This is coming more than a little late, as the book has been out for a few months, but I wanted belatedly to congratulate my Washington College of Law colleague, Robert Tsai, on his book Eloquence and Reason: Creating a First Amendment Culture. I have it on my shelf for night reading, but unfortunately even […]
Archive | November, 2009
Georgetown Panel on McDonald & the Privileges or Immunities Clause:
By Randy Barnett on November 6, 2009 9:16 am in Constitutional Theory, Guns, Originalism, Uncategorized
As many readers probably know, McDonald v. Chicago involves a constitutional challenge to the Chicago handgun ban, which raises the issue of whether the individual right to keep and bear arms, which was recognized by the Supreme Court in DC v. Heller also applies to the states. Somewhat amazingly, the Court announced that this was […]
Roundtable on Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB
The Vanderbilt Law Review‘s “En Banc” online supplement has published a roundtable on Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB, an important separation of powers case the Supreme Court will hear later this term. The case concerns the constitutionality of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, an independent entity appointed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The […]
Paternalism and Slippery Slopes
By Ilya Somin on November 6, 2009 12:59 am in Libertarian Paternalism, Paternalism, Political Ignorance
Advocates of the “new paternalism” (sometimes also called “libertarian paternalism”) argue that carefully calibrated government interventions can help consumers avoid mistakes caused by their own cognitive biases. In this interesting new article, economist Mario Rizzo and legal scholar Glen Whitman argue that new paternalist policies are vulnerable to slippery slopes that will extend them far […]
The Evil of Leon Trotsky Revisited
Two of Leon Trotsky’s best-known quotes are his statement that “Where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation” (made famous, especially among libertarians, in part because it was quoted by Hayek in The Road to Serfdom), and the very next sentence in the same paragraph: “The old principle: who does […]
Podcast on the Fourth Amendment and E-mail
Yesterday I participated for the first time in the Legal Talk Network’s Lawyer 2 Lawyer podcast. The topic: The Fourth Amendment and E-mail. It’s about 30 minutes long, and it covers some of the recent developments in the law of e-mail privacy.
Health Care and Federalism
Emory law professor Robert Schapiro has an op ed arguing that the federal mandate requiring individuals to purchase health insurance included in the current health care bill is both constitutional and consistent with federalism [HT: Alison Schmauch]. I agree that the mandate would probably be upheld under current Supreme Court precedent. However, like many other […]
Ninth Circuit Considers Super-En-Banc for Comprehensive Drug Testing
By Orin Kerr on November 5, 2009 5:39 pm in Criminal Procedure, Cyberspace Law, Fourth Amendment, Uncategorized
I haven’t blogged recently about the Ninth Circuit’s blockbuster computer search and seizure decision in United States v. Comprehensive Drug Testing, although not because it hasn’t been on my mind: Among computer crime law folks, it’s topic #1 these days. Indeed, since the en banc decision was handed down, it seems that every conference and […]
“CAIR Gets TRO Forcing Return of Purloined Documents”
An interesting post from Prof. Howard Friedman (Religion Clause) on a recent decision: In Council on American-Islamic Relations v. Gaubatz, (D DC, Nov. 3, 2009), the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted a temporary restraining order to CAIR to prevent the use by defendants of various documents and e-mails that were surreptitously […]
Union Rules Binding in Criminal Cases?
This Chicago Sun-Times article reports: A Cook County judge today threw out an indictment against a Chicago Police officer accused of falsifying drunken driving arrests. Judge James M. Obbish said prosecutors were wrong to rely on statements Officer John Haleas gave to police investigators during an internal investigation of his conduct. Under union rules, such […]
IJ’s Bone Marrow Case: Judical Engagement, Not Activism
Today I’d like to discuss how to apply principled judicial engagement to the bone marrow case (see previous posts here, here, and here), and I hope to explain this in a way that responds to some of the concerns in the comments that this case may lead to open-ended judicial activism. Judicial engagement provides meaningful […]
Debating the Constitutionality of an Individual Mandate
The latest installment of the Federalist Society’s “Originally Speaking” debate series features UC Irvine Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and Baker & Hostetler partner David Rivkin sparring over the constitutionality of an individual mandate. We’ve had something of a debate over this subject here on the VC as well. Our prior posts are collected here.
Rare Case Involving Restrictions on In-Class Speech at a University
By Eugene Volokh on November 5, 2009 1:29 pm in Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Speech at Colleges and Universities
Most of the university student speech debate has focused (rightly, in my view) on restrictions that apply to student speech outside class — in student conversations, demonstrations, newspapers, flyers, and so on. But Harrell v. Southern Oregon University (Oct. 30) involves in-class speech, albeit in an online classroom. (Here’s the magistrate judge’s decision, which the […]
Fannie Mae to rent out homes instead of foreclosing
AP reports on a new Fannie Mae program to allow homeowners who can’t pay their mortgages to rent instead: Thousands of borrowers on the verge of foreclosure will soon have the option of renting their homes from Fannie Mae, under a policy announced Thursday. The government-controlled company, through its new “Deed for Lease” program, will […]
A Wager on the Impact of CFPA:
Josh Wright and Adam Levitin have been going back and forth about Wright’s paper (co-authored with David Evans) about the predicted impact of the adoption of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) on the availability of credit, economic growth, and new business formation (many new businesses rely on their founder’s personal consumer credit, such as […]