Did you know that modern civil asset forfeiture laws originated from the seizure of 18th-century pirate ships?

Welcome back to Rightly Decided, the mostly originalist takes of the litigators of the Texas Public Policy Foundation! This week, Laura Beth Latimer and Chance Weldon break their usual rule against discussing policy to welcome a special guest: Dr. Derek Cohen, TPPF's Chief Policy and Research Officer.

If you want to know how Texas polices its judges, why the government can legally seize your property without a criminal conviction, and how think tanks turn ideas into law—this episode is for you!

0:00 - Intro & Harambe Lore: Welcoming Dr. Derek Cohen to the podcast (and clearing up some Cincinnati Zoo rumors).

2:40 - Judging the Judges: Dr. Cohen explains his role as Secretary of the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. Learn how Texas oversees its elected judges, handles judicial misconduct, and enforces strict rules on partisan campaigning.

11:10 - The Problem with Civil Asset Forfeiture: Breaking down how law enforcement can seize private property using a lower "preponderance of the evidence" standard, often without ever convicting the owner of a crime.

15:35 - The 8th Amendment & Timbs v. Indiana: How the Supreme Court is using the 14th Amendment's incorporation doctrine to protect citizens from excessive fines.

22:45 - Pirate Ships & Legal Fictions: Chance Weldon gives a fascinating originalist history lesson on how suing abandoned pirate ships evolved into modern civil forfeiture.

34:20 - Seizing a Plane for a 6-Pack of Beer? Discussing a pending Alaskan case where a bush pilot had his Cessna seized because a passenger brought beer into a dry municipality.

39:50 - How Policy Becomes Law: An inside look at TPPF's legislative strategy, the grueling internal "Policy Council" gauntlet, and why verifiable research dictates advocacy at the Texas Capitol.

TPPF's Laura Beth Latimer, Nathan Seltzer, Clayton Calvin, and Chance Weldon get fired up over property rights and home equity theft.

The team looks deep into the world of tax sales, breaking down how local governments have been seizing properties for minor tax debts and pocketing the excess equity. The discussion covers two major Supreme Court cases: the landmark 2023 case Tyler v. Hennepin County and the recent follow-up, Pung v. Isabella County. Along the way, they discuss originalism, the Magna Carta, William Blackstone, and why property rights deserve the exact same constitutional respect as the First and Second Amendments.

In this episode:

— Tyler v. Hennepin County: The court unanimously ruled against a Minnesota county that seized a 94-year-old woman's condo over $15,000 in taxes and fees, only to sell it for $40,000 and keep the $25,000 windfall.

— Pung v. Isabella County: A look at a 16-year legal nightmare where a Michigan family lost their home over a $2,200 tax bill that state administrative courts had repeatedly ruled they did not even owe.

— Just Compensation: The complicated Supreme Court debate over whether "just compensation" under the Fifth Amendment means pre-foreclosure fair market value (appraised at $194,000) or the depressed auction price ($76,000).

— Justice Thomas's Concurrence: A breakdown of Justice Thomas's argument, relying on founding-era history, that property is a natural, fundamental right and the government exists to protect it—not the other way around.

TPPF litigators Laura Beth Latimer, Chance Weldon, Nathan Seltzer, and Clayton Calvin are wrapping up some of the final Supreme Court drops of the session with an analysis of two major election cases.

First, the team wades into a fascinating statutory interpretation battle in Watson v. Republican National Committee. What does the word "elect" actually mean, and does Election Day end when a ballot is postmarked or when it is received by the government? Then, the crew battles a labyrinth of federal acronyms to break down NRSC v. FEC, a major First Amendment case that asks whether the government can limit how much a political party coordinates spending with its own candidates.

Grab your dictionaries and prepare for a passionate rant on why money actually is speech—it’s an alphabet soup of campaign finance, preemption, and "YOLO textualism"!

