Sen. Bernie Sanders talks with NPR's Juana Summers about his new legislation, which would create a sovereign wealth fund, and give the American people a say in regulating AI.

Here is the text of the memorandum of understanding that was signed Wednesday by President Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, as well as Pakistan's prime minister.

(Image credit: Nathan Laine)

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The U.S. is allowing ships to enter and exit Iranian ports and coastal areas as the countries move to a new phase of negotiations over the next 60 days.

(Image credit: Amirhossein Khorgooei)

All living former presidents gathered for the dedication of the Obama presidential center in Chicago. It was a star studded event that harkened back to a more-optimistic era in American politics.

A new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll finds a record low share of Americans approve of President Trump's job performance and his handling of the economy heading into the summer before a key midterm election.

(Image credit: Charlie Neibergall)

The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously ruled that the government may not strip people of their Second Amendment rights or prosecute them for illegal gun possession simply because they are marijuana users. In United States v. Hemani, the Court held that neither policy is "consistent with this Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation," the constitutional test established by its 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

Given the tenor of questions during oral argument in March, the result is not surprising. But the fact that the justices all agreed the government had failed to meet the Bruen test underlines the weakness of the Trump administration's argument in favor of disarming cannabis consumers, which relied on a plainly inapt analogy to the historical treatment of "habitual drunkards." The decision also reflects the blatant illogic of 18 USC 922(g)(3), which makes it a felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison, for an "unlawful user" of "any controlled substance" to receive or possess a firearm.

The consensus is nevertheless striking given the Supreme Court's history of facilitating the war on drugs by whittling away at constitutional restraints on searches and seizures. The Court's deference to drug warriors has been so extensive that critics have long perceived a "drug exception" to the Fourth Amendment. But in Hemani, the Court makes it clear there is no drug exception to the Second Amendment.

The case involved Ali Hemani, a Texas man who was charged with violating Section 922(g)(3) based on two facts: He owned a pistol, and he admitted to using marijuana a few times a week. Although that would have been enough to convict him, the case never went to trial. A federal judge dismissed the charge on Second Amendment grounds in February 2024, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld that decision in January 2025.

That result, the 5th Circuit said, was consistent with its August 2024 ruling in United States v. Connelly, which held that the Second Amendment bars Section 922(g)(3) prosecutions when they are based on nothing more than the elements specified in the statute. The Trump administration, despite its avowed commitment to "protecting Second Amendment rights," asked the Supreme Court to reject the 5th Circuit's reasoning in Connelly and reinstate the charge against Hemani.

The government's lawyers may have hoped the circumstances of the house search that discovered Hemani's gun and marijuana, which stemmed from an FBI terrorism investigation that went nowhere, would color the Court's perception of him. If so, they badly miscalculated. While Justice Neil Gorsuch's majority opinion mentions that the FBI "suspect[ed] Mr. Hemani and his family members of terrorism-related activities," that detail does not figure in his analysis at all.

It is not hard to see why. The government "asks us to conclude that anyone who regularly uses marijuana is categorically violent and dangerous without any further showing," Gorsuch notes. The Trump administration's defense of Hemani's prosecution did not entail any claim that he was an especially dangerous cannabis consumer, and the absence of any such allegation proved fatal to its case.

"Ali Hemani uses marijuana a few times a week," Gorsuch notes. "That fact alone, the government says, means he is automatically banned from possessing a firearm under federal law. And because Mr. Hemani admits he owns a gun despite this ban, the government now seeks to prosecute him, imprison him for up to 15 years, and disarm him for life." That last consequence flows from another gun law, 18 USC 922(g)(1), which bans firearm possession by anyone who has been convicted of a crime punishable by more than a year of incarceration.

In seeking to justify such severe penalties for a man with no history of violence, the Trump administration argued that Section 922(g)(3) resembles early laws that authorized confinement of "habitual drunkards" in jails, workhouses, or asylums. The justices had no trouble recognizing the fallaciousness of that comparison.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, a habitual drunkard was not simply someone who regularly consumed alcohol, even in amounts that today might be viewed as extreme. "Had habitual drunkard laws applied to those who simply drank regularly, many notable early Americans could have faced trouble," Gorsuch notes. "John Adams took 'a tankard of hard cider' with his 'daily breakfast.' Some say James Madison 'consumed a pint of whiskey daily.' George Washington often drank three glasses of madeira in the evening—'not enough to be considered a heavy drinker in his day.'"

