On Wednesday, May 13th, the Senate confirmed President Trump’s nominee, Kevin Warsh, as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Warsh will replace Jerome Powell as Fed Chair on May 15th. What shocked many analysts was not the replacement of Jerome Powell, but the fact that Powell has decided to stay on the Board of Governors. According to Powell, as reported by Fox Business, he will not be a “shadow Fed chair” and plans to “keep a low profile as a governor.” However, it is no secret that Powell sees the Trump Administration as dangerous to the Federal Reserve’s independence, stating in a video, posted in January, addressing the public, “[the president’s] unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration’s threats and ongoing pressure,” and he vowed to continue the job “without political fear or favor.” Powell staying on the Board after his tenure as Chair is historically rare, legally ordinary, and institutionally explosive. It reveals the real battle over the Fed, not just who chairs it, but whether its independence can survive when the presidency begins pressuring the institution.

The disdain these two men have for each other is no secret. But it is important to understand the history behind their strained relationship. In 2017, Powell was appointed by President Trump to become the new Fed Chair, although this was criticized at the time, as recent precedent suggested Trump would reappoint Janet Yellen (appointed by President Obama). Powell turned out to be one of President Trump’s biggest thorns in his side. Powell was not only an institutional investor and private equity alumnus, but what made him such a nuisance for Trump was his ability to ignore threats, fear-mongering, and a phoney investigation. Trump has launched countless insults at Powell, calling him “a real dummy,” “a stupid man,” “a total loser,” “Jerome Too Late Powell,” and much more. Powell’s response to Trump is arguably more insulting, as, instead of tweets, Powell is breaking nearly 75 years of precedent by remaining on the Board of Governors. The last comparable example is Marriener Eccles, whose chairmanship ended in 1948, after which he remained on the Board until July, 1951. Although Trump’s actions are far from precedented, the last President who publicly pressured the Fed to this degree was the Nixon Administration. But, unlike Fed Chairman Burns, Powell has remained firm in his stance against prematurely lowering interest rates.

Powell’s new/old position on the Board keeps Trump from appointing a replacement for Powell. This is a strategic move by Powell to protect the Fed’s independence, and although unprecedented, it may not be a bad idea. Presidents come and go, but the independence of the Fed requires constant work and checking the ambitions of those who sit in the Oval Office. Powell was appointed to the Board of Governors in May, 2012 and will likely remain on the board until 2029, assuming he waits out President Trump’s final term.

Although this move likely infuriates President Trump, Powell’s tenure at the Fed makes him an asset, and if incoming Chairman Warsh puts President Trump’s quarrels aside and chooses to utilize Powell’s experience, then the institution may just survive. Whether you love or hate Powell, the man understands the importance of insulating the Fed from political pressure and the desires of politicians whose goal focuses on short-run gains over long-run stability. The Fed was built to resist political pressure, and Powell staying on as a governor may prove whether that design still works or whether the independence itself has become the next battlefield.

The gerrymandering arms race has begun to heat up in a way history hasn’t yet seen. Texas was the first to move forward with mid-census redistricting, and further spread to Missouri, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, California, Utah, Florida, and Tennessee. This piece is not about which side wins in this new, unprecedented arms race. Rather, it analyzes the unintended (or maybe intended) consequences for the future of democracy. With the development and implementation of Artificial Intelligence, the “art” of gerrymandering is no longer the crude science it once was. The new era of mid-census redistricting is data science, one that will be wielded when any party deems it necessary for the “good of the country.” Democracy requires work, and the preservation of it ends when the work ceases.

Our system is built on precedent, and the funny thing about precedent is that everything is unprecedented until it isn’t. This fight began with Republicans, but it won’t end with them. Some will argue that the only option is to gerrymander back, that without it, their party will lose, that democracy prevails in the end, that the country will be better off in the long run, or that it began with the other first. All of these arguments ring hollow and conveniently overlook the whole fucking point of our system: winning isn’t a sure thing, but punishment for poor policy is. The House was designed to reflect the immediate will of the people; the Senate was designed to slow that will down. Gerrymandering corrupts the first half of that bargain by making the House less responsive to the people it was built to mirror.

