Harvard’s Jack Goldsmith and Lawrence Lessig have an interesting op-ed in today’s Washington Post arguing that it woudl be constitutionally dubious for President Obama to adopt the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) as an executive agreement. Here’s a taste: The president has no independent constitutional authority over intellectual property or communications policy, and there is no […]
Archive | March, 2010
Age Discrmination Against Child Prodigy?
Here’s an interesting story about an age discrimination complaint filed by a 13-year-old college student against the University of Connecticut. Colin [Carlson] is a sophomore at the University of Connecticut, seeking a bachelor’s degree in ecology and evolutionary biology and another in environmental studies. But he’s been knocked off course by the university’s rejection of […]
Federalism Restoration Amendment: Take 2
Thanks to readers for their comments on the proposal I posted earlier. Having read them, I am now curious about reader reaction to a more structural approach to restoring constitutional federalism. FEDERALISM RESTORATION AMENDMENT Section 1. The legislative power of Congress shall not be construed to include mandating, regulating, or prohibiting the private health insurance […]
“Freedom Vigil” Permit Issued
The Freedom Vigil will be held on Saturday evening at 9:00pm in Senate Park on Constitution between New Jersey and Delaware very close to Union Station metro (click link for Google map). Details are here. Bring your glow sticks (or cell phone).
D.C. Circuit Strikes Down Caps on Contributions to Independent Expenditure Committees
The case is SpeechNow.org v. FEC (en banc) (unanimous): The contribution limits of 2 U.S.C. § 441a(a)(1)(C) and 441a(a)(3) violate the First Amendment by preventing plaintiffs from donating to SpeechNow in excess of the limits and by prohibiting SpeechNow from accepting donations in excess of the limits. We should be clear, however, that we only […]
Help Draft the Federalism Restoration Amendment
Nearly one year ago I proposed a Federalism Amendment in the Wall Street Journal followed four weeks later by a Bill of Federalism containing ten amendments, which appeared on Forbes.com. This has led me to hear from hundreds of citizens, and state legislators from around the country, about the pros and cons of constitutional amendments […]
On Goldstein On Liu
Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee was scheduled to hold a hearing (subsequently postponed) to consider President Obama’s nomination of Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In anticipation of the hearing, SCOTUSBlog founder Thomas Goldstein discussed the Liu nomination and its potential broader significance on The Huffington […]
Harold Koh Statements on Drone Warfare at ASIL Tonight
By Kenneth Anderson on March 25, 2010 11:43 pm in International Human Rights Law, Robotics, Targeted Killing, Terrorism, War and Armed Conflict, War on Terror
Update: I have had a chance to watch the video twice – I strongly recommend watching it, as it adds considerable language to the statements below in the press release. And welcome Instapundit readers and any others. Given how much I have pressed publicly for a statement by the administration’s lawyers, I want to say […]
“Federalist Society Types” Were Committed to Judicial Enforcement of Federalism Long Before Obamacare
By Ilya Somin on March 25, 2010 10:46 pm in Commerce Clause, Federalism, Federalist Society, Health Care, Taxing and Spending Clause
University of Colorado Law Professor Paul Campos decries what he calls “the recent conversion of so many Federalist Society types to the virtues of aggressive judicial review of legislative enactments” in the wake of the enactment of Obamacare. Campos’ claim of a “recent conversion” could hardly be more wrong. If there’s one thing that most […]
Swift Justice?
Gabriel Schoenfeld points out in the Weekly Standard that the administration’s nominee to be general counsel of the Army, Solomon B. Watson IV, was general counsel of the New York Times when it broke the story of the Treasury’s program to uncover terrorist financing. Watson has drawn fire for his role in allowing the disclosure […]
President Obama Claimed that the Individual Mandate is Not a Tax
As I discussed in this post, some academic defenders of the health care bill’s insurance mandate claim that it is constitutional as an exercise of Congress’ power to tax. That argument has been advanced by by prominent scholars such as Jack Balkin, Vik Amar (in a recent debate with me), and others. It may therefore […]
Lawsuits Against the Health Care Bill
The Publius blog a helpful post linking information on the various lawsuits recently filed against the Obama health care bill. In addition to the suit filed by 13 states and a separate suit by the state of Virginia, there is a little-noticed lawsuit challenging the individual mandate brought by the conservative Thomas More Law Center […]
Webcast of Conference Celebrating Bill Stuntz
I mentioned earlier that I’m going to be attending a conference at Harvard Law School tomorrow and Saturday honoring my favorite criminal procedure scholar, Bill Stuntz. I’m pleased to report that the entire conference will be webcast: You can watch it from here. The schedule for the event is here, and the webcast will be […]
Freedom Glows on the Mall on Saturday Night
On Saturday night, I’ll be attending a pretty cool event on the Capitol Mall. It is called “Government grows, but freedom glows!” The organizers want everyone to show up at 9pm and light glow sticks “to cut through the darkness with a glowing demonstration of liberty.” They describe the event as “A peaceful, silent protest […]
“No Case Citations in Florida Health Care Lawsuit”
Marc Ambinder, the politics editor of The Atlantic, writes, Reading through the complaint filed by 13 state attorneys general, against the health reform legislation, reader @calchala was struck by something that wasn’t there: the lack of any specific case citation to buttress the underlying claim that it is unconstitutional for the federal government to impose […]