menu_open Columnists
Ian Millhiser

Ian Millhiser

__ThinkProgress

We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

The Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship case isn’t really about birthright citizenship

On May 15, the Supreme Court will hear three cases — consolidated under the name Trump v. CASA — which concern his unconstitutional attempt to...

friday 3

Vox

Ian Millhiser

A federal court is about to decide whether to strike down Trump’s tariffs

On Tuesday, May 13, a three-judge panel of the US Court of International Trade will hear a lawsuit asking it to strike down President Donald Trump’s...

07.05.2025 10

Vox

Ian Millhiser

The Supreme Court just let Trump ban trans people from the military

Editor’s note, May 6: The Supreme Court issued a brief order temporarily blocking a lower court’s decision, which had prevented President Donald...

06.05.2025 3

Vox

Ian Millhiser

An anti-trans lawmaker brings a Supreme Court case that she absolutely must win

The Supreme Court has been asked to decide a case that combines two of the most charged issues in the US at the moment: trans participation in sports,...

06.05.2025 30

Vox

Ian Millhiser

The religious right is headed toward a revolutionary victory in the Supreme Court

During an oral argument on Wednesday, the Supreme Court appeared all but certain to divide along party lines in a case that seeks to fundamentally...

01.05.2025 10

Vox

Ian Millhiser

Neil Gorsuch is the hero America deserves

Eight years ago, at the dawn of the first Trump presidency, the White House was the locus of an ambitious project to weaken the president.  Justice...

29.04.2025 6

Vox

Ian Millhiser

Trump will almost certainly get away with banning trans people from the military

Almost immediately after he began his second term, President Donald Trump ordered the military to ban transgender people from serving in the US...

25.04.2025 8

Vox

Ian Millhiser

The Supreme Court’s “Don’t Say Gay” argument went disastrously for public schools

Three years ago, Montgomery County, Maryland, approved several books with LGBTQ characters for use in public school classrooms. Not much else is known...

22.04.2025 3

Vox

Ian Millhiser

Kavanaugh and Barrett appear likely to ride to Obamacare’s rescue

On Monday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that could lead health insurance plans to offer narrower coverage. The case, known as...

21.04.2025 2

Vox

Ian Millhiser

The Supreme Court signals it might be losing patience with Trump

Shortly after midnight early Saturday morning, the Supreme Court handed down a brief order forbidding the Trump administration from removing a group...

19.04.2025 10

Vox

Ian Millhiser

The nightmarish problem with trying to make Trump obey court orders

Top officials within the Justice Department, the State Department, and possibly even the White House may be barrelling toward a criminal conviction...

19.04.2025 40

Vox

Ian Millhiser

A Supreme Court case would take a wrecking ball to separation of church and state in schools

The Supreme Court’s Republican majority certainly seems eager to make taxpayers fund religious education.  Over the past few decades, the Court has...

16.04.2025 10

Vox

Ian Millhiser

A major Trump power grab just reached the Supreme Court

Trump v. Wilcox, a case now pending on the Supreme Court’s “shadow docket,” asks whether several federal agencies that are supposed to enjoy a...

16.04.2025 9

Vox

Ian Millhiser

The Supreme Court threatens to bring “Don’t Say Gay” to every classroom in America

Remember Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law?  The unconstitutionally vague law imposed such unclear restrictions on teachers who speak about...

15.04.2025 60

Vox

Ian Millhiser

The Republican attempt to steal a state supreme court election, explained

On Friday, four Republican members of the North Carolina Supreme Court issued an order attempting to disenfranchise more than 5,000 of the state’s...

15.04.2025 90

Vox

Ian Millhiser

The Supreme Court case that seeks to make everyone’s health insurance worse, explained

If you paid any attention at all to US politics in the 2010s, you’ll remember the seemingly endless stream of lawsuits seeking to undermine, or even...

14.04.2025 100

Vox

Ian Millhiser

Trump defied a court order. The Supreme Court just handed him a partial loss.

