In a recently published book, Nullification, author Tom Woods maintains that states have a power to nullify laws that exceed the powers of Congress to enact. This claim has a long history, some of it distinguished–as in the case of Wisconsin’s resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850–some of it not. But is the […]
Archive | 2010
DOMA case and the Tenth Amendment
By David Kopel on July 9, 2010 12:49 am in Constitutional Law, Federalism, Gay Marriage, Health Care, Tenth Amendment
Jack Balkin has an interesting post on today’s two Defense of Marriage Act cases from the federal District of Massachusetts, Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, and Massachusetts v. HHS. The latter case found DOMA unconstitutional, as applied to Massachusetts, because DOMA violates the Tenth Amendment by infringing the state’s traditional core sovereign power of defining […]
The DOMA Equal Protection Decision
Massachusetts District Court Judge Joseph Tauro issued two decisions in companion cases Thursday striking down Section 3 of DOMA, which defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman for purposes of federal law. It’s the first time any federal court has declared any part of DOMA unconstitutional. One decision, Gill v. Office of Personnel […]
Ninety-Five and Pumping Iron
I’m not referring to the temperature, but this man’s age. I see Instapundit has linked to it – but I saw it on a video at my gym this afternoon, where they were running it nonstop. As a middle-aged guy striving only partly successfully and mostly unsuccessfully to get in shape, lose weight, eat healthy, […]
Louis Brandeis comments on the right of self-defense
From Leonard Baker, Brandeis and Frankfurter: A Dual Biography (1984), p. 341. On June 18, 1930, Justice Brandeis (who was the best-known Zionist in the United States) met with the U.K.’s Ambassador to the United States, Sir Ronald Lindsay: Brandeis told Sir Ronald “that it was wholly contrary to any conception of civil rights with which […]
Federal District Court Strikes Down Part of Defense of Marriage Act
The case is Gill v. Office of Personnel Management (D. Mass., decided today). The court reasons that, at least as to various benefits provided by the federal government, the distinction that DOMA draws between opposite-sex married couples and same-sex couples married under the laws of those states that recognize same-sex marriage is irrational, and thus […]
DOMA Section 3 Unconstitutional, Says Massachusetts District Court
By Dale Carpenter on July 8, 2010 5:41 pm in Federalism, Gay Marriage, Same-Sex Marriage, Sexual Orientation, Spending Clause
That’s the decision this afternoon, based on equal protection principles applied to the federal government through the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 established a federal definition of marriage for the first time. This meant that the federal government could refuse to grant validly married same-sex […]
Iowa Federal Court Finds Sheriff Denied Concealed Carry Because of Applicant’s Political Activity, Orders Sheriff to Take a First Amendment Class
The case is Dorr v. Weber, decided yesterday (some citations omitted); the court ordered the sheriff to grant the permit, but also wrote: Paul [Dorr] was denied a permit precisely because Sheriff Weber believed that his free speech rights offended the majority of voters in Osceola County…. In denying Paul a concealed weapons permit, Sheriff […]
An Unusual Flag Burning Arrest
From Bohmfalk v. City of San Antonio (W.D. Tex. magistrate report adopted by the district court June 29, 2010): This case arose from an incident in which plaintiff David Bohmfalk left his home in Hondo, traveled to the Alamo Plaza, and burned a flag of Mexico to “demonstrate and protest against Senate legislation granting amnesty […]
Opinio Juris’ Peter Spiro on the Arizona Lawsuit
Temple University law professor Peter Spiro, friend and Opinio Juris co-blogger, was interviewed by one of the Wall Street Journal blogs on the likely holdings in the Arizona lawsuit by the federal government. Parts of his WSJ response can be found here at Opinio Juris. Peter expands in a later Opinio Juris post. (I do […]
Does Washington Recognize a Cause of Action for Interference with the Right to an Accurate Determination of Paternity?
The Washington Court of Appeals in yesterday’s Reynolds v. Hendrix declined to decide this, because it concluded that the plaintiffs — a former member of Earth, Wind & Fire and his son — didn’t properly raise the claim. The defendant (Jimi Hendrix’s sister) was married to Reynolds when he got the paternity test results revealing […]
The Washington Post on Citizens United
I report below on the data reported by this Washington Post article, but I also wanted to comment about the way the article frames the issue: Labor unions have dominated spending on independent campaign ads so far this election season, despite a recent Supreme Court decision that freed spending by corporations, a Washington Post analysis […]
“Unions Outspending Corporations on Campaign Ads”
The Washington Post reports on the post-Citizens United spending: So far this year, $24.7 million in independent spending has been reported to the Federal Election Commission, campaign filings show. Unions have spent $9.7 million (or 39 percent of the total), compared with $6.4 million (26 percent) spent by individuals and $3.4 million spent by corporations. […]
Know Any 11- to 17-Year-Olds Who Might Like to Battle-Test an Encyclopaedia Britannica Entry?
I was asked to write a 3000-word entry on the First Amendment for the Encyclopaedia Britannica. I think I came up with something suitable, but as usual it’s hard for an expert author to tell whether the product is clear to readers who are not experts. I’d therefore love to have feedback from a few […]
Crimes and Punishments (World Cup Edition):
Uruguay’s loss to the Netherlands in yesterday’s World Cup semifinal may perhaps have been foreordained, given how deeply they had offended against the gods of soccer. For those of you who missed it, at the very end of the previous game, the Uruguay-Ghana quarterfinal, a tense back-and-forth affair which was tied 1-1 in the closing […]