Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler

Judge Sotomayor has fractured her ankle. Despite her injury, she will continue to attend meetings with Senators — albiet on crutches.

Among the several opinions handed down today, the Supreme Court ordered the recusal of a West Virginia Supreme Court justice due to the excessive independent campaign expenditures made by the CEO of a company in a case before that court. The majority opinion was written by Justice Kennedy, and joined by the four liberal justices. […]

It’s now been over three years since the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit heard oral argument in Connecticut v. American Electric Power. In this case, several state AGs sued the nation’s largest utility companies alleging their facilities contribute to the “public nuisance” of global warming and seeking court-imposed emission reductions. A Second […]

The Washington Post reports that the Waxman-Markey “cap-and-trade” bill is chock full of traditional command-and-control regulation, including measures that will create a national housing code for energy efficiency. the bill also contains regulations on everything from light bulb standards to the specs on hot tubs, and it will reshape America’s economy in dozens of ways […]

“Nearly 30 percent of Medicare

The National Law Journal

Over the past two months, Ed Whelan (with whom I blog on NRO

Adam Liptak has an interesting article on Ricci v. DeStefano in the NYT. An excerpt: Almost everything about the case of Ricci v. DeStefano

My soon-to-be-new colleague Irina Manta has recently posted her article “Privatizing Trademarks” (forthcoming in the Arizona Law Review on SSRN. While I don’t know much of anything about trademark law, I generally like privatization and found the article interesting. The abstract is below. While trademarks are designed to promote a competitive and productive marketplace, the […]

This week it was reported that Judge Sotomayor has made several speeches in which she suggested that a “wise Latina woman,” or simply a “wise woman,” would make different or better decisions as a judge than a “wise man.” Does this matter? According to some, this is further evidence that her statement in a 2001 […]

A story in yesterday’s WSJ headlined “Nominee’s Criminal Rulings Tilt to Right of Souter” suggested that Judge Sonia Sotomayor could be more “conservative” than Justice Souter on criminal justice issues. While this is certainly possible, and I would not be surprised to see some differences between Sotomayor and Souter on criminal law issues, I am […]

The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Governor Marc Sanford must request stimulus money for education as directed by the state legislature. Gov. Sanford says he will not appeal.

Earlier today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit issued a potentially significant environmental decision in Friends of the Everglades v. South Florida Water Management District. The court upheld the Bush Administration’s controversial regulation adopting a “unitary waters” theory of the waters of the United States for purposes of Clean Water Act permitting. […]

The National Journal‘s Ninth Justice blog has posted expert predictions on the timing and final tally of the vote to confirm Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Most of the “experts” they asked expect a vote before the August recess, and somewhere between 63 and 80 votes in favor of her confirmation. If I had […]

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should be commended for her recent effort to increase transparency and accountability within Congress. The Washington Post reports: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said yesterday that the House will soon start posting online quarterly records of how members use their personal office funds, giving watchdog groups a chance to examine staff […]