Author Archive | Sasha Volokh

Like Ilya, I will be presenting a paper this weekend at the Florida State University conference on “Takings: The Uses and Abuses of Eminent Domain and Land Use Regulation.” Whereas Ilya will be focusing on eminent domain, I will be focusing on regulatory takings, specifically questioning whether environmental values are served by denying landowners compensation […]

I certainly believe that federal statutes, such as the ban on “partial-birth” abortion violate federalism principles, transgress the limits of enumerated powers, and are contrary to the spirit (if not the letter) of the Supreme Court’s federalism jurisprudence. (See for instance, this NRO article from 2002.) Given existing precedents, however, I do not beleive that […]

This is the concluding post in my series on my upcoming Stanford Law Review paper on Privatization and the Law and Economics of Political Advocacy (see here for the technical paper). (See here and here for the introduction.) We’re back to talking non-technically, so you may want to tune back in if you tuned out […]

This post is the second to last in my series on my upcoming Stanford Law Review paper on Privatization and the Law and Economics of Political Advocacy (see here for the technical paper). The next post will be my conclusion (where we’ll be back to nontechnical talk), so the end is in sight! In the […]

When I was a kid, my mother had a copy of Erma Bombeck’s If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?. I knew the title was supposed to be a joke, but I didn’t catch the reference to the 1931 song lyrics by Lew Brown and Buddy De Sylva […]

The Legal Times features a Tony Mauro interview with former DoJ attorney Daniel Metcalfe, a 30-year veteran of the Department who most recently headed the Office of Information and Privacy. Metcalfe has served under a dozen Attorney’s General, and claims that in terms of “politicization” of the department, “nothing compares to the past two years […]

Today’s Washington Post reports that the Bush Administration has asked Congress for greater authority to conduct surveillance of foreign citizens and international communications. Currently, under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, individuals have to be associated with a foreign terrorism suspect or a foreign power to fall under the auspices of the FISA court, which […]

A video on the Law LIbrarian blog offers some advice.

Eric Muller got good news about his Uncle Leo’s medals.

This afternoon I om on a panel on “The Information Revolution” keynoted by Ambassador Joseph Wilson. The panel is part of the university’s annual Research ShowCASE symposium. (See the schedule here.) Given the title of the program — and the potential for an interesting discussion — I’m liveblogging the panel. (show) Ambassador Joseph Wilson opens […]

This post continues my series on my upcoming Stanford Law Review paper on Privatization and the Law and Economics of Political Advocacy (see here for the technical paper). In the last post, I documented how there’s a lot of hard evidence that public-sector corrections officers’ unions advocate incarceration, and virtually no hard evidence that private […]

If you’re in the D.C. area, I heartily recommend that you go see Patience, by Gilbert & Sullivan, put on by Georgetown Law School’s Gilbert & Sullivan Society (“America’s only theater group with its own law school”). It starts at 8 p.m. tomorrow night (Wednesday, April 11) and runs through Saturday, April 14. Georgetown Law […]

This post continues my series on my upcoming Stanford Law Review paper on Privatization and the Law and Economics of Political Advocacy (see here for the technical paper). In my last post, I wrote: In brief, there is a lot of hard evidence of pro-incarceration advocacy by public corrections officers’ unions (though a small part […]

I’m teaching Intro to Law and Economics in the fall. I’ve got Posner’s textbook, Polinsky’s short intro book, and the Dau-Schmidt and Ulen anthology. Does anyone have comments on teaching from, or being taught from, the above books or any other books I might want to look into?

This post continues my series on my upcoming Stanford Law Review paper on Privatization and the Law and Economics of Political Advocacy (see here for the technical paper). Two posts ago, I set out the basic economic theory—be sure to read that post if you’re having trouble following (or if you’re disagreeing with) the discussion […]