Gorsuch also cites the bar tab for Washington's 1787 "farewell party" at City Tavern in Philadelphia. The 55 guests, he notes, "are said to have ordered 54 bottles of madeira, 60 bottles of wine, 8 bottles of 'Old stock,' 22 bottles of porter, 8 bottles of cider, 12 bottles of beer, and 7 large bowls of punch."

Even the American Temperance Society viewed people who "drank 12 ounces of hard liquor daily" as merely "occasional drunkards," Gorsuch notes. In that organization's view, "it took 24 ounces" to qualify as a "confirmed drunkard."

Given the "culture of copious drinking" in early America, Gorsuch says, it should be obvious that labeling someone a "habitual drunkard" required more. Historically, that category was limited to people whose drinking was so out of control that it seriously disrupted their lives. "The government's historical laws targeted habitual drunkards not merely because they regularly used intoxicants, or even sometimes used them to excess," Gorsuch writes. "Instead, those laws focused on habitual drunkards because their drinking rendered them practically incapacitated and incapable of managing their affairs."

The Trump administration's analogy between occasional or regular cannabis consumers and habitual drunkards, in other words, fails right out of the gate. "The habitual drunkard laws on which the government relies here differ dramatically from [Section] 922(g)(3)'s unlawful user provision on every single metric the government invites us to consider," Gorsuch writes. "They targeted different kinds of people, did so for different purposes, and operated in different ways."

The government argued that Section 922(g)(3) makes sense because it aims to protect the public from "unusually dangerous" people who commit "violent crime." It claimed laws deployed against habitual drunkards served a similar purpose. Gorsuch disagrees.

The vagrancy laws cited by the government "targeted individuals who 'did not meet the societal expectation of work,'" Gorsuch notes. "Laws like these might have sought to promote productivity and suppress any number of real or perceived vices." But contrary to the government's gloss, they were not aimed at a category of "unusually dangerous" people. Civil commitment laws likewise "did not seek to protect the public from violence so much as to protect habitual drunkards from themselves and their families from financial devastation," Gorsuch writes.

The government also cited surety laws, which required people to post bonds that would be forfeited if they behaved badly. But those laws did not resemble Section 922(g)(3) either. "Under those laws, a judicial officer could impose a surety of good behavior on individuals who threatened a 'scandal,'" Gorsuch notes. "A scandal could include anything from 'haunting bawdy houses' to 'evesdropp[ing]' to, yes, being a 'common drunkar[d].'" Imposing a surety "did not normally require a showing that an individual posed a threat of violence."

Gorsuch notes another important distinction: The purported historical analogs cited by the government all entailed some form of judicial review before people's rights could be restricted. Section 922(g)(3), by contrast, "automatically divests an individual of his constitutional right to bear arms the moment he becomes an unlawful user and until he ends his drug use—all without any pre-deprivation process."

Gorsuch also questions the government's claim that Section 922(g)(3) is designed to prevent violence. He notes that it applies to any drug listed in one of the Controlled Substances Act's five schedules, which are based on criteria, such as medical utility and abuse potential, that have nothing to do with violence.

In addition to Schedule I drugs, which are completely prohibited, controlled substances include a wide range of medications that can be used legally by prescription. But if you take one of those drugs without a doctor's approval, you qualify as an "unlawful user." As Gorsuch notes, that means "a husband who regularly takes his wife's prescription Ambien to sleep" or "a college student who routinely uses a friend's Adderall to cram for exams" thereby loses his Second Amendment rights under Section 922(g)(3).

"The drug involved makes no difference," Gorsuch writes. Nor "does it matter how much an individual uses or the effects it has on him. That someone regularly uses any substance found on any of the CSA's five schedules for anything other than its 'prescribed purpose' is enough. Without more, the government asks us to analogize all such persons to habitual drunkards. To state the analogy is to expose its deficiency."