AI Supercharged Gerrymandering

In Utah State Legislature v. League of Women (2025), the Utah Supreme Court threw out a congressional map that “is an extreme partisan outlier—more Republican than over 99% of expected maps drawn without political considerations” (2) and violated Proposition 4, a constitutionally protected proposition passed by a majority of Utah voters in 20181. In Kegan’s dissent in Rucho v. Common Cause (2019), the Justice wrote (10),

Kegan echoes the concerns of many democracy scholars. Tyler Simko is using artificial intelligence and large amounts of data to correct the inequalities produced by gerrymandering2. However, such tools can also be used to entrench a party’s control. Philip Wang wrote in a piece for Time Magazine, “[Simko] pointed to a state as vast as Texas, which needs to fit over 9,000 voting precincts into 38 voting districts. There are trillions of possible maps that can be theoretically drawn. AI can generate nearly all of those maps within a few minutes to an hour.” States such as California, New York, and Illinois are known to use highly sophisticated systems and data-driven mapping to maximize Democratic seats. After President Trump called for Texas to find five seats, other Republican states followed, developing highly sophisticated systems to disenfranchise Democratic voters. David Myers lists some of the worst gerrymanderings of the 2020s, and what you’ll find is that gerrymandering isn’t partisan, although some states participate in the practice more than others. This race to disenfranchise the other first only leaves our country “cracked and packed,” further eroding the pillars of American democracy.

Possible Remedies

1. State constitutional amendments banning mid-decade redistricting: Although this doesn’t end partisan gerrymandering, something of the kind would hold Congress accountable to changes in voting behavior across the decade. This seems like the most realistic remedy in the short run, although it doesn’t solve the problem in the long run. Virginia is a great example of how state procedures matter, and the introduction of ballot initiatives in the states below could end mid-census redistricting:

   Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois3, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi4, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, and South Dakota

   Citizens in these states could also propose initiatives to ban partisan gerrymandering, but the fight to do so would be a more difficult one.

2. State court litigation under state constitutions: After Rucho v. Common Cause (2019), the federal courts have largely stepped back from partisan gerrymandering claims under the U.S. Constitution. This isn’t to say that courts are irrelevant, but that the fight largely moved to state constitutions. State constitutions usually have stronger language on free elections, voting rights, and niche issues (such as gerrymandering). This means state courts are more likely to remedy problems that started in states and remain under the control of states.

3. Ban partisan data in map-drawing: This is a more practical reform that would ban the use of partisan election data, incumbent addresses, or voter-party modeling to draw congressional maps. This again would likely have to happen on the state level, but Congress itself could introduce similar reforms if the two parties could ever agree.

4. Use anti-retaliation ballot language: This is more of a political strategy than reform, but the use of phrases like “end gerrymandering forever” should be framed like “stop politicians from changing the rules mid-game.” This would pull on the common sentiment that politicians are power-hungry individuals, and it is up to citizens to keep their ambitions in check. Groups that fight gerrymandering or advocate for fair redistricting reform could benefit by making this an issue of the people rather than an issue of one party’s action at a particular moment in history.

These are only a few ways to fix the systemic problem that is partisan gerrymandering, but they are reforms that need to be considered. Tyler Simko’s idea to use artificial intelligence to draw more proportional congressional maps can help combat the use of AI for more devious purposes, but for a strategy like this to become a standard, reforms must be made to ensure the tools are used in the appropriate capacity. Gerrymandering disenfranchises each American, regardless of partisan affiliation, and the fight against such disenfranchisement should be the priority of each voter. Today, it may be Republicans, tomorrow, it may be Democrats, but each new offender only erodes the pillars of our democracy and makes those in office less accountable to their constituents.

Representative Roy (TX-21) introduced the Measures Against Marxism’s Dangerous Adherents and Noxious Islamists (MAMDANI) Act of 2026. This bill would limit eligibility for admission and naturalization as well as allow for the deportation and denaturalization “for any membership, affiliations, or advocacy of socialist, communist, Chinese communist, Marxist, or Islamic fundamentalist doctrines.” This modern-day Red Scare aims to denaturalize citizens who are “affiliated” with communism, its socialist counterpart, or Islam. This, presumably unconstitutional, bill marks a much deeper shift in the understanding of what it means to be a citizen of the United States of America in the 21st Century.