The facts underlying Noem v. Abrego Garcia are shocking, even by the standards of the Trump administration’s treatment of immigrants. The Supreme...

11.04.2025 6

Vox

Ian Millhiser

Trump defied a court order. The Supreme Court just handed him a partial loss.

The facts underlying Noem v. Abrego Garcia are shocking, even by the standards of the Trump administration’s treatment of immigrants. The Supreme...

11.04.2025 30

Vox

Ian Millhiser

The Supreme Court just made it easier for Trump to deport people

On Monday night, the Supreme Court handed down a 5-4 decision tossing out a closely watched district court decision, which blocked President Donald...

08.04.2025 20

Vox

Ian Millhiser

The right is cooking up a surprising legal fight against Trump’s tariffs

On Thursday, one day after President Donald Trump announced sweeping new tariffs, what appears to be the first lawsuit challenging those tariffs was...

04.04.2025 2

Vox

Ian Millhiser

The best legal case against Trump’s tariffs, explained

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump announced sweeping new tariffs on pretty much everything imported into the United States. Among other things, the...

03.04.2025 5

Vox

Ian Millhiser

The Supreme Court struggles with whether to wound Medicaid to spite Planned Parenthood

Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic should be one of the easiest cases the Supreme Court will decide this year. A federal law requires every...

02.04.2025 2

Vox

Ian Millhiser

Trump’s single most aggressive attack on immigrants is now before the Supreme Court

In mid-March, President Donald Trump invoked an almost-never-used federal law, claiming that it gives him the power to deport many immigrants at will...

02.04.2025 30

Vox

Ian Millhiser

The Supreme Court seems poised to give religious employers a big win

There wasn’t a lot of suspense going into Monday’s Supreme Court argument in Catholic Charities v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission....

31.03.2025 10

Vox

Ian Millhiser

The cockiest thing Trump has done so far

All nine of the Supreme Court justices are lawyers. All of them have friends and law school classmates in private practice. All of them sit at the...

29.03.2025 50

Vox

Ian Millhiser

Kavanaugh and Barrett appear likely to break with the Supreme Court’s MAGA wing

The Supreme Court spent Wednesday morning giving very serious consideration to a case that no one should take seriously.  FCC v. Consumers’...

27.03.2025 100

Vox

Ian Millhiser

The Supreme Court hands a rare loss to gun companies

An exceedingly rare event occurred on Wednesday — the Supreme Court upheld a federal gun regulation, with four of the Court’s Republicans in the...

27.03.2025 10

Vox

Ian Millhiser

A Supreme Court case about abortion could destroy Medicaid

Kerr v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic is one of the most straightforward cases the Supreme Court will hear this year. It involves a federal law...

25.03.2025 20

Vox

Ian Millhiser

The Supreme Court appears determined to blow up its one good Voting Rights Act decision

The Supreme Court sent a rather unfortunate message during Monday’s argument in a racial gerrymandering dispute called Louisiana v. Callais: Do not...

24.03.2025 4

Vox

Ian Millhiser

The Supreme Court’s new religion case could devastate American workers

If you know the name of a case the Supreme Court will hear on March 31, Catholic Charities v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission, you can...

24.03.2025 80

Vox

Ian Millhiser

There are 132 lawsuits against Trump. Pay attention to these two.

There are many lawsuits challenging allegedly illegal actions by the Trump administration — 132 of them as of March 21, according to the legal news...

22.03.2025 20

Vox

Ian Millhiser

The case for conservatism

The conservative philosopher GK Chesterton is known for a parable about two lawmakers who encounter a fence. One, brash and overeager, announces that...

21.03.2025 10

Vox

Ian Millhiser

A new Supreme Court case seeks to revive one of the most dangerous ideas from the Great Depression

Federal law seeks to make communications technology like telephones and the internet, in the words of one older statute, “available, so far as...

