Melissa Murray

speaker

2,412 appearances 10 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 5d ago

Melissa Murray’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 10 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 5.

Appearances

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Strict Scrutiny · How Trump is Using the IRS to Resegregate America · 14 Sep 2026 podcast

Make America great again by going back to 1953. matched

After that, we are going to bring our listeners a fantastic conversation that Kate, Leah, and I had matched

with Nicholas Bowie and Daphna Renan about their new book, Supremacy, How Rule by the Court Replaced Government by the People. matched

The book is out tomorrow and we cannot recommend it enough. matched

And as always, after that book interview, we will end things by talking about our favorite things. matched

So Rashad, think about some of your favorite things from this week that you want to share with our listeners. matched

But let's get started with the news because there is a lot of it. matched

So, listeners, we've been covering all of the court's summer shadow docket shenanigans, and this week was no exception. matched

Because on the Friday of Labor Day weekend, exactly the kind of time where you would want to bury a big news item, the Supreme Court decided to release another shadow docket ruling. matched

And predictably, this ruling was another big win for the Republican Party ahead of the midterm elections. matched

Let me set the scene for you. matched

On June 30th, 2026, the Supreme Court issued a decision on its merits docket in a campaign finance dispute called National Republican Senatorial Committee versus FEC. matched

In that case, the court invalidated a campaign finance law that limited coordinated expenditures by political parties on the ground that the challenge law that restricted that kind of coordinated expenditure violated the First Amendment rights of political parties. matched

When that decision was announced, Leah Kate and I said that it would have real impact on campaign spending in the run-up to the midterms. matched

And lo and behold, your favorite Cassandras were absolutely right because on the Friday before Labor Day weekend, this court decided to issue a shadow docket ruling where it cited its recent decision in NRSC versus FEC. matched

And this particular shadow docket decision concerns the new guidance that the Federal Communications Commission Media Bureau issued in March, 2026. matched

So what did that guidance do? matched

Well, traditionally, under federal law, political candidates are guaranteed deeply discounted ad rates in the weeks leading up to an election. matched

But the new guidance that was issued in March 2026 extended those discounted rates to certain party-coordinated ads, not just to individual candidates. matched

And predictably, Democratic candidates across the country took that personally. matched

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