As the Supreme Court cloaked itself in the reputational disaster of yet another personal scandal and the close of the term offered an array of perilous new developments in all sorts of corners of the law, Rep. Jamie Raskin joined Dahlia Lithwick for a special live taping of Amicus. They talked about Supreme Court capture, judicial ethics reform, warped originalism, and the ways in which democracy itself can repair the damage wreaked by a conservative supermajority that believes itself to be above the law. Congressman Jamie Raskin represents Maryland’s 8th Congressional District. He’s the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee and a veteran constitutional law professor. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

As the Supreme Court cloaked itself in the reputational disaster of yet another personal scandal and the close of the term offered an array of perilous new developments in all sorts of corners of the law, Rep. Jamie Raskin joined Dahlia Lithwick for a special live taping of Amicus. They talked about Supreme Court capture, judicial ethics reform, warped originalism, and the ways in which democracy itself can repair the damage wreaked by a conservative supermajority that believes itself to be above the law. Congressman Jamie Raskin represents Maryland’s 8th Congressional District. He’s the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee and a veteran constitutional law professor. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Dahlia Lithwick: What do you tell people who feel that the strictures and the protections of the legal system have gone from holding Donald Trump accountable to keeping him off the hook? Can the law keep up with the speeding forces of, as you said, nihilism, illiberalism, and authoritarianism, or is law lacing up its sneakers while those forces lap us again and again?

Jamie Raskin: I was shocked at what they did in Anderson v. Trump. The plain language of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment says that anyone who has sworn an oath to support the Constitution of the United States who violates that oath by engaging in insurrection or rebellion shall never be allowed to hold federal or state office. Again, it’s in the plain language, and that’s textualism, right?