19.03.2025 60

Vox

Ian Millhiser

The alarmingly high stakes in an easy Supreme Court voting rights case

Louisiana v. Callais, a case about whether Louisiana’s congressional maps are an illegal racial gerrymander, should be one of the easiest cases the...

18.03.2025 5

Vox

Ian Millhiser

What can be done if Trump is openly defying the courts?

The question of what happens if the Trump administration openly defies a federal court order has hung over the United States since President Donald...

17.03.2025 3

Vox

Ian Millhiser

America’s (lack of) separation between church and state, explained

A Vox reader asks: If we have “separation of church and state,” why do we give religious schools tax exemption? How come religious schools get...

16.03.2025 4

Vox

Ian Millhiser

The Supreme Court just handed down some ominous news for LBGTQ youth

The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will hear Chiles v. Salazar, a challenge to a Colorado law preventing most mental health professionals...

10.03.2025 10

Vox

Ian Millhiser

Trump’s lawyers just made a $2 billion mistake

On Wednesday morning, the Supreme Court handed down a very brief order that effectively requires the government to pay foreign aid contractors as much...

05.03.2025 9

Vox

Ian Millhiser

The Supreme Court seems eager to kill a big lawsuit against gun companies

The nation of Mexico’s lawsuit against several major US gun manufacturers, known as Smith & Wesson Brands v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos, was cursed...

04.03.2025 4

Vox

Ian Millhiser

Trump’s biggest power grab just reached the Supreme Court

On Wednesday night, Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily halted a lower court order, which would have required the Trump administration to make...

28.02.2025 40

Vox

Ian Millhiser

The Supreme Court is in “radical agreement” that a bizarre DEI rule needs to go

The proper term for a Supreme Court session where the justices hear verbal presentations by lawyers is an “oral argument,” but Wednesday’s...

26.02.2025 20

Vox

Ian Millhiser

The Supreme Court faces the absurdly difficult problem of where to put nuclear waste

On March 5, the Supreme Court will hear a case that may involve one of the most toxic examples of NIMBYism in American history. The issue at the heart...

26.02.2025 2

Vox

Ian Millhiser

The Supreme Court hands down a rare victory for a death row inmate

The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that Richard Glossip, a man sentenced to die under extraordinarily dubious circumstances, must receive a new...

25.02.2025 4

Vox

Ian Millhiser

The Supreme Court will decide if gun companies are to blame for arming Mexican cartels

It’s hard to imagine a lawsuit that faces more challenging political headwinds than Mexico’s case against US gun companies in Smith & Wesson...

25.02.2025 20

Vox

Ian Millhiser

The Supreme Court hears a challenge to a DEI rule that genuinely needs to go

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear its first employment discrimination case since President Donald Trump took power and began a fairly...

24.02.2025 30

Vox

Ian Millhiser

We’re about to learn just how eager the Supreme Court is to help Trump

Hampton Dellinger, a federal official who President Donald Trump attempted to fire earlier this month, seems very likely to lose a lawsuit challenging...

20.02.2025 60

Vox

Ian Millhiser

The lawsuit seeking to kick Elon Musk out of government, explained

On Thursday, a group of current or former workers at the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the foreign aid agency that the Trump...

14.02.2025 80

Vox

Ian Millhiser

What does it mean to be in a “constitutional crisis”?

We’re less than two months into the second Trump administration, but one thing is clear: President Donald Trump would very much like to be unbound...

13.02.2025 20

Vox

Ian Millhiser

How to make sense of all the court orders against Donald Trump

As of this writing, there are at least 45 lawsuits pending against President Donald Trump and his subordinates. They range from challenges to...

11.02.2025 7

Vox

Ian Millhiser

Don’t expect the courts to save us from Donald Trump

We seem to be in the middle of 16 constitutional crises at once. President Donald Trump and his allies are trying to kill an entire provision of the...

10.02.2025 60

Vox

Ian Millhiser