So I want to start this next conversation with, is there any way to say that the United States House of Representatives is more important than the United States Senate? Or is there any way to say that the United States Senate is more important than the House of Representatives from a standpoint of one of the parties having control of that body?

Well, each chamber of Congress is essential if you're going to pass legislation.

And some laws, like revenue laws, have to originate in the House.

But the Senate, which is smaller, and every state has equal representation, unlike the House, which is a portion, pretty much a population, the Senate has some very important powers that the House lacks.

So, for example, the Senate alone gets to confirm or reject the appointments of federal judges, cabinet officers, and various other folks.

So in that sense, the Senate is more important.

For example, if there were a vacancy on the Supreme Court, whether the Democrats or the Republicans control the Senate after this election could affect what happens with a Supreme Court appointment, could also matter for appointing members of the cabinet uh and so it's not like they're one is more or less important in general but for certain purposes each chamber is more important than the other and for general legislation they both have to be on board

Is that number out there for them?

Professor Enten, do you have a comment about this, too?

Well, I think we need to understand that the Federal Trade Commission is one of, as Professor Massoud says, one of about two dozen so-called independent agencies.

Most of the federal government doesn't have independent agencies.

The ones that we have are important, like the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission, et cetera.

But All of the cabinet officers are in the executive branch and the president has always been able to remove cabinet officers and other high level executive branch officials.

The idea of independent agencies has been controversial for a long time and not simply among conservatives who have been really riding this hobby horse now for about 40 or 50 years.

Even before that there were concerns that independent agencies undermined the president's ability to do things.

What does this say, and how did the court get to that decision?

And what are the implications of having two-tiered rules when it comes to freedom of speech for adults and for minors?

Having different rules for minors recognizes that minors are kids.

They're not fully mature.

Now, some kids are more mature than others, and some kids may be more mature than adults, but you need to have a line, right? So the issue isn't that we necessarily have somewhat different rules for minors as for adults.

It's that if you're close to that line, and you're an adult, you may be required to do things to prove that you're an adult, or at least that you're not a minor, that might discourage you from engaging in some kinds of protected speech.

And so the issue is how much are people going to be chilled or deterred, how much are adults going to be chilled or deterred from engaging in First Amendment protected activity if they have to jump through a bunch of hoops that are supposed to apply to kids but may also sweep up adults.

And so we have to assess both the costs and the benefits in deciding whether a particular regulation is acceptable.

So, Professor Enten, why did the court block that?

And what are the implications of having two-tiered rules when it comes to freedom of speech for adults and for minors?

having different rules for minors recognizes that minors are kids.

They're not fully mature.

Now, some kids are more mature than others, and some kids may be more mature than adults, but you need to have a line, right? So the The issue isn't that we necessarily have somewhat different rules for minors as for adults, it's that if you're close to that line, and you're an adult, you may be required to do things to prove that you're an adult, or at least that you're not a minor, that might discourage you from engaging in some kinds of protected speech.

And so, The issue is how much are people going to be chilled or deterred, how much are adults going to be chilled or deterred from engaging in First Amendment-protected activity if they have to jump through a bunch of hoops that are supposed to apply to kids but may also sweep up adults? Much of First Amendment law, not all of it by a long shot, but much of First Amendment law focuses on the extent to which a government regulation of speech might chill or deter people from engaging in that speech.

And the cases that the Supreme Court has dealt with and lower courts have dealt with dealing with, say, internet regulation, have emphasized the question of how much speech, how much protective speech for grown-ups is being deterred because the government is trying to protect kids, maybe in a well-motivated way, but nevertheless in a way that says, well, there are costs to this regulation as well as benefits, and so we have to assess both the costs and the benefits in deciding whether a particular regulation is acceptable.

Okay,

So, Professor Enten, why did the court block that?

Professor Entin says 70 years ago, the Fifth Circuit covered more states, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, like today, but back then also Florida, Georgia, and Alabama.

Because it had the Deep South, a very significant number of important civil rights cases arose for a very long time, particularly in the aftermath of Brown against Board of Education.

Between the time that the Supreme Court decided Brown, the major ruling in 1954 declaring segregated schools to be unconstitutional, and then the follow-up remedial order in 1955 that simply sent the cases back to the lower courts for crafting remedies, that's where most of the litigation was taking place.

Now, while the overall Fifth Circuit Court issued those major civil rights rulings, that doesn't mean that all the judges themselves were pro-civil rights.

There were several staunch segregationist judges on the Fifth Circuit, but there also were some really pioneering figures.

Many of them, most of them I think, were Republican appointees of President Eisenhower.

They weren't what you would call, you know, flaming liberals on any traditional standard, but in the 1950s, and particularly after Brown came down, Southern politics moved dramatically to the right.

If you simply took the position that following the law was the right thing to do, then you were almost by definition, uh, pretty liberal.

So then with the question posed in our introduction and kind of the thrust of our conversation here, are there any examples in your mind, Jonathan, that speak to the fact that we are in a constitutional crisis or heading towards one? Or is it really ultimately tested when the Supreme Court takes up any of these actions? And let's say the president chooses to honor or not a court's decision.

Well, we've had periods in the past where presidents have asserted really broad authority.

But most of those examples involve wartime.

President Lincoln asserted pretty broad authority during the Civil War, President Wilson during World War I, President Franklin Roosevelt during World War II.

But I think that there's something else going on here that we should not lose sight of.

Often, indeed, the Constitution sets up separated powers at the federal level, three branches, Congress, has the legislative power, the president has executive power, the judiciary has the judicial power.

And the idea here is partly that we want to have the government doing whatever it's going to do, having institutions of government that have the kind of institutional knowledge and expertise to do particular tasks.

And Jonathan, I will turn that to you because, as he said, there have been various avenues in which the president has essentially attempted to or denied funds that have been congressionally approved.