics I’m going to try
to challenge you a little bit and to
focus on on something else about
American politics that you might not pay
as close attention to so yep that’s him
and we’re fast approaching the end of
the first 100 days and if you know a
little bit about American politics you
know that for a long time
throughout history basically the first
100 days have sort of gotten quite a bit
of significance and a lot of presidents
are measured against what they have
accomplished in the first 100 days and
so what is that well as an interesting
story last week if you know the the
comedy show the long-running comedy show
Saturday Night Live last week they had a
sketch for President Trump played by
Alec Baldwin I’m sure you’ve seen the
impression very funny is saying in the
Oval Office to his vice president Mike
Pence please read back to me the from
the list of my accomplishments and Mike
Pence opens a folder and says the
nomination of Neil Gorsuch closes the
folder
so and then just yesterday actually
Donald Trump’s sort of seemed to
acknowledge for the first time that
maybe these first 100 days they’re not
quite over yet
might not have gone quite as well and
now is calling the hundred days like a
ridiculous marker and and then also
announced a major new tax policy that he
will unveil next week to the great
surprise of Congress the media and
apparently his aides as well so but
anyways let me get back to it’s at the
nomination of Neil Gorsuch so who is
Neil Gorsuch well Neil Gorsuch is the
ninth justice on the US Supreme Court
and so why do I say the ninth just as
well up until he was confirmed by the
Senate to be the next justice since
February 2016 we actually had only eight
justices on the US Supreme Court
normally it’s nine but in February 2016
one of the justices Antonin Scalia
passed away and it triggered an enormous
political battle between President Obama
and the the Republicans in the Senate
President Obama wanted to nominate
Merrick garland you won’t have to
remember that name it’d just be a
footnote in history he wasn’t ultimately
confirmed and and the republicans in
senate fought this very hard and
suggested that the next president should
be nominating the successor to Antonin
Scalia and they managed to hold out and
then shortly after Trump was elected he
nominated Gorsuch and he was then
confirmed as the Justice okay so you
still might not care about this and
wondering why am I telling you this and
is this really worthwhile like talking
about
tedxtalk I mean this is like so this is
so maybe you you believe me that this is
like an accomplishment but it’s the only
one is really that important and why
does it matter to us well let’s back up
a second let’s to sort of do a very very
brief civic lesson here let me show you
what you probably already know how the
u.s. system of government works we have
three branches right and they are there
to sort of check each other right
they’re independent branches and we have
the legislative branch the executive
branch and the judicial branch and the
Supreme Court is at the top of the
judicial hierarchy and so there’s three
things that you should know about the
Supreme Court it’s an appeals court
it’s the ultimate appeals court it
decides what cases adheres so lots of
cases appealed to the US Supreme Court
but most of them will not be heard by
the Supreme Court’s only a tiny fraction
of cases that the Supreme Court actually
considers and most importantly it
decides on the constitutionality of laws
and it can declare laws that Congress
has passed and the president has signed
to be unconstitutional by way of
judicial review right and over time the
Supreme Court has decided cases in lots
of very very important areas some of
which are listed here
and but you still might say well that’s
interesting and that obviously means
that the Supreme Court plays an
important role in American society but
why should we care wait why is this why
is this something that here in Cardiff
and Wales in the UK in Europe we should
care about right
and I would say sort of that there there
are a few there are a few things to
consider here
this is the car in court and now the way
that we think about constitutional
courts in general I think our first
instinct always is that these
constitutional courts right there
they’re interpreting the Constitution
there are independent I mean all these
people on the Supreme Court our lifetime
appointees and and we kind of assume
that they are impartial right well
they’re not right and this is sort of
one of the one of the things like as a
political scientist that like you know
one of the contributions that political
science has made to the study of
constitutional courts is that these
constitutional courts the individuals
are on these constitutional courts
oftentimes really operate like
politicians and they have a lot of
leeway and they have a lot of
opportunity to sort of let their
personal views influence how they make
decisions and so maybe now it makes
sense to you as well if you didn’t
already know this anyways why these
Supreme Court nominations are oftentimes
so fought over so so much so let me we
talk about the current caste and like
