A profile by Seth Stern: Most constitutional scholars initially ridiculed [Randy] Barnett’s argument against the individual mandate — that Congress cannot regulate or punish the “inactivity” of not buying something. Few mock it anymore, now that two courts have adopted the same reasoning in ruling against the individual mandate’s constitutionality. The U.S. Court of Appeals […]
Archive | June, 2011
Enemies and Wickedness
There’s been a very interesting back and forth between Allison Benedikt, author of a rambling but widely discussed piece on her disillusionment with Israel, and Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic. The most recent contribution to this exchange is here, and you can work your way backwards from there. What struck me, though, was that Benedikt’s […]
Most Academic Books are Too Long
Not in absolute length, but relative to what they have to say. A few reasons: (1) Many academic books are revised Ph.D. theses. When you write a Ph.D. thesis, one goal is to show your review panel that you have mastered the literature. The easy way to do so is to cite and discuss everything […]
An Environmental Grant
Most eyes have focused on the Supreme Court’s recent decisions in Wal-Mart v. Dukes and AEP v. Connecticut. Yet the Court has also continued to grant additional cases for next term. Among Monday’s grants was PPL Montana PLC v. Montana, the first (and thus far only) environmental case on the docket for OT 2011. It’s […]
Ward Farnsworth’s Classical English Rhetoric
Back in April, Eugene blogged this book, written by my friend, fellow Justice Kennedy alumnus, and fellow Rolling Stones fan Ward Farnsworth, who is a law professor at Boston University. I have since been able to read the book, and add my enthusiastic endorsement. The book is divided into eighteen chapters, each of which analyzes […]
Many Black New Yorkers Vote With Their Feet for the South
In a reversal of historical trends, many black New Yorkers are voting with their feet and moving to the South. In the early twentieth century, hundreds of thousands of southern blacks moved to northern cities in part to escape southern racism and oppressive Jim Crow laws. Today, as the New York Times reports [HT: Josh […]
Olson and Elwood on Wal-Mart v. Dukes
Overlawyered‘s Walter Olson comments on the implications of Wal-Mart v. Dukes in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Here’s his conclusion: This week’s decision will make it harder, though not impossible, to apply class actions to employment-discrimination cases in which cash damages are the main point. (As the court noted, though, class treatment is still more liberally available […]
Obama, the OLC, and the Libya Intervention
President Obama recently decided to continue the Libya intervention without congressional authorization, despite the advice of his own Office of Legal Counsel that this decision violated the War Powers Act. Commentators such as Bruce Ackerman and Jack Balkin condemned this decision, comparing it to similar actions by the Bush Administration. Balkin even dubs the president […]
Golden Retriever Bleg
My wife and I will soon be getting a golden retriever. I was wondering if any of our northern Virginia or Washington, DC-based readers have any recommendations for trainers and/or veterinarians in the area. Thanks in advance to all!
My Fall Torts Class
I’m just finishing up the course pack for my Fall Torts class, and I thought I’d blog briefly about it, just for those who are interested in such things. The course pack will be a mix of cases and materials from Farnsworth & Grady’s Torts casebook (likely about 30% of the volume), Restatement sections and […]
Man Tries to Commit $1 Robbery To Get Health Care in Prison
James Verone was in major need of health care, and he didn’t have the money to pay for doctors. So he decided to try to commit a crime so he could get arrested, convicted, and then have health care in prison: A couple of months ago Verone started weighing his options. He considered turning to […]
Yelena Bonner, RIP
Yelena Bonner, the widow of Soviet-era dissident Andrei Sakharov, and a prominent dissident in her own right has passed away: Yelena Bonner, a rights activist and widow of Nobel Peace Prize winner Andrei Sakharov, has died, her daughter said Sunday. She was 88…. Bonner grew famous through her marriage to Sakharov, the Soviet Union’s leading […]
More on the Thirteenth Amendment and the Definition of Involuntary Servitude
By Ilya Somin on June 21, 2011 6:40 pm in Constitutional History, Constitutional Law, Constitutional Theory
In a recent post, co-blogger Eugene Volokh reasserts the view that the text of the of the Thirteenth Amendment’s ban on “involuntary servitude” does not cover traditional state-imposed “duties of citizenship” such as mandatory military service and possibly even mandatory road work. I think matters are not so simple as that. Eugene’s argument and others […]
Interesting Story Related to Burqas and the Law
The Sydney Morning Herald reports on this. Apparently, Carnita Matthews filed a complaint with the police, alleging that a Sydney police officer who was trying to pull her over tried to rip off her burqa to check her identity. But an in-car camera seemed to show that she wasn’t telling the truth. She was then […]
The Seventh and Thirteenth Amendments, and Ambiguous Constitutional Text
“A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes Many commenters on the Thirteenth Amendment, the draft, jury service, and compulsory road work […]