Subtle & Not-So-Subtle Language

The bill’s language is sobering, to say the least. Some of the language modifications are subtle (e.g., replacing “and” with “or”). In contrast, some modifications are more brazen (e.g., in paragraph (4), by striking ‘‘advocates or teaches or who is’’ and inserting ‘‘advocates or advocated, who teaches, or who is or was’’). Much of the bill amends existing language from the present tense to the past tense (e.g., “causes” to “caused”). The bill also changes the age at which you are not held liable for your previous subscriptions from 16 to 14. Ensuring that almost everyone, including minors, who ever subscribed to such views, can be denied entry or denaturalized. The bill makes clear what it means, albeit vaguely, to be affiliated with such groups:

The word choice is strategic, as the point is not only to keep out or remove those who espouse these views; instead, it is to make it impossible for those who may have possessed material related to views, even if they may not be held by the individual. This law could make it illegal to bookmark an article law makers deem “socialist.” It holds 14-year-olds accountable for vague violations and punishes those who may have once held a belief that is no longer harbored. The sweeping language of the bill is designed to punish those whom the existing hegemony sees as pests. Is this a violation of the First Amendment? Is this bill legal under the Fourteenth Amendment? To figure that out, we first must analyze the precedent that suggests either a constitutional or an unconstitutional nature.

Precedent vs Prejudice: 1st & 14th Amendments

First, it is important to understand that freedom of speech is a foundational and deeply cherished part of the United States’ law. In Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969), the court held that “a state may not forbid speech advocating the use of force or unlawful conduct unless this advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” Accordingly, a person cannot be punished for speech unless that speech directly incites violence or lawless action. Even when speech advocated against the system, for violence, or for unlawful action, First Amendment protections are still observed and are only revoked when that advocacy leads directly to action. This doesn’t mean that advocacy for a differing view is legal until violence breaks out, but rather that advocacy is legal until one’s words lead to specific unlawful action. The court makes clear what criteria must be met before First Amendment protections are revoked: “To impose criminal liability for speech that incites others to illegal actions, imminent harm, a likelihood that the incited illegal action will occur, and an intent by the speaker to cause imminent illegal actions.” Until these criteria are met, advocacy, even for unlawful actions, is protected.

Second, the court agreed in Iancu v. Brunetti, 588 U.S. (2019) that “the government may not discriminate against speech based on the ideas or opinions it conveys,” and if a statute discriminates against such speech, it violates the First Amendment. And in Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989), “expression may not be prohibited on the basis that an audience that takes serious offense to the expression may disturb the peace,” (491 U. S. 398). By singling out specific ideologies and excluding competing ideas, the bill attempts to limit what speech is allowed for certain groups. This is also likely a violation of the due process clause, but more on that later.

Finally, in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943), the court noted: “To believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous, instead of a compulsory routine, is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds. We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes. When they are so harmless to others or to the State as those we deal with here, the price is not too great. But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much.” The importance of individualism is central to the First Amendment, as diverse expression, ideas, and cultures are precisely what make the United States different from its European and North American counterparts. To limit the freedoms of certain cultures, ideologies, and advocacy under the guise of “national security” instead of what it really is—ideological purity—is fundamentally un-American.

Opposing Precedent

It is important to understand cases that suggest parts of this legislation could be upheld in court. Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 342 U.S. 580 (1952), held that the government was within its rights to deport non-citizens for past communist party membership; however, this does not apply to citizens. The court held that deportation was a civil proceeding rather than a criminal one, but one that, again, applies only to non-citizens. Nevertheless, in this case, the court clarified that ambiguity was a valid concern: “So long as the alien elects to continue the ambiguity of his allegiance, his domicile here is held by a precarious tenure” (342 U.S. 587). The court later restricted the government’s ability to restrict the speech of non-citizens, although Harisiades v. Shaughnessy was not overturned. In American Association of University Professors et al v. Rubio et al (2025), the court held that deportations based on political expression violate the First Amendment. Judge Young wrote, “although case law defining the scope of noncitizens’ First Amendment rights is notably sparse, the Plaintiffs have at least plausibly alleged that noncitizens, including lawful permanent residents, are being targeted specifically for exercising their right to political speech,” (55-56). Judge Young makes an important point that precedent regarding non-citizens’ First Amendment rights is sparse, but clarifies that this sparsity does not mean they can be targeted specifically for exercising those rights. This makes the bill’s constitutionality ambiguous at best, and a blatant violation at worst.

