Last night, before heading to Times Square for the New Year’s festivities, Justice Sonia Sotomayor granted a request for a stay of enforcement of the “contraception mandate” against several Catholic organizations. Here’s the order and more from SCOTUSBlog and the AP. In other pending cases, injunctions pending appeal were granted by split panels of the […]
Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler
The Sequester’s Impact on the Judiciary
In his 2013 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, Chief Justice John Roberts comments on the negative effects of the sequester on the operation of the judicial branch. By its own initiative, the Judiciary had already achieved significant cost reductions when the sequester provisions of the Budget Control Act of 2011 went into effect on […]
Politifact’s “Lie of the Year” – Part Deux
Avik Roy writes on how Politifact’s assessment of the “if you like your plan, you can keep it” promise went from 100% true to half-true to a “pants on fire” lie to the “lie of the year.” The column is fairly devastating by itself, but then Politifact’s Angie Holan, who authored some of the relevant […]
Ohio Supreme Court Upholds Medicaid Expansion
Shortly before the holiday the Ohio Supreme Court rejected a challenge to Governor John Kasich’s decision to accept Medicaid expansion under the PPACA. This was a controversial decision within the Governor’s party, and prompted a lawsuit. The plaintiffs, six state legislators and two anti-abortion groups, argued that the state could not accept Medicaid expansion without […]
HuffPost Live on Cases to Watch in 2014
Around 12:50pm EST I’ll appear on HuffPost Live to discuss legal cases to watch in 2014, with a focus on the Supreme Court. Mike Sacks is the host and the other guests are Carrie Severino of the Judicial Crisis Network and Georgia State University law professor Eric Segall. I’ll post a link to the segment […]
Same-Sex Marriage Heads Back to Supreme Court
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit’s refusal to stay a district court decision invalidating Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage is sending the issue back to the Supreme Court less than six months after last summer’s the Windsor and Perry decisions. Adam Liptak reports: The question for the Supreme Court in the short term will be whether […]
CWRU President and Provost Reject Academic Boycott of Israel
By Jonathan H. Adler on December 27, 2013 8:55 am in Academia, Freedom of Speech at Colleges and Universities, Israel
In a statement e-mailed to faculty and other members of the university community, Case Western Reserve University President Barbara Snyder and Provost Bud Baeslack forcefully rejected calls for an academic boycott of Israel. As they note, academic boycotts of this sort run contrary to principles of academic freedom and “seek to subvert one of higher […]
Mann v. Steyn Mulligan
By Jonathan H. Adler on December 27, 2013 8:41 am in Climate Change, Defamation, Freedom of Speech, Politicizing Science
On December 19, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals effectively erased Michael Mann’s initial court victory in his defamation lawsuit against Mark Steyn, National Review, Rand Simberg and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Here’s how Mark Steyn pithily summarizes the developments: 1. Dr Michael Mann’s lawyer, John Williams, filed a fraudulent complaint falsely representing his client as […]
BREAKING: Federal Judge Strikes Down Ohio Gay Marriage Ban
The AP reports: A federal judge Monday ordered Ohio authorities to recognize gay marriages on death certificates, saying the state’s ban on such unions is unconstitutional and that states cannot discriminate against same-sex couples simply because some voters don’t like homosexuality. Although Judge Timothy Black’s ruling applies only to death certificates, his statements about Ohio’s […]
Yet Another ObamaCare Delay (Again)
The Washington Post reports: At midnight Monday, the official deadline arrives for Americans to sign up through the new federal health insurance exchange for health plans that begin Jan. 1. But, without any public announcement, Obama administration officials have changed the rules so that people will have an extra day to enroll, according to two individuals with […]
How a Talking Point Is Born: $1 Billion Against Action on Climate Change
“Conservative groups spend up to $1bn a year to fight action on climate change,” reads the headline of an article in the Guardian on a new study, that purports to show the extent of foundation funding opposing action on climate change. Only the study shows no such thing. The study, “Institutionalizing delay: foundation funding and […]
Calabresi & Perl on Originalism and Brown v. Board
Northwestern’s Steven Calabresi and Michael Perl have an interesting new paper on whether the outcome of Brown v. Board of Education can be justified on originalist grounds. Here’s the abstract: This article offers an originalist justification for the Supreme Court’s landmark decision almost sixty years ago in Brown v. Board of Education. We examine the thirty-seven State […]
Doherty on Tolerance
In response to the flap over Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson’s comments on homosexuality, Brian Doherty provides a useful refresher on the meaning of tolerance. The advantages of classical liberal market cosmopolitanism–the idea that it’s best to set aside peaceful differences of opinion and creed and worries about different races, nationalities, and genders when deciding […]
Yet Another ObamaCare Delay
This week, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced yet another delay in ObamaCare implementation. This time the Administration is delaying enforcement of the individual mandate (i.e. not assessing the mandate penalty) on those who had health insurance plans canceled for failure to meet the minimum coverage requirements of the law. As Nicholas Bagley explains, there is […]
Nuclear Fallout Continues
Now that Senate Democrats have eliminated the filibuster for judicial and executive branch nominees, it will be somewhat easier to confirm potentially controversial nominees to the federal bench. In anticipation of this shift, Ian Millhiser of Think Progress identified “5 People Who Could Be Confirmed To The Supreme Court Once The Filibuster Is Nuked,” including […]