The NYT has a conversation between Kate Shaw, Will Baude, and Steve Vladek discussing the end of the Supreme Court’s Term. Baude gives the Court an A-, Shaw a C-, and Vladek says incomplete. Along the way, I’m appreciative of the comments Kate and Will make about my article, Institutional Formalism and Realism in Constitutional and Public Law:

Baude: I agree that those law firm executive orders are obviously unconstitutional, though they do raise some hard questions of judicial review. When the court should toggle between “institutional formalism” and “institutional realism” is one of the big hard questions of public law, on which Rick Pildes has written more thoughtfully than anybody else I know.

Shaw: Yes! A great piece. And I read it to suggest that the court should more often peek inside the “black box” of institutional decision making — that is, engage in more institutional realism.

Baude: Maybe so. But if it does that for Republican presidents, we have to be prepared for it to do that to Democratic presidents, too. And I’m not sure everybody would be happy with the results.