In this episode:

• Watson v. RNC (5-4): An unusual cross-ideological majority (Barrett, Roberts, Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson) decides whether federal law preempts a Mississippi statute allowing mail-in ballots to be counted up to five days after Election Day. We discuss the difference between casting and receiving a vote and whether pragmatism should ever override textualism.
• NRSC v. FEC (6-3): Do limits on a political party's coordinated campaign expenditures violate the First Amendment? We break down the realities of campaign finance, quid pro quo corruption vs. prophylactic rules, and why buying poster board for a picket sign proves that money is, in fact, speech.
• The "Tiers of Scrutiny" Drum: Chance beats his favorite drum against arbitrary balancing tests, explaining why "closely drawn review" is just a policy-based word salad that ignores the original meaning of the First Amendment.
• The Alphabet Soup of Federal Law: Why the NRSC, FEC, FECA, and UOCAVA prove that we desperately need to stop using acronyms in legal briefs.

TPPF litigators Laura Beth Latimer, Clayton Calvin, Nathan Seltzer, and Chance Weldon play catch-up on the Supreme Court docket, tackling two major "culture war" cases. But don't worry, constitutional nerds—the team balances out the cultural heat with a massive, juicy deep dive into the Spending Clause (which, as Nathan helpfully reminds us, doesn't actually exist in the Constitution).

The crew breaks down Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections, an unbelievable religious liberty case that hinges entirely on agency law, and West Virginia v. B.P.J., the highly anticipated Title IX and Equal Protection clash over transgender athletes in school sports.

Grab your highlighters and pocket Constitutions—this one is a masterclass in statutory interpretation, tiers of scrutiny, and why the Supreme Court decides legal questions, not just cases.

In this episode:

• The Spending Clause "Contract": Why federal funding acts more like a simple contract than a blank check for Congress to regulate conduct, and how that core philosophy drove the conservative majority in both of today’s cases.
• Landor v. LDOC (6-3): A Louisiana prisoner had his dreadlocks shaved by guards even as he physically handed them a 5th Circuit opinion protecting his rights. We discuss why RLUIPA (Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act) doesn't allow him to sue those officers for damages, exploring the downstream consequences of Employment Division v. Smith and basic agency law.
• West Virginia v. B.P.J. (Title IX - 9-0): The court unanimously agrees that Title IX permits schools to maintain separate boys and girls sports teams based on biological sex, adhering to the statute's 1975 original public meaning. We also break down why Justice Gorsuch's famous Bostock opinion doesn't apply here.
• West Virginia v. B.P.J. (Equal Protection - 6-3): We unpack "quasi-suspect classes" and intermediate scrutiny. Does a state law separating sports by biological sex constitute arbitrary discrimination? The conservatives say no; the liberals want more facts.

Laura Beth Latimer, Chance Weldon, Nathan Seltzer, and Clayton Calvin are unpacking the final drops of the Supreme Court's October 2025 session. The team is zeroing in on two landmark Second Amendment decisions: United States v. Hemani (the "guns and drugs" case) and Wolford v. Lopez (the Hawaii guns case).

Before diving into the heavy constitutional lifting, the crew geeks out over some breaking SCOTUS lore: the official rebranding of the notorious "Shadow Docket." From there, the team breaks down the Bruen test, exploring why constitutional text and historical traditions are treated a lot like 1930s poultry contracts (seriously, it makes sense when you hear it).

In this episode:

— The Shadow Docket is Dead: Why the Supreme Court is officially pivoting to the highly neutral "Interim Docket" (and why Nathan is having a hard time adjusting).

— United States v. Hemani (9-0): We break down 42 USC 922(g)(3) and whether the government can disarm occasional users of controlled substances. We discuss the historical "habitual drunkard" laws, Alito's pragmatism, and Justice Thomas’s spicy Commerce Clause concurrence.

— Wolford v. Lopez (6-3): Hawaii tried to flip the default rules for carrying firearms on private property open to the public. We discuss property rights versus gun rights, Justice Barrett's brilliant First Amendment hijab analogy, and why post-Civil War "Black Codes" are completely invalid historical analogs.

