As Ilya notes, District Court Judge Steeh today dismissed a claim that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act exceeds Congress authority under the Commerce Clause. I agree with his assessment of the opinion, with one exception. I do not believe Judge Steeh relied upon existing Supreme Court doctrine because of his claim that this […]
Archive | 2010
Michigan District Court Upholds Individual Mandate Against Challenge by the Thomas More Law Center
By Ilya Somin on October 7, 2010 6:19 pm in Commerce Clause, Federalism, Health Care, Individual Mandate
Michigan federal district Judge George Caram Steeh just issued an opinion upholding the Obama health care plan’s individual mandate against a challenge by the conservative Thomas More Law Center and several individual plaintiffs who refuse to purchase health insurance by 2014 as the mandate requires. This is the first opinion issued on the merits in […]
You Can’t Force People to Say the Pledge of Allegiance
That’s what the Court held 67 years ago even as to schoolchildren, and the rationale of the case would squarely apply to others, such as lawyers. But news travels slowly to one Mississippi courtroom, where Chancery Judge Talmadge Littlejohn sent a lawyer to jail for contempt of court, because the lawyer refused to say the […]
Israeli Rape by Fraud Cases
In late July, I blogged about the Kashur case, in which a defendant was sentenced for “rape by fraud”: According to the stipulated facts in court — the decision was based on a guilty plea — Kashur had sex with a woman with her consent, but she consented because he told her he was a […]
Justice Breyer Rejects Theory of “Pro-Business” Court
Bloomberg reports: Justice Stephen Breyer rejected the notion that the U.S. Supreme Court has a pro-business slant and said the court doesn’t rule in favor of companies any more frequently than it has historically. “I looked back,” he said in a Bloomberg Television interview in which he discussed his new book. “I couldn’t find a […]
No Soda for You!
The WSJ reports: Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. David Paterson have asked the federal government to bar New York City food-stamp recipients from using the benefit to buy sugary drinks, an effort to determine if the move would decrease obesity and diabetes problems. The request, sent late Wednesday to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, could […]
Congratulations to Mario Vargas Llosa
The 2010 Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded to Mario Vargas Llosa. Here is the announcement. I think it’s a good choice, but not for the best of reasons. This is a literature Nobelist whose work I’ve actually read! This is only the third time that’s happened in the past fifteen years.
DeLong Doubles Down
Brad DeLong responds to my post. As illustrated below the jump, he engages in selective editing and continues to misrepresent the players in this saga. (He also omits links to most of those to whom he’s responding.) Larry Ribstein also comments here.
Ninth Circuit Lets Foreign Governments File Amicus Briefs in Challenge to Arizona’s Immigration Laws
Politico reports on this, and on the Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s reaction: Republican Gov. Jan Brewer on Tuesday asked a federal court to disallow foreign governments from joining the U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit to overturn the law. The move comes in response to a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling issued Monday, allowing nearly […]
West Virginia Sues EPA
Waste Virginia Governor (and Senate hopeful) Joe Manchin has announced a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for tightening federal regulation of so-called “mountaintop mining.” According to the NYT, Manchin claims “the regulations were unlawful, usurped state rights, were based in inadequate science and harmed the state by preventing […]
Suppressing Oil Spill Science
The AP and NYT report on draft reports from National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling critical of the federal government’s response to the spill. Among other things, the reports accuse Administration officials of suppressing and misrepresenting scientific assessments of the spill and its potential consequences. From the AP: The […]
That Which is “Necessary” Isn’t Necessarily Proper
By Ilya Somin on October 6, 2010 7:41 pm in Federalism, Health Care, Individual Mandate, Necessary and Proper
In his most recent post in our debate over the Necessary and Proper Clause, Orin argues that Supreme Court precedent has resolved the issue of what counts as “proper” as well as what is “necessary.” That, however, simply is not so. None of the cases Orin cites say anything about the meaning of “proper.” They […]
Hire an Atheist to Watch Your Pet After the Rapture
I’m not up on the theology behind this, but I thought I’d pass it along: You’ve committed your life to Jesus. You know you’re saved. But when the Rapture comes what’s to become of your loving pets who are left behind? Eternal Earth-Bound Pets takes that burden off your mind. We are a group of […]
If It’s Necessary and Proper, Then It’s Proper: A Reply to Ilya
I’ve enjoyed my exchange with Ilya on the health care mandate, although I find myself in the exchange becoming increasingly of the view that this isn’t a difficult issue under current Supreme Court caselaw. Here’s one more round to try to sharpen the debate between us. The crux of the disagreement between Ilya and I […]
NPR’s “On Point” on the Rutgers Suicide, Cyberbullying, and Internet Crime Law
I was on the NPR program “On Point” today discussing the Rutgers suicide and criminal liability for invasions of privacy online. You can listen to the program here; I come in at the 13-minute mark. Here’s the blurb about the program from the “On Point” homepage: Tyler Clementi was eighteen years old. He closed the […]