Author Archive | Todd Zywicki

The other day, Randy mentioned David Cameron’s first question period with Tony Blair. Michael Barone has more.

Steven Anderson of the Institute for Justice and the Castle Coalition also cautions against prematurely tolling the bells for the Anti-Kelo backlash in the states. He, like Tim Sandefur, remains optimistic that the states will come through with strong reforms that address the issue. Steven writes: There’s little doubt that government’s ability to dole out […]

Tim Sandefur has a report on California’s efforts on the efforts to respond to Kelo in California, which he says addresses many of the weaknesses in the reform efforts in other states: There are now at least two eminent domain ballot propositions that have been filed with the Secretary of State’s office for placement on […]

Scott Johnson posts on an interesting email exchange between GMU Dean Dan Polsby (author of a pro-government amicus brief in FAIR v. Rumsfeld) and a reporter from the Harvard Crimson reporting on the oral argument in FAIR v. Rumsfeld. In the exchange Dean Polsby addresses the argument that arose in oral argument drawing on an […]

Tom Blumer at BizzyBlog is not surprised that the Anti-Kelo backlash is already running out of steam as a result of public choice pressures. Update: More from the Affordable Housing Institute–in addition to the analysis, I recommend clicking through just to see the artistic renderings of the issue. Update: Timothy Sandefur notes in the Comments […]

Sounds like it didn’t go so well for the law schools in oral argument yesterday: In the argument on Tuesday, the law school coalition’s lawyer, E. Joshua Rosenkranz, had difficulty gaining traction as he urged the justices to uphold the appeals court’s judgment that the Solomon Amendment amounted to “compelled speech” by forcing the law […]

The great Henry Manne, one of the founding fathers of law & economics, makes his entry today into the blogosphere. Having read Henry’s many op-eds and speeches over the years, I suspect that he is a natural blogger. He is part of the team guest-blogging at Ideoblog and has an entry today “Could we get […]

Timothy Sandefur has an extensive post on “The Kelo Backlash So Far.” His conclusion–it hasn’t accomplished much so far. Few states have had an opportunity to consider the issue and those that have acted have done so with limited effectiveness. He has a detailed discussion of the provisions of several laws and is unimpressed. He […]

Larry Ribstein is away from Ideoblog for a few weeks and he has a bunch of guest bloggers. Lots of great stuff over there (so far, no movie reviews). Josh Wright has a post up on the “The Endowment Effect’s Disappearing Act” which discusses in some detail the superb paper by Charlie Plott and Kathy […]

The internal culture of the military is something I don’t fully understand. I haven’t served, and the relationships seem so different from my day to day life that I don’t really have an intuitive grasp on how things work. With that disclaimer in mind, from a policy perspective (leaving aside the constitutional issues for a […]

The Washington Post reports that the long-anticipated lawsuit against soft drink manufacturers for contributing to children’s obesity is expected to be filed in the near future. Accroding to the article, the target is vending machines in schools and the legal theory is one of an “attractive nuisance.” The suit is expected to be filed in […]

Liberty and Power Blog is taking votes for the best Libertarian/Classical Liberal academic blogs in four categories, including best group blog (for which the VC has been nominated along with several others), along with best individual blog, and best new individual and group blogs. If so inclined, you can cast your vote here.

Steve Jacubowski has the latest briefs in the Anna Nicole Smith SCOTUS case: Anna’s brief and an amicus brief by several law professors (in support of her). Steve does suggest that there is a previously unrecognized public interest at stake here–if Anna wins, then perhaps she won’t have to work for a living any more […]

In case you missed it, this article by Malcolm Gladwell from The New Yorker last month on college admissions at “elite institutions” is quite interesting (he has a passing comment on law school admissions as well). One interesting tidbit that I hadn’t been aware of is that male athletes that graduate from these institutions tend […]

This week, the ACSBlog will be hosting a debate between Dan Polsby and William Eskridge on the Solomon Amendment case, FAIR v. Rumseld, wqhich will be argued on Dec. 6. Dean Polsby leads off with “An Unremarkable Use of Congress’s Spending Power,” noting the breadth of the constitutional power to Raise and Support Armies. A […]