Six Ways the Constitution Keeps Leaders in Check with Cass Sunstein (#289)

The Constitution isn’t just a statement of ideals. It’s a framework for power - built to divide authority so that no single institution can fully control the law.

But that design has a consequence: it slows decisions and complicates action. Is that inefficiency a weakness - or the very mechanism that protects liberty?

Drawing on his experience at the center of federal rule-making, Harvard Law School’s Cass Sunstein explores how these constitutional guardrails actually work, why they were designed to restrain concentrated authority, and what we risk losing when they begin to erode.

This isn’t abstract theory. It’s about the quiet architecture that shapes who can act, and how a system of divided power ultimately protects self-government.