Richards Center director Dr. Rachel Shelden recently appeared on the McCourtney Institute’s Democracy Works podcast to discuss the political history of the Supreme Court. She discussed partisanship and the Court in the antebellum period and today; how the theory of originalism is hostile to history; and how the contested presidential election of 1876 shares some similarities with this year’s federal elections. You can listen to Shelden’s interview here. Shelden and Dr. Erik Alexander elaborate on the troubling similarities between the 1876 election cycle and this year’s highly polarized election in an article for The Washington Post‘s Made by History blog. Read it here.