The Fourteenth Amendment remains another enormous hurdle for this bill, as depriving any person (citizen or non-citizen, regardless of legal status) of due process is unlawful. But to properly understand its application, I will analyze it in two contexts: citizens and non-citizens.

Citizens’ Protections & Limits

In Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253 (1967), the court held that, “Congress has no power under the Constitution to divest a person of his United States citizenship absent his voluntary renunciation thereof,” and later clarified, “the [Fourteenth] Amendment can most reasonably be read as defining a citizenship which a citizen keeps unless he voluntarily relinquishes it. Once acquired, this Fourteenth Amendment citizenship was not to be shifted, canceled, or diluted at the will of the Federal Government, the States, or any other government unit” (262-63). The government’s ability to revoke citizenship is limited, and even then, it seems revocation is allowed when citizenship is gained through fraud, and there is little exception to this rule (see Maney v. United States, 278 U.S. 17 (1928); Fedorenko v. United States, 449 U.S. 490 (1981)).

The court wrote in Schneider v. Rusk, 377 U.S. 163 (1964) that “This statute (i.e., § 352(a)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952) proceeds on the impermissible assumption that naturalized citizens as a class are less reliable, and bear less allegiance to this country than do the native born. This is an assumption that is impossible for us to make. Moreover, while the Fifth Amendment contains no equal protection clause, it does forbid discrimination that is ‘so unjustifiable as to be violative of due process’” (214). The court made clear, as does the Constitution, that citizenship does not have a class structure, but rather it applies equally to all. In Perez v. Brownell, 356 U.S. 44 (1958), the court held that “anyone who votes in a foreign political election shall lose his American citizenship.” In Perez, the plaintiff was a birthright citizen, which further strengthens the idea that to lose citizenship is not subject to the kind of citizen, and the bar is astronomically high for one to lose said protections. This bill attempts to build out a class structure that applies the law differently across citizens, which does not exist and cannot legally exist.

Non-Citizens Protections & Limits

The case for non-citizens is slightly less obvious, but existing case law does offer some protections to non-citizens. In Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886), the court expressed: “The guarantees of protection contained in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution extend to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, without regard to differences of race, of color, or of nationality.” The Fourteenth Amendment does not discriminate between citizens and non-citizens, as the language of the amendment is clear—“all persons.” To suggest that non-citizens are less protected under the Fourteenth Amendment is to ignore its explicit language. Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982) the court reaffirmed precendent set in Yick Wo v. Hopkins, “concluding that ‘all persons within the territory of the United States,’ including aliens unlawfully present, may invoke the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to challenge actions of the Federal Government, we reasoned from the understanding that the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to afford its protection to all within the boundaries of a State.” The court’s consistent application of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause suggests that this bill, even if just applied to non-citizens, may fail to stand on any real constitutional footing. Although the case law for non-citizens is not as straightforward as it is for citizens, the courts seem to hold that protections still exist for non-citizens and that “all persons” does not mean “only citizens.”

Chaos With A Clear Conclusion

Immigration has become a hot topic all around the world, with Canada tightening restrictions1 and Europe closing its once-open doors2. In the United States, Trump ran on cracking down on unlawful immigration; unlawful immigration crackdowns just so happen to include lawful immigration; blanket immigration crackdowns now include naturalized citizens. It is not hard to see the progression, and it is not ignorant to think that progression will continue. Pastor Martin Niemoller’s poem, First They Came, comes to mind:

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

Eventually, they will come for you, me, and anyone else they deem a threat. This bill is just one more step down that dark path. Rights are not taken away overnight; they are eroded over time, starting with the most vulnerable groups, and slowly, the gun begins pointing closer and closer at you.

What we have seen in the last 6 years is astonishing, to say the least. As Trump’s popularity fell to its lowest point in his second term at -17.5% a few days ago1, Democrats' popularity is hovering around 28%, with Republicans slightly ahead at 32%.2 Trust in the government as a whole looks less grim at first glance, with 19% of Americans trusting the government a “great deal,” the highest it has been in almost 20 years; however, when looking closer, only 26% of Americans trust the government a “fair amount,” the lowest it has been in almost 20 years.3 This is a race to the bottom, and the loser is everyone.

