Checks & Balances

Former FEC Chairman Trevor Potter joins Gregg Nunziata to explain how America’s election safeguards have weakened—and why the Trump administration’s efforts to expand federal control over elections deserve close scrutiny.
They discuss the collapse of meaningful FEC enforcement, potential voter-roll purges, federal involvement at polling places, threats to the certification process, and the legal preparations underway to protect the midterms. Potter also reflects on campaign-finance reform, his work with John McCain, and the founding of the Campaign Legal Center.
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What happens when winning elections becomes more important than the principles a movement claims to defend?
Gregg Nunziata talks with Reason senior editor Stephanie Slade about her new book, “Fusionism: Liberty, Virtue, and the Future of the American Right,” and whether conservatism can reclaim its commitment to freedom, faith, and the rule of law.


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Historian Timothy Ryback joins Gregg Nunziata on Checks & Balances to discuss his book, 53 Days, and the decisions that helped Hitler dismantle Germany’s democracy in 1933.
They examine the journalists and lawyers who resisted, the politicians who recognized the danger but voted to give Hitler power, and what this history can—and cannot—tell us about America today.


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Checks & Balances is a podcast of the Society for the Rule of Law Institute.
Federal judges are facing an unprecedented wave of threats. Amrit Singh, Professor of Practice and the founding director of NYU Law’s Rule of Law Lab, and Jeremy Fogel, a former district judge in California and the Executive Director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute, join Gregg Nunziata on Checks & Balances. Professor Singh and Judge Fogel discuss the findings from their recently published report Threats to the Independence of the Federal Judiciary, which offers concrete recommendations for strengthening judicial independence, the keystone of our nation’s constitutional order.
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Note: This episode was recorded on September 16, 2026.
Resources:
* Professor Singh and Judge Fogel’s report: Threats to the Independence of the Federal Judiciary
* Professor Singh and Judge Fogel’s article in The Hill: “Federal judges are being targeted with pizza doxxing; no one has been held to account”


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Checks & Balances is a podcast of the Society for the Rule of Law Institute.
William Baude, the Harry Kalven, Jr. Professor of Law and the Faculty Director of the Constitutional Law Institute at the University of Chicago Law School, joins Gregg Nunziata, the Executive Director of the Society for the Rule of Law Institute, for a conversation about the postal service executive order, the White House ballroom, and cases to watch in the upcoming Supreme Court term. They also delve into Professor Baude’s research interests, including the development of uniform time, and how Professor Baude’s popular legal podcast Divided Argument came to be.
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Note: This episode was recorded on September 3, 2026.
Resources:
* Professor Baude’s podcast Divided Argument.
* Professor Baude’s articles on the 14th Amendment.
* Professor Baude’s lecture on William Winslow Crosskey, the “forgotten originalist.”
* The Society for the Rule of Law’s amicus briefs in the postal service case.


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