The AP reports: The Louisiana House gave final legislative passage Monday to a $3.4 billion elementary and secondary school spending plan …. The Jindal administration urged passage of the spending plans. They will fund the governor’s newly created statewide voucher program that funnels tax dollars toward private and parochial school tuition for students who otherwise […]
Archive | June, 2012
Does Scalia’s New Book Reveal His Vote on the Individual Mandate?
With fevered anticipation of the Court’s most-awaited ruling in years, pundits and scribes are searching for clues as to how the Court will rule. Previewing Justice Scalia’s forthcoming book, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts (co-authored with Bryan Garner), Adam Liptak reports on a few passages that could suggest how Scalia is likely to rule. […]
Identity Judging
Occasionally, I hear people arguing that judges’ decisions are strongly influenced by their sex, race, and so on — “of course, this female judge will rule against the accused rapist / pornographer / sexual harasser / etc.; she’s a woman.” And indeed I suspect that judges’ identities do influence their judgments in some measure; that’s […]
Auer Deference Still Up for Grabs?
Today the Supreme Court decidedChristopher v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., which concerned whether pharmaceutical sales representatives are subject to the “outside sales” exemption from the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime requirements. The Department of Labor had claimed pharma reps are not exempt, but how its regulations applied to pharma reps was unclear and the Department’s position and jusitifcation […]
Paternity Fraud
Dier v. Peters (Iowa June 1, 2012) offers a good discussion of the debate about paternity fraud lawsuits, including citations to cases that reject such a cause of action and to cases that accept it. This particular case concludes that, if a woman fraudulently tells a man that he was the father of her child, […]
Why Partisans Overstate their Candidates’ Chances of Winning
At the Right Coast, University of San Diego law professor Tom Smith asks an interesting question. Why do partisans overstate their party’s chance of winning an election? After all, as Smith notes, doing so may lead to complacency: A question — take a biased media outlet, for example NPR, which I listen to a lot. […]
Today’s Interesting Lineup(s)
Today the Supreme Court decided Salazar v. Ramah Navajo Chapter. The Court split 5-4 in a most interesting way. Justice Sotomayor wrote for the majority, joined by Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Kagan. Chief Justice Roberts dissented, joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer and Alito. Also interesting and unusual, as the folks at SCOTUSBlog note, is […]
Health Care Cases Update
I am right now following the Supreme Court’s announcement of the opinions to be issued today. If the health care cases are among those that come out, I will post an analysis as quickly as possible. Stay tuned…. UPDATE: The Court has finished announcing opinions, and the health care cases were not among them. Neither […]
The Other Big Health Care Case Before the Supreme Court
With all the hoopla surrounding the individual mandate case, the media and most commentators have often given short shrift to the other big health care case the Supreme Court is about to decide: the constitutionality of the Obamacare’s massive expansion of Medicaid. Constitutional law scholar David Oedel recently posted this interesting article on the subject, […]
Cybersecurity legislation — as seen by Icona Pop
The effort to pass cybersecurity legislation in the Senate is looking more and more like a wreck. Claims that it will create an Internet “kill switch” still poison the air. The Chamber of Commerce is being especially hard to please, rejecting not just Collins-Lieberman but also a Kyl-Whitehouse compromise. Maybe it’s time for Sen. Collins […]
Is network offense the best network defense?
Joseph Menn has a good Reuters article on a growing sentiment within network security circles: Frustrated by their inability to stop sophisticated hacking attacks or use the law to punish their assailants, an increasing number of U.S. companies are taking retaliatory action. Known in the cyber security industry as “active defense” or “strike-back” technology, the […]
ACS Panel on Nominations, Recess Appointments and the Filibuster
On Saturday morning I also attended an ACS panel on “Congressional Gridlock in the Executive: A Battle Over Nominations, Recess Appointments, and the Use of the Filibuster,” featuring law professors Michael Gerhardt and Michael McConnell, Louis Fisher of the Congressional Research Service, Marge Baker of the People for the American Way and moderated by Professor […]
Researchers Whose Work Was Cited to Justify Bloomberg’s Large Soda Ban Explain Why it Won’t Work
In trying to justify his proposed regulation banning large-size sodas, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg cited the work of economists Brian Wansink and David Just. In this recent Atlantic article, Wansink and Just explain that he got their work wrong: New York City’s mayor proposed a restaurant ban for any soft drink over 16-ounces. The […]
ACS Panel on Citizens United
By Jonathan H. Adler on June 16, 2012 11:14 am in Election Law, First Amendment, Restrictions on Campaign Contrbs. and Expenses, Uncategorized
This morning I attended a panel at the American Constitution Society conference titled “Citizens United Two Years Later: Money, Politics and Democracy at Stake.” The panel was moderated by Democracy editor Michael Tomasky and featured University of Montana law professor Anthony Johnstone, Fordham law professor Zephyr Teachout, longtime campaign finance activist Fred Wertheimer, founder Democracy […]
Do Nude Drawings Sent to Your Five-Year-Old Daughter Appeal to “a Prurient Interest in Sex of Minors”
Utah law, like the law of many states, bans the distribution to minors of “harmful-to-minors” material (for more on this, see this post). The Utah statute reads, “Harmful to minors” means that quality of any description or representation, in whatsoever form, of nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or sadomasochistic abuse when it: (i) taken as […]