Bill Blum
Bill Blum is a former administrative law judge and death penalty defense attorney. He is the author of three legal thrillers published by Penguin/Putnam and a contributing writer for California Lawyer Magazine. His non-fiction work has appeared in a wide variety of publications, ranging from The Nation and The Progressive to the Los Angeles Times, the L.A. Weekly and Los Angeles Magazine.
Articles by this author
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Views Thursday, June 14, 2018 Supremes Give Stamp of Approval to Voter Suppression In a 5-4 decision released June 11, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an Ohio law that provides for the removal of infrequent voters from the state’s election rolls. On the surface, the court’s majority opinion in Husted v. A. Phillip Randolph Institute is a highly technical analysis of whether Ohio’s... Read more |
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Views Monday, May 21, 2018 Trump, the NRA, Mass Shootings and the American Culture of Death “ A fish rots from the head down.” — Ancient proverb of disputed origin Another week has come and gone, and with it, another mass shooting. The American culture of death marches on, fueled by our obscene stockpiles of lethal weaponry and stoked by the divisions, alienation, hatred and fear that... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, May 08, 2018 History Lesson for Democrats: Think Winning Elections, Not Impeaching Trump On a steamy day in July 1787, in the midst of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, the 55 state delegates who would come to be known as the Founding Fathers turned their attention to the issue of presidential impeachment. Many weighed in on the subject, both pro and con, but none more... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, February 27, 2018 Is Janus the Final Chapter of the Right’s War on Unions? If the oral arguments heard by the Supreme Court on February 26 in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31 give any indication of the ultimate ruling, public employee unions across the country are destined for a crushing defeat. That defeat, should it come... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, December 27, 2017 Six Major Legal Battles of 2017 Will Persist in 2018 Every American president influences the course of our law and legal institutions through Supreme Court appointments or by pushing legislation and executive orders. But few have had as much impact in one year as the current occupant of the White House, Donald J. Trump. An intemperate, burgeoning... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, October 31, 2017 Panic in Trumpland, But Clinton Camp Should Be Wary It’s no longer a rumor. The first grand jury indictment drafted by Justice Department special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has been filed. As expected by many who have followed Mueller’s work since his appointment in May , Paul Manafort Jr., Donald Trump’s former presidential campaign manager, has... Read more |
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Views Thursday, October 19, 2017 Existing Law May Not Solve Presidential Crisis For those of you looking for a legal avenue to cut short the tenure of the 45th president of the United States—our very own real-life madman in the high tower—I have some good news, and some bad. Starting with the upside, your ranks are growing. According to a Public Policy Polling survey conducted... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, October 04, 2017 Judicial Roadmap for the Supreme Court Veers Right There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.—Alexis de Tocqueville, “Democracy in America” Get ready for change. After moving to the political center the past three terms, the Supreme Court is poised to take a turn back to the... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, July 05, 2017 Justice Neil Gorsuch Has Landed, to the Delight of the American Right The biggest story coming from the Supreme Court these days doesn’t concern the cases the court decided during its recently completed October 2016 term. The biggest story—and it’s one that will resound for decades—is that Neil Gorsuch has replaced the deceased Antonin Scalia as the panel’s ninth... Read more |
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Views Monday, April 24, 2017 Why Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III Is Unfit to Be Attorney General Don’t let his languid Southern drawl or physical resemblance to the kindly Keebler elves fool you. Ever. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, the nation’s 84th attorney general, is neither laid back nor kind. To the contrary, he’s the most dangerous member of the Trump Cabinet. What’s more, he’s... Read more |