According to the government, "it doesn't matter what controlled substance an individual uses, in what amounts he does so, or whether his drug use has ever made him a danger to himself or others," Gorsuch writes. "It doesn't even matter why he keeps a gun or how safely he does so."

That policy is neither fair nor sensible. And according to a unanimous Supreme Court, it is not constitutional either.

The decision, like the 5th Circuit's ruling in Connelly, leaves open the possibility that "the government could bring a prosecution under §922(g)(3) accompanied by individualized proof that the defendant's use of marijuana (or any other drug) renders him a danger to himself or others," Gorsuch notes. But it rules out any prosecution that does not include such evidence.

When the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to take up this case, Solicitor General D. John Sauer warned that the 5th Circuit's understanding of the Second Amendment "invalidates Section 922(g)(3) in the lion's share of its applications." Contrary to Sauer's view, that's a good thing.

The post Supreme Court Makes It Clear There Is No Drug Exception to the Second Amendment appeared first on Reason.com.

Today, in United States v. Hemani, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment prevents the federal government from banning gun ownership by marijuana users. Unusually for a Second Amendment case, the ruling is unanimous. It's a significant application and extension of the Court's 2022 ruling in the 2022 Bruen case, which sought to put more meat on the bones of Second Amendment rights by establishing a "history and tradition" test for reviewing gun regulations.  It's a great moment for those of us who both support strong Second Amendment rights and hate the War on Drugs (elsewhere, I have argued that most of the federal War on Drugs is itself unconstitutional). The ruling also features a joint concurring opinion by Justice Alito joined by Justice Kagan - a rarely seen combination.

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the opinion for the Court, joined by seven justices in all. Here's an excerpt:

To determine when the government infringes the Second Amendment, we begin by asking whether the Amendment's terms cover the conduct in question. Bruen, 597 U. S., at 24. If so, the Constitution "presumptively" protects it. Ibid. To overcome that presumption, the government then bears the burden of showing its regulatory efforts are "consistent with the Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation."  Ibid….

§922(g)(3)'s unlawful user provision burdens conduct presumptively protected by the Second Amendment. After all, that statute bans a class of people including Mr. Hemani
from possessing essentially any firearm for any purpose. As a result, the government acknowledges, it has a burden to carry….

To meet its burden of showing a law like that is consistent with the Nation's tradition of firearm regulation, the government relies on an analogy to what it calls "habitual drunkard" laws. These laws, the government submits, enjoy deep roots in the country's history and are "relevantly similar" to the regulation it wishes to enforce against Mr.
Hemani….

We disagree. We appreciate that drugs and guns can sometimes make for a dangerous mix. We appreciate, too, that the government's effort to analogize a modern statute
addressing drug use to historical laws must be approached with a sensitivity to the fact that many drugs well known today were unknown in early America. As we have put it,
the Second Amendment "can, and must, apply to circumstances beyond those the Founders specifically anticipated." Bruen, 597 U. S., at 28. But, even taking all that
into account, the government cannot carry the burden it has set for itself. We decide cases "based on the historical record" and arguments "compiled by the parties" before us. Id., at 26, n. 6. And the habitual drunkard laws on which the government relies here differ dramatically from §922(g)(3)'s unlawful user provision on every single metric the government invites us to consider: They targeted different kinds of people, did so for different purposes, and operated in different ways. Whether any one of these problems taken in isolation would prove fatal to the government's cause, we need not decide. Taken cumulatively, we hold, they certainly do. And, apart from pointing to habitual drunkard laws, the government has not even attempted to prove that any other specific historical principle might justify its prosecution in this case….

Gorsuch goes on to point out that habitual drunkards are fundamentally different from people who merely drink alcohol - or use marijuana - on a regular basis:

Had habitual drunkard laws applied to those who simply drank regularly, many notable early Americans could have faced trouble. John Adams took "a tankard of hard cider"
with his "daily breakfast….". Some say James Madison "consumed a pint of whiskey daily." D. Okrent, Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition 8 (2010)…. George Washington often drank three glasses of madeira in the evening—"not enough to be considered a heavy drinker in his day." Id., at 5. Thomas Jefferson enjoyed "3 or 4 glasses [of wine] at dinner…."

