Our own Randy Barnett has an article in today’s Washington Post surveying possible constitutional challenges to the health care reform bill, should it pass. As Randy notes, constitutional litigation is inevitable, as several state attorneys general and conservative public interest organizations have already announced their intention to file suit.
Archive | 2010
Sunday Song Lyric
Alex Chilton died this week at 59. His music did not have much commercial success beyond a few songs recorded with the Box Tops as a teen, (most notably “The Letter”). But his influence was substantial. When I was in college, most of the “cool” bands listed Alex Chilton and Big Star as important influences. […]
House Democratic Leaders Drop “Deem and Pass”
News here.
A Constitutional Slaughter Solution?
Yale’s Jack Balkin is now convinced that Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives have found a constitutional way to combine passage of the Senate health care reform bill with revisions to be passed as part of a reconciliation process. In a letter to House Rules Committee Chair Louise Slaughter (reproduced here) Balkin writes: Under […]
Oklahoma House of Representatives Proposes Ban on Use of Foreign Law in Oklahoma Courts
The proposal passed the House last week by a vote of 91-2, and is now before the Oklahoma Senate’s Judiciary Committee. Here’s the proposed constitutional amendment, to be submitted to the voters if the Senate agrees: B. Subsection C of this section shall be known as the “Save Our State Amendment”. C. The Courts provided […]
Obama’s Speech at the Patriot Center
If the Washington Post’s report is correct, and 8,000 people turned out, the real news is that two days before the big health care vote, Obama couldn’t fill a 10,000 seat arena at a university with 30,000 students (albeit many part-time), in a state and county Obama won, with many of the seats undoubtedly taken […]
Copyright Action, Singapore Dep’t
The High Court of Singapore has agreed to hear the appeal in an important copyright infringement case against RecordTV (that I blogged about a year or so ago …). It’s an interesting case on several fronts – For one thing, it replicates almost perfectly, on the facts, the very important Cartoon Network v Cablevision case […]
Journalist’s Privilege, Candlestick Maker’s Privilege, “a Curious Unreality,” and Piling Pelion Upon Ossa
An interesting opinion in In re Subpoena to Goldberg (doesn’t Subpoena to Goldberg sound like the title of a Philip Roth novel?), which struck me as unusually concrete and vivid, as well as persuasive on the merits: In 2004, Moshe Saperstein filed suit against the Palestinian Authority (“PA”) in the Southern District of Florida. Saperstein […]
Stringent Constitutional Limits on Anger Management Classes, Anti-Drug/Alcohol-Abuse Classes, or Even Traffic School as Alternatives to Prosecution?
I blogged Wednesday about the Third Circuit’s “sexting” decision, mostly to summarize the reasoning. Now that I’ve had a day to think some more about it, let me now follow up with a brief discussion of the implications First, recall the court’s reasoning: (1) Requiring the girls who were suspected of illegal sexting to go […]
Public Opinion About the Supreme Court
Is the Supreme Court too conservative? Not according to the public, it seems. Specifically, Rasmussen has a new poll out that asked 1,000 likely voters the following question: “In political terms is the Supreme Court too liberal, too conservative, or about right?” Here are the results: Too liberal: 32% About right: 33% Too conservative: 23% […]
Rasmussen: 43% now strongly disapprove of Obama, same as Bush when he left office
When George Bush left office he was deeply unpopular: in Bush’s last month, according to Rasmussen 43% strongly disapproved of the job Bush was doing, while only 13% strongly approved, for a staggering negative rating of -30%. Rasmussen’s Thursday release shows that after 14 months in office President Barack Obama has achieved Bush’s 43% of […]
The Good Faith Exception and Changing Law: Misunderstanding “Good Faith”
This is my 6th post in series of posts on why the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule should not apply when a police officer conducts a search that is lawful when it occurs that is later ruled unlawful before the conviction is final. This issue is being litigated all over the country right […]
Bloggers: Both side critical of party chairs. Disagree somewhat, but not entirely, on health care chances, and Obama as a one-term President
This week, the National Journal poll of political bloggers moves to a new spot on the NJ website, “The Hotline Blogometer.” Besides the weekly poll, the Blogometer contains a daily report on what leading liberal and conservative political bloggers are writing about the controversies of the moment. In this week’s poll, bloggers were asked “On […]
Court Throws Out Defamation Lawsuit Against Police Officer Who Noted License Plate That Was on a Terrorist Watch List
An interesting case, Syed v. Hamady (filed Mar. 12, 2010). Note that the plaintiffs’ lawyer apparently failed to timely file a response to the motion for summary judgment, and failed to promptly remedy that failure, so as a result the court decided the case without considering any such response: This Court has reviewed Defendants’ Statement […]
Does Marshall Field v. Clark Preclude a Challenge to “Deem and Pass”?
Is a constitutional challenge to the use of “deem and pass” to enact health care reform precluded by the Supreme Court’s 1892 decision in Marshall Field & Co. v. Clark? In that decision, the Supreme Court held that federal courts must accept the certification of the presiding officers of the House and Senate that a […]