Yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit lifted the emergency stay of the court injunction barring Texas from excluding Planned Parenthood from participation in the state’s Women’s Health Program. In its per curiam order, the Fifth Circuit explained that Texas was unable to substantiate its claim that it needed the extraordinary relief […]
Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler
Is United States v. Bond Headed Back to the High Court?
In 2010, the Supreme Court unanimously held that Carol Anne Bond had standing to challenge her conviction under the Chemical Weapons Convention Implementation Act of 1998 for trying to poison her husband’s lover. On remand, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit rejected her constitutional challenge to the Act for exceeding the scope […]
Misreporting the Costs of Going to (Some) Law Schools
By Jonathan H. Adler on May 3, 2012 11:29 pm in Law School Tuition and Loans, Law Schools, Legal Profession
In an effort to educate potential law students about the real costs of attending law school, Law School Transparency has launched a “Data Clearinghouse”, a database of “consumer information” on law schools, including much information law schools have been reluctant to disclose. The latest addition to the database are projections of the full cost of […]
Secondary Boycotts and the Breakdown of Civil Society
Activist groups of various political stripes are increasingly urging boycotts of companies not because of the companies’ own behavior, but because of the behavior or speech of those the companies patronize or support. The aim of such boycotts is not to affect corporate behavior as much as it is to create economic pressure on third […]
New Executive Order on Regulatory Harmonization
Yesterday the White House released a new Executive Order on “Promoting International Regulatory Cooperation.” The stated purpose of the E.O. is to encourage the harmonization of regulatory requirements to simplify regulatory compliance, reduce costs for transational companies and facilitate international trade. As OIRA Administrator Cass Sunstein explains in a White House release: The new Executive […]
A Stronger Case for Keystone
The Washington Post editorializes that the case for approving the Keystone XL pipeline was “always strong” and “has grown stronger.” A key environmentalist argument against Keystone XL has been that the project would encourage the extraction of bitumen, a particularly dirty oil-like substance, from the “oil sands” in Alberta. If activists could “shut in” Canadian […]
Texas Fight on Planned Parenthood Funding Heats Up
Earlier this year, the state of Texas adopted a rule barring organizations that promote abortions or affiliate with groups that promote abortions from participating in the state’s Medicaid-funded Woman’s Health Program. This rule effectively barred Planned Parenthood clinics from the program. In response, cut off funding for the state’s program, and Texas sued. At the […]
Grand Ole Opry v. Army Corps
Following Louisiana victims of post-Katrina flooding, the Grand Ole Opry is suing the federal government over damage resulting from a 2010 flood of Nashville, claiming negligence by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was at least possible responsible for over $250 million in damage to the Opry and other buildings. The LAT reports: Monday’s lawsuit […]
Texas Taps Mahoney
The University of Texas at Austin has retained Latham & Watkins to defend its affirmative action policy before the U.S. Supreme Court in Fisher v. University of Texas. The team of attorneys on the case includes former Solicitor General Greg Garre and former Deputy Solicitor General Maureen Mahoney. It’s hard to think of a legal team […]
Public Pension Problems
The Manhattan Institute’s Steven Malanga has an eye-opening WSJ op-ed on the depth of the looming fiscal dsiasters some states face due to public pensions. As he describes it, the gulf between those states that have been (relatively) responsible and those that have not is huge. For instance, Malanga reports, “Indiana’s debt for unfunded retiree health-care […]
Tamanaha Takes the LSAC Back to School
Last week, Brian Tamanaha critiqued the LSAC’s decision to increase LSAT fees in response to a declining number of test takes and law school applicants. The LSAC responded, and Tamanaha has fisked the response.
Be Careful Recommending Your Own Diet Without a License
Via Brian Doherty comes this report of how a blogger got in trouble North Carolina Board of Dietetics and Nutrition for a website that explains how he came to love the paleo diet. Because he answered readers’ questions and recommended the paleo diet the Board determined he was “practicing nutrition” without a state license, despite the […]
Post-Argument Polling on Health Care Reform
The Kaiser Family Foundation just released its most recent polling on health care reform — its first tracking poll since last month’s oral argument in the Supreme Court. The poll finds little change in public opinion about the mandate. A majority of respondents both want and expect the Supreme Court to strike down the individual […]
How President Obama Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Executive Power
In today’s NYT, Charlie Savage reports on how President Obama evolved from a fierce critic of unilateral exercise of executive power to a proponent. As a senator and presidential candidate, he had criticized George W. Bush for flouting the role of Congress. And during his first two years in the White House, when Democrats controlled […]
Shrinking Sales? Increase Prices!
The number of prospective law students taking the LSAT has declined significantly in the past few years after peaking in 2009-10. So what is the Law School Admission Council doing in response? Increasing the test fees. The fee increases include a substantial increase (in percentage terms) in the cost of sending LSAT scores to schools. […]