There was, in short, a "culture of copious drinking" in early America. D. Korostyshevsky, Incapable of Managing His Estate: Habitual Drunkards and the Expansion of Guardianship in the Nineteenth-Century United States, 43 Law & Hist. Rev. 795, 800 (2025)….

Given all this, it seems the government's historical laws targeted habitual drunkards not merely because they regularly used intoxicants, or even sometimes used them to excess. Instead, those laws focused on habitual drunkards because their drinking rendered them practically incapacitated and incapable of managing their affairs….

The law [at issue in this case], the government insists, does not require it to show that a particular individual is regularly incapacitated, much less incapable of conducting his
affairs or a threat to himself or others. Put simply, on the government's telling, §922(g)(3) sweeps in large numbers of people without regard to whether their substance use has the kind of incapacitating effect on them that historical habitual drunkard laws normally required. This case illustrates the disconnect. The government considers Mr. Hemani an unlawful user of a controlled substance because he admits to using marijuana about every other day. But how much marijuana does Mr. Hemani use, in what potency, and to what effect? Is he routinely unable to manage his affairs, a risk to himself or his family?….. We do not know and, the government says, it doesn't matter…

Importantly, the Court's reasoning isn't limited to disarming marijuana users alone. Justice Gorsuch emphasizes that one problem with the government's position is that it would allow denying gun rights to anyone who uses a drug in a way restricted by federal law, regardless of whether the user becomes dangerously incapacitated or not:

Nor does the government's theory stop at Mr. Hemani. It extends equally to a husband who regularly takes his wife's prescription Ambien to sleep and a college student who routinely uses a friend's Adderall to cram for exams. Id., at 56–58. The drug involved makes no difference. Nor, again, does it matter how much an individual uses or the effects it has on him. That someone regularly uses any substance found on any of the CSA's five schedules for anything other than its "prescribed purpose" is enough…. Without more, the government asks us to analogize all such persons to habitual drunkards. To state the analogy is to expose its deficiency….

[W]e do not question that sometimes an individual's unlawful use of marijuana (or any other controlled substance) may render him a danger to others. But, again, the government disclaims the need to show anything like that in this case. Instead, it asks us to conclude that anyone who regularly uses marijuana is categorically violent and dangerous without any further showing. All based on little more than its current say-so, one at odds with its own regulatory actions. And affording the government that
kind of "broad power to designate any group as dangerous and thereby disqualify its members from having a gun" would risk allowing it to "quickly swallow" the Second
Amendment. Kanter v. Barr, 919 F. 3d 437, 465 (CA7 2019)(Barrett, J., dissenting).

This suggests that mandated disarmament of other types of users of illegal or restricted drugs is also unconstitutional, except in cases where the users are incapacitated or dangerous in ways similar to "habitual drunkards."

Gorsuch does stress that the ruling is in many respects…a narrow one." It does not definitively resolve the issue of how to address alls laws disarming users of various illegal or restricted drugs. Nor does it deal with situations where the law bans possession of a gun while the user is actually intoxicated or high. But the Court's reasoning nonetheless clearly sweeps beyond the specific circumstance of marijuana use.

In his concurring opinion, Justice Alito, joined by Kagan, applies slightly different reasoning:

Although I agree with the Court on [various key] points, I would affirm on a different ground from those on which the majority relies. As the opinion of the Court explains, the habitual-drunkard laws that the Government cites did not allowofficials to disarm all those who "regularly used intoxicants," or even just those who "sometimes used them to excess…."  These laws instead threatened disarmament only for those whose use of an intoxicant "rendered them practically incapacitated and incapable of managing
their affairs…."

The mismatch between the Government's historical analogues and the theory on which the Government defends the constitutionality of §922(g)(3) as applied to respondent is
clear. All that we know about respondent's marijuana use is that he used the drug about every other day. We do not know how much he used, the strength of the marijuana he used, how many times he used it on the days in question, the time of day when he used it, where he used it, or the degree to which this use affected his ability to exercise judgment and perform daily tasks responsibly….

Marijuana consumption is increasingly common in this country. Many States have legalized its use and sale, and although possession of the drug remains a federal crime,
very few persons are convicted of that offense each year. The Government has largely tolerated the production and sale of marijuana when done in accord with state law, and it has allowed a multi-billion-dollar marijuana business to develop….