— Originalism in Action: A masterclass in the Bruen test, the flaws of "means-end scrutiny," and how the court uses text, history, and tradition to interpret the Constitution.

Welcome to Rightly Decided, where the litigators of the Texas Public Policy Foundation bring you mostly originalist takes and zero media hysteria. In this episode, Laura Beth Latimer is joined by Nathan Seltzer, Clayton Calvin, and Litigation Director Chance Weldon to cut through the noise on the massive end-of-term SCOTUS drop: Trump v. Barbara.

It's time for a legal play-by-play of the 5-4 (or 6-3, or 7-2...it's complicated) ruling affirming birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants and temporary visitors. We leave the policy preferences at the door and dive straight into the text, the history, and the court's six separate opinions.

In this episode:

• The Majority (Chief Justice Roberts): An originalist defense relying on English common law, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the heavyweight precedent of Wong Kim Ark.
• The Concurrences: Justice Jackson’s historical lens on Black citizenship, plus Justice Kavanaugh’s argument that the Court could have bypassed the Constitution entirely and just used the 1952 Immigration Act.
• The Dissents (Thomas, Gorsuch, Alito): A deep dive into the "domicile" test, the meaning of "subject to the jurisdiction thereof," and Alito's spicy pushback on American consent versus British subjecthood. Plus, we flag a major tactical warning on the decline of facial challenges.

Whether you're celebrating or seething over the outcome, put down the Twitter hot takes and join us to take a look at what the Court actually said.

A major morning drop at the Supreme Court completely reshaped the landscape of administrative law and the unitary executive theory. In this episode of Rightly Decided, Laura Beth Latimer is joined by Nathan Seltzer and Clayton Calvin to break down two blockbuster, newly released opinions: Trump v. Slaughter and Trump v. Cook.

Are independent agencies officially a thing of the past, or has SCOTUS carved out a permanent "headless fourth branch" for the Federal Reserve? Tune in for a comprehensive, originalist breakdown of how these rulings affect democratic accountability and the balance of power between Congress and the Executive.

• Trump v. Slaughter (6-3): The Supreme Court officially overrules the 1935 Humphrey’s Executor precedent. Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, holds that the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) "for-cause" removal protections violate the Vesting Clause of Article II, restoring the president's unilateral authority to fire independent agency board members. We discuss the historical context—from the Decision of 1789 to James Wilson's views on executive unity—and what Justice Gorsuch’s powerful concurrence signals for the future of the non-delegation doctrine.

• Trump v. Cook (5-4): In a surprising shift via the shadow docket, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh cross over to side with the liberal bloc, ruling that the president cannot immediately remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. Why did the court handle the Fed differently than the FTC? We unpack the critical roles of party presentation, historical national bank precedents (McCulloch v. Maryland), and the statutory procedural due process issues that triggered Justice Thomas’s solo dissent.

What happens when a Texas Supreme Court Justice walks into a podcast studio? You get an episode packed with everything from Monsters, Inc. jokes to hardcore constitutional theory.

Hosts Laura Beth Latimer and Clayton Calvin are joined by Justice James P. Sullivan (aka "Judge Sully") of the Texas Supreme Court to talk life, law, why judicial opinions don’t have to be a snooze fest, and what it takes to display judicial courage – even when it means risking an election.

Also in this episode:

• The "Judge Sully" Origin Story: How a college football injury (and hitting Drew Brees in practice) accidentally created a Texas Supreme Court Justice.
• Old School Process: Why he prefers printing hard copies and "drawing mustaches in the margins" over relying on the cloud.
• Pop Culture & The Law: Why he channels his inner Antonin Scalia to inject wit, zingers, and The Big Lebowski context into legal writing.
• The Ultimate Law Nerd Debate: Breaking down the real difference between Textualism and "Bloodthirsty Originalism."
• The Lightning Round: Why he’d keep the even-numbered Bill of Rights amendments, his favorite pre-1950 Justice, and his definitive (originalist) Star Wars take.