and and so the nomination of Nell
Gorsuch is so recent that the latest
official picture that is actually online
is the one where Antonin Scalia is still
on and so they haven’t taken a new
picture yet so apologies for sort of
superimposing him on this okay so the
court has conservative justices we kind
of think in terms of being a vibe
between conservative and liberal
justices if you think you know in in
European language probably means more
right leaning versus left-leaning judge
justices and after the passing of
Antonin Scalia and now with the
nomination and Confirmation of neil
bortz which we have four conservative
justices and i’m not going to talk much
about like these individuals that would
just take too much time and then we have
four liberal
justices or more left-leaning justices
pictured here and then we have somebody
who is oftentimes referred to as the
swing justice as Anthony Kennedy it was
nominated by President Reagan so don’t
care okay
well consider this right who provides a
check on President Trump right
is it Congress it’s unlikely at the
moment anyways can anybody tell me who
that person is in the picture Devin unas
I heard it yeah okay so he’s the
disgraced chair of the House
Intelligence Committee that had to
recuse himself from the Russia
investigation because he was clothed too
close to the Trump administration now is
it the Supreme Court well maybe let me
take you back to like 2006 and 2008
right and specifically think about this
one justice that I refer to as the swing
Justice Anthony Kennedy there was a case
in 2006 the Hamden case where the US
Supreme Court decided that the military
commissions that the Bush administration
had set up to try the detainees at
Guantanamo Bay were in violation of the
Geneva Conventions and that Supreme
Court decision ended in a five-to-four
split against these commissions and the
person you can probably guess that was
the swing vote here was Anthony Kennedy
now in 2008 there was another case
midian versus Texas and in that case
with another five-to-four decision this
time Kennedy was on the conservative
side and it was a case that established
that in
national treaties and rulings by the
International Court of Justice are not
automatically effective in the US and in
the u.s. unless there is sort of
something is stated in the Constitution
or Congress has sort of given the
president the power to enforce these
right so you can see the two decisions
here are quite in contrast right and
Kennedy supported one or Kennedy was in
the majority of both of them even though
they’re quite quite different so you
might say okay well the court doesn’t
give a blank that that’s sort of the
positive message from this right the
court doesn’t give a blank check to the
president right we had a case where the
decision was against sort of executive
power and then one that was for
executive power it’s true but let me
bring you back to the the current cast
of the court we’re faced with an ageing
Court right and at the moment the oldest
judges are on the liberal side all right
there are Sandra Day O’Connor here in
the in the bottom corner they are
Stephen Breyer at 78 up top and Anthony
Kennedy himself at 80 so after the next
confirmation you can you can imagine
that there is a pretty strong likelihood
that within the next four years there
will be another justice retiring and
there will be another opening for Trump
to nominate another justice and at that
point Kennedy has been swinging back and
forth could be relevant why is this
important and why should you care what
happens on the US Supreme Court well
think about the travel ban right we all
know about the travel ban which
[Music]
president Trump issued by way of
executive order these executive orders
have been challenged in court and are
currently making their way through the
judicial hierarchy and they will
undoubtedly end up in the US Supreme
Court and here just two of those cases
that are currently at the appeals court
stage so how does that impact all of us
well recently I found a blog post by two
Stanford researchers that pointed out
that one of the things that we keep
forgetting about is that trumps travel
ban actually violates international
treaties so what are the real
consequences for everybody not just for
people in the u.s. of this well first of
all US policy can be used as a cover by
other countries to implement their own
policies where they restrict certain
freedoms this could lead to the erosion
of civil liberties and social justice it
could lead to restrictions on
immigration in other countries and it
could aggravate the refugee crisis and
it could impact international security
so while it is very tempting to sort of
focus on the big items that the news
reports most of the time over here I
think it’s worthwhile to keep an eye on
the US Supreme Court and I thought I’ll
share that I share that message with you
because it is in my area of interest and
hopefully I could challenge you a little
bit to sort of think more about this
actor that typically outside at least
outside of the u.s. we don’t really
think about
[Applause]
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