What makes this moment different is not simply that both parties are unpopular—it’s that their unpopularity is now mutually reinforcing. Each side derives its remaining strength not from public confidence, but from public fear of the other. In other words, the modern political economy is no longer built on persuasion, but on aversion.

This is the quiet transformation that has taken place over the last decade. Democrats are not winning because they inspire broad trust; Republicans are not holding ground because they command widespread approval. Both are surviving because the electorate has been conditioned to see the other as an existential threat. The result is a system where declining approval is not a liability; rather, it is a feature.

In that environment, there is little incentive to course-correct. Moderation does not win primaries. Competence does not drive engagement. Outrage does. The more polarizing the figure, the more durable their base; the more dysfunctional the system, the easier it becomes to justify its continuation. Each party, in its own way, is rewarded for decay.

This is why the numbers matter less as individual data points and more as indicators of where we are going. When trust in government declines alongside trust in both parties, it signals something deeper than dissatisfaction—it signals detachment. Americans are not just losing faith in leaders; they are losing faith in the idea that leadership, as currently structured, can produce meaningful outcomes at all. And yet, the system persists. Not because it is working, but because it has become self-sustaining.

History & Modernity

If this moment feels unprecedented, it’s worth asking whether it actually is. American politics has endured periods of deep fracture before—Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, and the late 1960s. Trust has collapsed, parties have realigned, and institutions have strained under the weight of internal conflict. But in each of those eras, at least one political force was in ascent, offering a vision—however flawed—that could plausibly replace what was breaking down.

That is what makes today different. There is no clear ascent. There is no emerging consensus. There is no political home that a disillusioned electorate can migrate toward with confidence. Instead, two institutions are declining in parallel, each too weak to command trust, yet strong enough to block alternatives. It is not a realignment. It is a stalemate.

History suggests that systems do not remain in this state indefinitely. When public trust erodes to this degree, something eventually gives. The question is not whether the current structure will change—it is how.

The metaphor of a “race to the bottom” implies a finish line. But what lies at the bottom is not victory for one party over the other. It is something closer to a grave—a burial of legitimacy, of shared reality, of the basic assumption that the system can correct itself through normal means. When both parties arrive there together, the contest itself becomes irrelevant. And when legitimacy collapses, the pathways forward narrow quickly.

Correcting the System

In the best case, collapse forces reform. New coalitions emerge, institutional rules are rethought, and political incentives are rebuilt around performance rather than polarization. American history offers examples of this kind of renewal, but they are rare—and almost always born of prolonged instability rather than proactive change.

In the worst case, collapse does not produce reform—it produces acceleration. Distrust deepens, governing becomes more erratic, and voters increasingly look outside the system for answers. Not necessarily toward any coherent alternative, but toward disruption for its own sake. The demand shifts from “fix it” to “break it.” We are not at that endpoint yet. But the trajectory is clear.

The danger is not that Americans will suddenly lose faith in democracy overnight. It is quieter than that. It is the slow normalization of dysfunction—the steady acceptance that nothing works, that no one is accountable, that every election is simply a choice between two diminishing options. Systems do not collapse all at once; they erode until the public stops expecting anything better. And once that expectation disappears, it is extraordinarily difficult to recover.

The uncomfortable truth is that there is no sweeping reform waiting in the wings. No single election, no outsider candidate, no procedural tweak is going to reverse a decades-long realignment of incentives. If the system is going to correct, it will not happen through a grand reset. It will happen through smaller, less satisfying changes that alter incentives at the margins. That begins with competition. Not ideological purity, not a perfect third party, but the reintroduction of real political risk. Open primaries that force candidates to appeal beyond their base. Ranked-choice voting that rewards coalition-building instead of plurality wins. Structural changes that make it harder to win by simply being less hated than the alternative.

What’s Next?

None of these is a silver bullet. But they do something more important: they change the math. They make it possible—if not yet likely—for candidates to win by expanding trust rather than exploiting division.

