How should the Constitution's privacy protections be translated for a new era? This is a question before the Supreme Court today, but it was also a question that captivated a justice appointed to the Supreme Court 100 years ago — Louis Brandeis

Introducing “The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop”

Oct 16th, 2023 3m 34s

Grenada’s Black revolutionary leader, Maurice Bishop, was executed in a coup in 1983, along with seven others. The whereabouts of their remains are unknown. Now, The Washington Post’s Martine Powers uncovers new answers about how the U.S. fits

Listen to the first episode of “Field Trip”: Yosemite National Park

Jun 29th, 2023 55m 41s

To hear the rest of the series, follow “Field Trip” wherever you listen. California’s Sierra Nevada is home to a very special kind of tree, found nowhere else on Earth: the giant sequoia. For thousands of years, these towering trees withstood t

Introducing “Field Trip”

Jun 14th, 2023 3m 13s

Journey through the messy past and uncertain future of America’s national parks. The Washington Post’s Lillian Cunningham ventures off the marked trail to better understand the most urgent stories playing out in five iconic landscapes today.“Fi

Introducing "Broken Doors"

Apr 27th, 2022 4m 23s

No-knock warrants allow police to force their way into people’s homes without warning. What happens when this aggressive police tactic becomes the rule, rather than the exception? "Broken Doors" is a new investigative podcast series from the Wa

Introducing Moonrise

Jul 19th, 2019 4m 55s

Host Lillian Cunningham's next podcast explores the real story of why we went to the moon -- a darker, but truer story than the one you've heard before. Listen to this trailer, and subscribe on your favorite podcast app or at washingtonpost.com

Ourselves and our posterity

Feb 12th, 2018 54m 30s

In the "Constitutional" finale, we address listener questions about the history--and future--of the nation's governing document.

The First Amendment

Jan 29th, 2018 52m 5s

Why do First Amendment rights trump nearly every other right in America? Thank Jehovah's Witnesses.

Prohibition

Jan 1st, 2018 53m 2s

The passage and then repeal of the 18th Amendment, banning alcohol in America, highlighted the pitfalls of trying to legislate against vice.

Taxes

Dec 18th, 2017 42m 4s

Congress today faces the same question it faced a century ago when creating the modern tax system: What kind of society should America be?

The common defense

Dec 4th, 2017 49m 29s

One intention the framers had when creating the U.S. Constitution was to “provide for the common defense.” But who shoulders that duty has not always been so clear.

War

Nov 20th, 2017 41m 15s

What was the original point of the Second Amendment? We examine its colonial and revolutionary roots—plus its quiet companion, the Third Amendment—with renowned American history scholar Gordon Wood.

Love

Nov 6th, 2017 38m 42s

The words "marriage" and "love" appear nowhere in the U.S. Constitution. Yet 50 years ago, the Supreme Court issued a decision that would embed those concepts in the heart of the document itself.

Fair punishment

Oct 23rd, 2017 51m 2s

"There is so much feeling of racial injustice around the issue of punishment. And you have to understand that those feelings have a history -- and that history is Parchman Farm."

Fair trials

Oct 9th, 2017 46m 31s

In 1963, the Supreme Court ruled in Gideon v. Wainwright that states must offer a defense attorney to all poor people accused of crimes. The decision transformed the concept of fair trials in America, but left major challenges to the justice sy

Congress and citizens

Sep 25th, 2017 38m 42s

Is it a feature or a bug of the amendment process that an idea of James Madison's, more than 200 years ago, could be recently resurrected and etched into the U.S. Constitution?

Senate and states

Sep 11th, 2017 45m 22s

When the United States changed its process for electing senators, did that lead to a decline in state power? Or did it instead bring us closer to a "more perfect union"?

Hear ye! Hear ye!

Sep 4th, 2017 2m 2s

Now that we've concluded our mini-series exploring "we the people," we're moving to a biweekly schedule, with brand new Constitutional episodes coming out every other Monday. Stay tuned!

Gender

Aug 28th, 2017 48m 39s

From the American Revolution through today, women have been leading a long-burning rebellion to gain rights not originally guaranteed under the Constitution.

Race

Aug 21st, 2017 51m 33s

As powerful as it was to change the Constitution after the Civil War, and enshrine racial equality into our governing document, that wasn’t enough to change the reality of life in America.

Nationality

Aug 14th, 2017 47m 18s

What makes someone American? A landmark Supreme Court case in 1898, involving a child born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrant parents, would help answer that question.

Ancestry

Aug 7th, 2017 40m 39s

In 1879, a case involving Chief Standing Bear came before a Nebraska courtroom and demanded an answer to the question: Are Native Americans considered human beings under the U.S. Constitution?

We the people

Jul 31st, 2017 2m 22s

In the next set of episodes for Constitutional, we’ll focus on four groups of people who have gained rights that weren’t originally there in the Constitution.

Framed

2 Jul 24th, 2017 1h 3m

In the premier episode of “Constitutional,” we go back in time to that hot Philadelphia summer in 1787 when a group of revolutionary Americans debated, drank and together drafted the U.S. Constitution.