In these circumstances, marijuana use today is like alcohol use at the founding. It is widespread and increasingly considered socially acceptable in many quarters. And from
a practical standpoint, law enforcement widely tolerates the use of marijuana.
These similarities underscore the deficiency of the Government's analogues. To succeed, the Government would need to identify a regulatory principle that justified disarmament of persons who are relevantly similar to the occasional marijuana user. But whereas the Government's analogues allowed disarmament only of those whose extreme use of an intoxicant (alcohol) incapacitated them habitually, §922(g)(3) as applied to respondent allows disarmament of those who do no more than "regularly us[e]" a similar intoxicant (marijuana) unlawfully….

I agree with both the majority and with Alito's uncharacteristically civil-libertarian concurrence.

In a concurring opinion joined by Justice Sotomayor, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson agrees that the Court rightly applied the Bruen "history and tradition" framework, but argues that that framework is itself badly flawed, relying on dubious and difficult-to-apply historical analogies. She argues, instead, for applying "means-ends scrutiny." I think she's largely right about that. But the solution is not to weaken judicial protection for Second Amendment rights to but use a different approach to enforcing them. On that point, I agree with much of Randy Barnett and Nelson Lund's critique of Bruen, published soon after the ruling:

[H]istorical analogies will frequently provide insufficient guidance, particularly for novel gun control laws that address modern problems. Looking at whether individuals could have knives and guns on eighteenth-century ships, for instance, does not provide a persuasive reason either to uphold or invalidate a modern regulation prohibiting
weapons on commercial aircraft. That law is designed to prevent aircraft hijackings, a danger quite unlike the threat of mutinies in previous centuries.

What's the alternative? Rather than relying on specious historical traditions, courts could evaluate gun laws against the purpose of protecting the right to keep and bear arms: facilitating the exercise of the fundamental right of personal and collective self-defense. In particular, judges could require the government to prove that a challenged restriction of the right to keep or bear arms does not vitiate the ability of Americans to use firearms to defend themselves against violent threats that the government cannot or will not prevent. In this way, judges can distinguish regulations that reasonably regulate this fundamental right from those that unreasonably obstruct it.

Better to start with the text and purpose of the Amendment and apply that to the facts of particular gun regulations, than the reverse! And the Barnett-Lund approach strikes me as compatible with Jackson's advocacy of "means-ends scrutiny," though I'm not sure either they or she would agree. Courts should consider whether the purpose and operation of the law in question is incompatible with the rights protected by the Second Amendment, and - if the purpose is permissible - whether the means used nonetheless unduly "obstruct" the right to bear arms.

Finally, Justice Clarence Thomas has a concurring opinion arguing that the law in question not only runs afoul of the Second Amendment, but also goes beyond Congress's authority under its power to regulate interstate commerce. The Commerce Clause does not authorize Congress to criminalize  intrastate possession of guns "solely on the ground
that they crossed state lines at some point in the past."  I agree! Congress may only restrict the interstate sale and transportation of goods, not their mere intrastate use and possession. And this point, as Thomas has recognized in past opinions, applies to the War on Drugs, as well.

In sum, not only is this an excellent decision, but it's a rare case where we have four different opinions by various justices, all of which are largely right. I wish there were more rulings like this one!

The post Supreme Court Rules Government Cannot Bar Marijuana Users From Owning Guns appeared first on Reason.com.

Today the Supreme Court decided T.M. v. University of Maryland Medical System Corp., a case concerning the application of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, under which federal district court review of state court decisions is generally barred.

The justices split 5-4 on the application of the doctrine here. Justice Sotomayor wrote for the Court. She summarized the issue in T.M. this way:

Under what has become known as the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, federal district courts lack jurisdiction over "cases brought by state-court losers complaining of injuries caused by state-court judgments rendered before the district court proceedings commenced and inviting district court review and rejection of those judgments." Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Industries Corp., 544 U. S. 280, 284 (2005). This case asks whether this rule bars suit when the state court judgment at issue is subject to further review in state appellate proceedings. A straightforward application of the logic and reasoning underlying Rooker-Feldman leads to one conclusion: It does. Because this suit falls within the narrow doctrine's limits, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit properly affirmed its dismissal.

