Cato Institute Book Discussion: "Last Branch Standing"

Event Title:
Online Book Forum: "Last Branch Standing: A Potentially Surprising, Occasionally Witty Journey Inside Today’s Supreme Court"

Registering for the Online Event:
To register for and watch this FREE event, go to: https://www.cato.org/events/last-branch-standing-potentially-surprising-occasionally-witty-journey-inside-todays-supreme

You can also watch it live on Vimeo - https://vimeo.com/event/5890338/

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Event Description:
Many Americans think they understand today’s Supreme Court: six conservative justices appointed by Republicans, three liberals appointed by Democrats, and predictably partisan outcomes, especially in the “big” cases. But Sarah Isgur, host of the Advisory Opinions podcast, editor of SCOTUSblog, and one of the savviest Court-watchers in the country, is here to tell you that’s wrong.

In her new book Last Branch Standing, Isgur argues that the conventional left-right framing fundamentally misconceives how the justices decide questions—not cases!—and that once you understand how they really think, the Court looks far more like a 3–3–3 institution than a 6–3 one. She also takes readers inside the building itself: the personalities, the quirks, the clerk culture, and the institutional dynamics that shape outcomes far more than partisan affiliation alone.

Isgur’s account of the Court’s role in our current constitutional moment is equally illuminating. With Congress having largely abdicated its lawmaking responsibilities, presidents of both parties have rushed to fill the resulting policy vacuum through executive action—often setting themselves on a collision course with SCOTUS. And while the shadow docket creates a misleading impression of unremitting executive branch success, the full picture of how the current administration actually fares before the Court may surprise you.

Join us for a conversation with Sarah Isgur about what may be the last constitutionally functioning branch of American government.

About the Speakers:
* Sarah Isgur is an attorney, a legal analyst for ABC News, senior editor at SCOTUSblog, and a political commentator at the conservative media outlet The Dispatch where she hosts the podcast "Advisory Opinions". She is also a former spokesperson at the U.S. Department of Justice, and former fellow at the Harvard Institute for Politics.
* Clark Kelly is senior vice president for legal studies at the Cato Institute. His areas of interest include constitutional law, overcriminalization, coercive plea bargaining, police accountability, and gun rights. Before joining Cato in 2017, Neily was a senior attorney and constitutional litigator at the Institute for Justice and director of the Institute’s Center for Judicial Engagement. Neily is an adjunct professor at George Mason’s Antonin Scalia School of Law, where he teaches constitutional litigation and public-interest law.

About the Cato Institute:
Founded in 1976, the Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. The institute advocates for free market economic policies, protection of civil liberties, criminal justice reform, and a non-interventionist foreign policy. It publishes the annual "Human Freedom Index" that ranks countries based on their levels of personal & economic freedoms, and it hosts cross-partisan discussions monthly at "Cato Unbound". To learn more, go to https://www.cato.org/about

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