So concludes today’s Silvester v. Harris (E.D. Cal. Dec. 9, 2013). The analysis (some paragraph breaks added): The WPL [the Waiting Period Law] prohibits every person who purchases a firearm from taking possession of that firearm for a minimum of 10 days. That is, there is a period of at least 10 days in which […]
Archive | December, 2013
Bans on “Disquiet[ing]” Houses of Worship Through “Profane Discourse” Outside Them
Here’s one more brief that the UCLA First Amendment Amicus Brief Clinic has filed in the last few weeks; its argument is that the “profane discourse” law is content-based, which would make it unconstitutional. This one is on behalf of the Thomas More Society, in SNAP v. Joyce (8th Cir.) (the link is to the […]
Volokh Conspiracy Holiday Gifts
It is the holiday season! And if you happen to be looking for gifts for the VC readers in your life, books by VC bloggers might be a good choice. Among my favorite books by VC authors are Randy Barnett’s Restoring the Lost Constitution (now available in a new edition), David Bernstein’s Rehabilitating Lochner, Dale […]
BDS Advocate Roger Waters Holds Some Strange Views about Jews
Last week I wrote about the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel and the tenuous foothold it is getting in the American academy. I also happened to read an article that led me to think about how some individuals are so convinced that Israel is obviously evil that he believes that something must be […]
Verse for Sunday: “On the Vnion”
WHEN was there contract better driven by Fate, Or celebrated with more truth of state? The world the temple was, the priest a king, The spoused pair two realms, the sea the ring. -Ben Jonson (1613). The poem was apparently occasioned by comments by James I at the opening of Parliament in 1604, following the […]
CFSA Poll of Payday Loan Customers
There’s a new poll by Harris Interactive taken on behalf of the Community Financial Services Association of America (CFSA), a payday lenders trade association. Some interesting results: 84% of those surveyed said it was easy to repay the loan (52% said “very easy”) 95% said the understood “well” or “very well” how long it would take […]
Philadelphia Condemns Artist’s Studio to Build a Supermarket and Parking Lot
Nick Sibilla of the Institute for Justice has a good article on the City of Philadelphia’s dubious efforts to condemn a successful artist’s studio in order to transfer it to a new private owner that would build a supermarket and parking lot on the site. This scheme isn’t quite paving paradise to put up a […]
6. Beyond RFRA: What Should We Think of Mutual Duties of Accommodation?
Whew. That was a lot of writing on Hobby Lobby last week, and a lot of reading. I hope it was helpful, interesting, or both. Now, fortunately, I’m finishing up, but I wanted to close with one broader thought, going beyond the purely legal RFRA question. (I should also note that this thought is even […]
Wind Farm Permits to Kill Protected Eagles
By Will Baude on December 7, 2013 10:32 am in Endangered Species, Environment, Religion and the Law, Religious Freedom
Yesterday the Department of Interior finalized a rule that allows wind farms to get 30-year permits allowing them to kill federally-protected eagles. Eagles are frequent accidental victims of power plants and wind turbines, and the government has long taken the position that it is a federal crime to kill an eagle even unintentionally. To get […]
5C. RFRA Strict Scrutiny: The Interest in Protecting Newly Created Private Rights
[Please note the UPDATE below.] (For an introduction to this series of posts, see here.) Today, I’m blogging about what I think should be the heart of the Hobby Lobby case: whether denying Hobby Lobby an exemption from the requirement of providing potentially implantation-preventing contraceptives is the “least restrictive means” of serving a particular “compelling […]
5B. RFRA Strict Scrutiny: The Interest in Sex Equality
(For an introduction to this series of posts, see here.) Today, I’m blogging about what I think should be the heart of the Hobby Lobby case: whether denying Hobby Lobby an exemption from the requirement of providing potentially implantation-preventing contraceptives is the “least restrictive means” of serving a particular “compelling governmental interest.” This post focuses […]
Query About Using Editing Exercises in Selecting Clinic Students / Brief-Writing Assistants
For future sessions of my First Amendment Amicus Brief Clinic, as well as for various impromptu joint student-professor brief-writing projects I might set up, I was toying with the idea of selecting students chiefly by giving them a simple editing exercise. What I had in mind was giving them sample passages (likely Summaries of Arguments […]
Why Canada’s debit card system doesn’t need any more controls
My co-authors Geoff Manne and Julian Morris have a column today in Canada’s National Post “Why Canada’s debit card system doesn’t need any more controls.” It is based on our recent study issued through the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
5A. RFRA Strict Scrutiny: The Interest in Protecting Health
(For an introduction to this series of posts, see here.) We can now get to what I think should be the heart of the case: whether denying Hobby Lobby an exemption from the requirement of providing potentially implantation-preventing contraceptives is the “least restrictive means” of serving a particular “compelling governmental interest.” I don’t know what […]
Nelson Mandela
From Max Boot (Commentary): [T]he largest part of the explanation for why South Africa is light years ahead of most African nations — why, for all its struggles with high unemployment, crime, corruption, and other woes, it is freer and more prosperous than most of its neighbors — is the character of Nelson Mandela. Had […]