In the NYT‘s Dealbook column, Ohio State’s Steven Davidoff discusses a new study, “The Economic Value of a Law Degree,” by Michael Simkovic and Frank McIntyre. This study purports to show that a law degree remains a good investment for many people. Here is the study’s abstract: Legal academics and journalists have marshaled statistics purporting […]
Archive | July, 2013
Justice Stevens’s Thoughts on Shelby county
Justice Stevens has not been shy in his retirement about telling us what he thinks about current controversies at the Supreme Court. In an essay at the New York Review of Books (reviewing Gary May, Bending Toward Justice), he discusses the Court’s decision in Shelby County. I found this passage the most interesting: The statistics […]
More on Slavery , the Civil War, and Libertarians
Kudos to Jacob Levy on Bleeding Heart Libertarians, and Ilya (here and here) and Jonathan (here) for their trenchant critiques of the Neo-Confederate sympathies of some who call themselves libertarians. I agree with Jacob that this is an issue more important for libertarian activists and intellectuals to forthrightly address and forcefully reject than are other […]
Shifts in Law Professors’ Views of The Constitution
Kyle Graham offers an interesting post on that subject at NonCuratLex.
White House: No Plans To Pull Back on Recess Appointments Case
People with too much time on their hands know that I’ve made a cottage injustry out of addressing questions about whether new appointments to the NLRB would moot the NLRB v. Noel Canning case before the Supreme Court, involving the constitutionality of President Obama’s January 2012 recess appointment of three NLRB members. I’ve also heard […]
Divided Panel of Fourth Circuit Invalidates NLRB Recess Appointments
Late this afternoon, a divided panel panel of the Fourth Circuit invalidated President Obama’s January 2012 recess appointment of three NLRB members. People who have remarked on the fact that only judges appointed by Republican presidents have so far voted to invalidate these appointments, while judges appointed by Democrats have voted to uphold them, will […]
Ways of Making Appointments to Specialized Courts — A Bleg For Past Examples
The statute that creates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has been criticized recently for allowing the Chief Justice to make all of the appointments to the FISC without any oversight. Here’s the relevant text: The Chief Justice of the United States shall publicly designate 11 district court judges from at least seven of the United […]
Second Circuit Vacates District Court Injunction on Indefinite Detention
I blogged here about Judge Forrest’s opinion for the district court in Hedges v. Obama, and at the time I called the district court opinion “quite puzzling.” Today’s Second Circuit opinion vacating Judge Forrest’s injunction is here. From the Second Circuit’s conclusion: In sum, Hedges and O’Brien do not have Article III standing to challenge […]
Thoughts on Orin’s Thoughts on Existing Fourth Amendment Doctrine
I want to thank Orin for his most informative and helpful analysis of how existing Fourth Amendment doctrine might govern the NSA telephone and Internet surveillance programs. But…. Actually there is no “but.” I just figured readers were expecting one. Orin’s analysis is very useful and provides lots of food for thought. Of particular relevance […]
IG Finds Improper Access and Disclosure of Private Tax Records
Accounting Today reports: Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the former chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, is looking into findings from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration that the confidential tax records of political donors or candidates have been inappropriately accessed or disclosed in several instances since 2006 and asking why the Justice Department has […]
Why It’s So Hard to Trust Republicans to Limit Government Spending
Exhibit A: the Farm Bill passed by the House last week. As noted here and here, this bill would result in greater farm subsidy spending than the bill passed by the Democratic Senate or President Obama’s initial request. It’s unconscionable that Republicans concerned about waste in the food stamp program are so willing to squander […]
Slavery and Secession – The Documentary Evidence
Just a quick addendum to Ilya’s posts here and here about libertarianism, the Confederacy and the Civil War. I know it’s fashionable in some circles to argue that the Confederate states did not seceded in order to defend slavery. I’ve heard the arguments about tariffs and all that. In my mind, the most compelling counter-argument […]
Political Ignorance in Congress
By Ilya Somin on July 17, 2013 11:15 am in Democracy and Political Ignorance, Political Ignorance, Public Opinion
David Boaz has an interesting post discussing Jonathan Martin’s Wall Street Journal review of veteran Washington Post journalist Robert Kaiser’s recent book Act of Congress. Martin explains how Kaiser shows that most members of Congress are ignorant about much of the important legislation they vote on: Congress is dominated by intellectual lightweights who are chiefly […]
John Stuart Mill on Slavery, the Confederacy, and the American Civil War
A reader reminded me that many of the same defenses of the Confederacy advanced by its modern apologists (including some of the libertarian ones discussed in my last post) were also advocated by wartime British sympathizers with the Confederates, and effectively rebutted by John Stuart Mill in his 1862 essay, “The Contest in America.” I […]
Duty to Retreat and Stand Your Ground: Counting the States
People are talking about how common “stand your ground” states are compared to “duty to retreat” states, so I thought I’d do a bit of looking to see the current head count. First, let me explain what I mean by “duty to retreat,” which is something of a misnomer (though a very common one): Say […]