As the fight over SOPA wound down, I predicted that SOPA might be turn out to be a watershed, permanently turning Tea Party Republicans into copyright skeptics: For Republicans, opposition to new intellectual property enforcement is starting to look like a political winner. It pleases conservative bloggers, appeals to young swing voters, stokes the culture […]
Archive | November, 2012
Increasing Oil and Gas Reserves
How much has hydraulic fracturing and associated technological improvements in oil and gas development affected the economics of energy? In August of this year the Energy Information Administration reported a record increase in proved reserves of oil and gas in 2010. Here are the relevant graphs: Technological improvements deserve most of the credit, though higher energy […]
Merrill on “Fear of Fracking”
This morning, Columbia’s Thomas Merrill delivered the keynote address at the Case Western Reserve Law Review symposium on “The Law and Policy of Hydraulic Fracturing: Addressing the Issues of the Natural Gas Boom.” His talk, “Fear of Fracking,” sought to addressed four important questions about fracking: 1) Why did fracking technology emerge in the United […]
Moderate Senate Republicans Fall Off Their Own Cliff
The most commonly used scores for ideological distance are DW-Nominate scores, based on representatives’ actual votes. These measures reduce various flavors of “liberal” and “conservative” to a single metric, but they are the scores most widely used and trusted by political scientists and political commentators because they measure virtually all the actual votes in a […]
Litigation Strategy and Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action v. Regents
I will bet anyone (in jurisdictions where it is legal) that the Supreme Court will reverse the Sixth Circuit in Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action v. Regents. Indeed, my main question is how badly the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action loses. My guess is that they get maybe two votes on the Supreme Court. When Ted […]
Speech as Evidence, and Rap Videos
Generally speaking, a defendant’s speech — even if constitutionally protected — may be introduced as evidence of his legally significant intentions or knowledge, or as evidence that he was indeed the guilty party. Thus, the statement “I hate Joe Schmoe” is constitutionally protected, but if I’m on trial for killing Joe Schmoe and the prosecution […]
Unconstitutional to Exclude Poet from a Public College’s “Open Mic” Poetry Reading?
That’s the issue in Bormuth v. City of Jackson, 2012 WL 5493599 (E.D. Mich. Nov. 13). The facts, as alleged by plaintiff, though largely verified by plaintiff’s e-mail exchange with the professor: JCC instructor John Yohe occasionally hosted a public poetry event, which included both a reading by a featured poet and an “open microphone” […]
Coming Soon to the U.S. Supreme Court (Unless the Court Bans Race Preferences First)
The Sixth Circuit just held, in Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action v. Regents that a state constitutional amendment banning race preferences in public education (among other contexts) violates the Equal Protection Clause, because it — as a constitutional amendment — makes it harder for those who favor race preferences to change state law to allow […]
En Banc Sixth Circuit Voids Michigan Civil Rights Initiative
By an 8-7 vote, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has held that Michigan’s Proposal 2, aka the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, is unconstituional. The Court split along predictable ideological lines, with Democratic nominees siding with the plaintiffs, and Republican nominees voting to uphold the initiative. Judge Cole delivered the opinion for […]
Secession
There’s more posturing about secession these days, and a reader asked me a question about this. So I thought I’d provide a few answers to some questions that seem to be being discussed: 1. Is It a Good Idea for Some States to Secede from the U.S.? As I mentioned before, no. To begin with, […]
The GOP’s Pot Problem
Support for the decriminalization of marijuana, whether for medicinal or recreational use, is on the rise as state after state votes to lower (if not eliminate) restrictions on cannabis possession and use. The federal government’s response, particularly under the Obama Administration, has been to step up enforcement efforts. And what is the GOP response? Falling […]
A “Center-Libertarian” Nation?
In this recent article, James Rainey of the LA Times argues that public opinion has moved in a “center-libertarian” direction: Many debates have broken out about the meaning of last week’s election, including over whether conservatives should still push their claim that America is a “center-right nation….” A survey of last Tuesday’s electoral landscape suggests […]
Transliteration and Translation of Names
Trying to figure out how to refer to Solzhenitsyn, I did a Google Ngrams search comparing Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and Alexandr Solzhenitsyn. Alexander (the translation) was in the lead, though the transliteration Aleksandr has recently been almost nearly as popular. Alexandr is very rare. For 19th and early 20th century Russians that have easily […]
Volokh and Kozinski on the State of Free Speech Today
Via David Lat, I learn that our lead blogger Eugene Volokh and really-should-be-a-VC-blogger Judge Alex Kozinski recently hosted a very interesting discussion of First Amendment law and the state of free speech practice. I hope Eugene won’t mind me posting it; the discussion starts at about the 4:30 mark.
Crime for Student to Post Image of Teacher (or Principal) “With Intent to … Torment”
That’s what’s provided by N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-458.2, which will go into effect in North Carolina this coming Dec. 1. The law also bans discussing school employees’ sex lives online “with intent to … torment,” posting other “personal … information” about them with such an intent, and posting “an unauthorized copy of any data […]