The line-up this decision produced is what is particularly interesting. Justice Sotomayor was joined by Justices Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, and Jackson. (Justice Thomas also wrote a separate concurrence, defending Rooker "as an original matter.")

Justice Barrett dissented, joined by the Chief Justice and Justices Kagan and Gorsuch. Her opinion begins:

Twenty years ago, this Court held that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine is "confined" to the procedural circumstances of the two cases from which the doctrine draws its name. Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Industries Corp., 544 U. S. 280, 284, 291 (2005); see Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U. S. 413 (1923); District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U. S. 462 (1983). In "both cases," we emphasized, the federal action was brought "after the state proceedings ended." Exxon, 544 U. S., at 291. Seven Courts of Appeals took us at our word, refusing to apply Rooker-Feldman when the underlying state action remained pending. They were right to hold the line. Because the Court has chosen to relax it, I respectfully dissent.

Her dissent concludes:

The upshot of today's decision is that the Court has muddied waters that were hardly clear to begin with. That is unfortunate, because there was a better path available: treating Rooker-Feldman as "the §1257 Rule." VanderKodde, 951 F. 3d, at 409 (Sutton, J., concurring). Doing so would have been both clearer and more faithful to Exxon.

Still, the news is not all bad. Although the Court expands Rooker-Feldman beyond Exxon's line, it repeatedly emphasizes that the doctrine is "narrow." See ante, at 1, 7, 8, 18. Courts should not lose sight of that message. In the end, Rooker-Feldman has been given an inch—it should not be allowed to take a mile.

T.M. was not the only decision today to produce an interesting lineup. The Court was unanimous in the judgment in United States v. Hemani--a potentially important Second Amendment case--but split on the rationale. Justice Gorsuch wrote for the Court. Justice Alito wrote separately, only concurring in the judgment and was joined by Justice Kagan. (Yes, you read that correctly.) Justices Thomas and Jackson also authored concurring opinions.

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As the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence nears, it looks like Americans overwhelmingly approve of their country's cardinal principles.

That's the top-line finding from a recent survey conducted by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) about the legacy of America's founding. While its results did reflect a generational divide—baby boomers were much friendlier to the Founding than Gen Z—73 percent of the younger generation still agreed that "the founders deserve respect…for how they set up the United States." And 74 percent of Gen Z respondents agreed that "studying the political principles of the founding fathers can help inform our decisions today."

Support for Founding principles was also impressively robust across party lines: 92 percent of Republicans and 77 percent of Democrats said that it was "more important than ever to teach all kids the history of the founding fathers."

But though the sentiment is generally popular, its specific implementations tend to be rather controversial. In Florida, a recently devised A.P. U.S. History alternative, which casts the Founding and its Enlightenment-influenced classical liberalism in a rosier light, has been characterized by the media as an "anti-woke" reaction and a specifically "conservative" reform. 

The AEI survey also revealed surprisingly broad support for capitalism. Among 5,306 respondents, 82 percent said it was "very" or "somewhat important" to teach about "the benefit of free market capitalism" in high schools. Only 4 percent said that it should not be taught.

The result stands in stark contrast with other recent polling on the popularity of capitalism. For instance, a Gallup survey from last September found that just 54 percent of Americans have a positive opinion of the economic system, down from 61 percent in 2010.

There have been other prominent indications that Americans' faith in the free market could be slipping. New York City, for instance, elected a self-avowed socialist for mayor, who used his inauguration speech to decry "the frigidity of rugged individualism." (Washington, D.C., may soon follow in NYC's footsteps.)

Still, not all of the AEI survey results tell a story of Americans eager to "accentuat[e] positive views of America." Among parents surveyed in 1998, 50 percent said they would be upset if their children's teacher "constantly criticized America's economic and political system"—this year, only 32 percent agreed.

But beneath the malaise, it would seem that Americans are fundamentally committed to the values and freedoms of the Founding. "Much has changed since the late 1990s," the AEI report reads, but "still, most Americans in 2026 report that they are familiar with our founding documents and endorse long-standing civic ideals such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and equal opportunity."

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