Without that shift, the trajectory holds. The parties will continue to decay in parallel, insulated by the very system that should be disciplining them. The race will continue, not toward victory, but toward mutual exhaustion. And at the bottom, there will be no winner—only the realization that the system did exactly what it was designed to do, long after it stopped delivering what it was meant to provide.

The question now is whether we are willing to change those incentives while the system still has the capacity to respond—or whether we will wait until the grave is no longer a metaphor.

Look at the highlighted text in the picture above. To a casual observer, it’s a policy shift. To a technical analyst, it’s a viewpoint discrimination trap. By explicitly naming the “LGBTQ flag or emblem,” the bill’s authors moved from a content-neutral regulation of government property to a viewpoint-based restriction. Under the precedent of Shurtleff v. City of Boston (2022), once the government allows any private or individual expression on its property (like a photo on a desk or a sticker on a laptop), it cannot legally pick and choose which identities are "recognized."

However, if you only look at the LGBTQ+ flag ban, you’re missing the forest for the trees. This isn't just about symbols; it’s about a systematic attempt to rewrite the 14th Amendment at the state level. From SB 2409 (the Flag Ban), SB1746 (the Marriage Non-Recognition Bill), and SB 836 (the Watson Tuition Bill), Tennessee is no longer just legislating; it is litigating. These bills are designed to challenge decades of precedent like Tinker, Plyler v. Doe, Obergefell v. Hodges, and many others. In this report, we deconstruct why these “unconstitutional by design” proposals are becoming the new standard in the Tennessee General Assembly.

The SCOTUS Bait Strategy: Deconstructing Legislative Defiance

When we look at SB 2409 (Flags), SB 1746 (Marriage), and SB 836 (Tuition), a clear pattern emerges. These are not “laws” in the traditional sense; they are litigation triggers. They are designed to be illegal on day one so they can be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in an attempt to overturn decades of precedent. But as an analyst, I’m also looking at the externalities. Between the $1.1 Billion in federal education funding at risk for the Watson bill and the millions in guaranteed legal fees for the rest, Tennessee is essentially gambling with the state's fiscal stability to score points in a federal court that may never even hear the cases.

SB 1746 is particularly brazen, as the bill states,

Private citizens and organizations are not bound by the Fourteenth Amendment or by the Supreme Court's purported interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment in Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015), and no private citizen or organization in this state is required to recognize a marriage or a purported marriage between individuals of the same sex, notwithstanding any other law.

This bill was written explicitly to challenge court precedent and the Constitution itself. Section 1 of the 14th Amendment reads,

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The court recognizes the right to marry as a fundamental right protected under the Due Process Clause1. In Obergefell v. Hodges, the court clarified further that the “right to marry” applies with “equal force” to same-sex couples2. This is no different than its application for opposite-sex couples, interracial couples, and any other combination of consenting adults who decide to marry.

Four principles and traditions demonstrate that the reasons marriage is fundamental under the Constitution apply with equal force to same-sex couples. The first premise of this Court’s relevant precedents is that the right to personal choice regarding marriage is inherent in the concept of individual autonomy. This abiding connection between marriage and liberty is why Loving invalidated interracial marriage bans under the Due Process Clause. See 388 U. S., at 12. Decisions about marriage are among the most intimate that an individual can make. See Lawrence, supra, at 574. This is true for all persons, whatever their sexual orientation.3

The court explained further that “just as a couple vows to support each other, so does society pledge to support the couple, offering symbolic recognition and material benefits to protect and nourish the union.”

Calculated Chaos: Tennessee’s Legislative Depravity

Whether it’s the flag ban's viewpoint discrimination or the tuition bill's conflict with Plyler, these proposals are "facially unconstitutional" because they ignored the established Constitutional Infrastructure.

As the 114th General Assembly comes to a close, leadership plans its legal fights for 2027. The goal is not to legislate, but rather to dismantle the constitutional protections that apply to all citizens, and in some cases, non-citizens. Tennessee deserves policy built for longevity, not headlines. When we draft “SCOTUS Bait” that threatens $1.1 Billion in funding and invites high legal costs and likely defeats, we aren't protecting Tennessee's values; instead, we're eroding its fiscal and legal stability. A bill that can't pass the “Tinker Test”, the “Plyler Test”, or any other long-standing judicial test, isn't infrastructure for the future; rather, it's a liability for today.