Overlawyered » campaign regulation http://overlawyered.com Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:11:47 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 February 8 roundup http://overlawyered.com/2012/02/february-8-roundup-4/ http://overlawyered.com/2012/02/february-8-roundup-4/#comments Wed, 08 Feb 2012 05:15:22 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=27202
  • Popular proposal to curb Congressional insider trading (”STOCK Act”) could have disturbing unintended consequences [John Berlau, CEI "Open Market"]
  • Here’s Joe’s number, he’ll do a good job of suing us: “Some Maryland hospitals recommend lawyers to patients” [Baltimore Sun, Ron Miller]
  • Bribing the states to spend: follies of our fiscal federalism, and other themes from Michael Greve’s new book The Upside-Down Constitution [LLL, more] “Atlas Croaks, Supreme Court Shrugs” [Greve, Charleston Law Review; related, Ted Frank]
  • “… Daubert Relevancy is the Sentry That Guards Against the Tyranny of Experts” [David Oliver on new First Circuit opinion or scroll to Jan. 23]
  • Goodbye old political tweets, Eric Turkewitz is off to trial;
  • State laws squelch election speech, and political class shrugs (or secretly smiles) [George Will]
  • Too bad Carlyle Group got scared off promising experiment to revamp corporate governance to curb role of litigation [Ted Frank, Gordon Smith] AAJ should try harder to use people’s quotes in context [Bainbridge]
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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2012/02/february-8-roundup-4/feed/ 2     Citizens United, two years out http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/citizens-united-two-years-out/ http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/citizens-united-two-years-out/#comments Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:24:20 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=27080 In the Washington Post, Boston College lawprof Kent Greenfield clears up some misconceptions:

    Citizens United did not hold corporations to be persons, and the court has never said corporations deserve all the constitutional rights of humans. The Fifth Amendment’s right to be free from self-incrimination, for example, does not extend to corporations. … Humans gather themselves in groups, for public and private ends, and sometimes it makes constitutional sense to protect the group as distinct from its constituent humans.

    The question in any given case is whether protecting the association, group or, yes, corporation serves to protect the rights of actual people. Read fairly, Citizens United merely says that banning certain kinds of corporate expenditures infringes the constitutional interests of human beings. The court may have gotten the answer wrong, but it asked the right question.

    Another reason to protect corporate rights is to guard against the arbitrary and deleterious exercise of government power. If, for example, the Fifth Amendment’s ban on government “takings” did not extend to corporations, the nationalization of entire industries would be constitutionally possible. The Fourth Amendment prohibits the FBI from barging into the offices of Google without a warrant and seizing the Internet history of its users. A freedom of the press that protected only “natural persons” would allow the Pentagon to, say, order the New York Times and CNN to cease reporting civilian deaths in Afghanistan.

    The actual Citizens United case, as distinct from the later caricature, was over whether the government had a constitutional right to punish private actors for distributing a video critical of a prominent politician (Hillary Clinton) before an election, which helps explain why the ACLU and many other civil libertarians took the pro-free-speech side. More: Caleb Brown at Cato.

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/citizens-united-two-years-out/feed/ 1     After SOPA protest day http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/after-sopa-protest-day/ http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/after-sopa-protest-day/#comments Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:54:57 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=26995
  • What did the protests accomplish? [Image of one-day change in Hill opposition courtesy TechCrunch, PC World, Timothy Lee/Ars Technica]
  • Some of the best protests [Ad Age, earlier on Flickr's clever entry and others]
  • Going-dark site “strike” was a bit like Atlas Shrugged without the monologues [Greve] “So, nothing like #AS” [@nickgillespie] “…and fewer pirates” [@JohnPMcGuinness] “That’s a shame. I want to see Francisco’s money speech in binary code.” [@BenK84]
  • Speaking of Citizens United… [John Samples/Cato, Popehat, @joshgreenman]
  • Chris Dodd: we could turn off flow of Hollywood politibux if we don’t get this law [Politico] “Win/win!” [James Poulos]
  • Where next? [Julian Sanchez, Cato, Kotaku ("PIPA not as bad as SOPA" claims), roll call via Pro Publica]
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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/after-sopa-protest-day/feed/ 4     Ron Paul campaign sues John Does over anti-Huntsman video http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/ron-paul-campaign-sues-john-does-over-anti-huntsman-video/ http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/ron-paul-campaign-sues-john-does-over-anti-huntsman-video/#comments Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:32:22 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=26978 “Presidential candidate Ron Paul’s campaign committee sued the unidentified makers of a video attacking ex-Republican rival Jon Huntsman claiming it falsely implies it was made or endorsed by the Texas congressman.” [Bloomberg] Paul Alan Levy contends that Rep. Paul, a longtime civil liberties advocate, should know better than to advance arguments that would if accepted narrow the legal protections afforded to anonymous political speech.

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/ron-paul-campaign-sues-john-does-over-anti-huntsman-video/feed/ 4     Update: ousted Congressman sues opponents for “loss of livelihood” http://overlawyered.com/2011/11/update-ousted-congressman-sues-opponents-for-loss-of-livelihood/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/11/update-ousted-congressman-sues-opponents-for-loss-of-livelihood/#comments Tue, 01 Nov 2011 06:00:34 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=25332 Updating our story of last December: A federal judge has given the go-ahead to former Rep. Steve Dreihaus’s suit against the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List for allegedly falsely characterizing his stands on issues during last year’s race, thus causing him to lose. Earlier, Driehaus had filed a complaint against the Anthony List under Ohio’s remarkable False Statements Law, “which criminalizes lying about public officials” and has been assailed by the ACLU among other groups as inconsistent with the First Amendment. [Seth McKelvey, Reason; Peter Roff, U.S. News]

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/11/update-ousted-congressman-sues-opponents-for-loss-of-livelihood/feed/ 6     Update: Pierce O’Donnell cops a plea http://overlawyered.com/2011/08/update-pierce-odonnell-cops-a-plea/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/08/update-pierce-odonnell-cops-a-plea/#comments Mon, 08 Aug 2011 11:49:40 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=24184 The prominent Los Angeles lawyer accepts a misdemeanor rap for laundering John Edwards contributions. [L.A. Times, earlier]

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/08/update-pierce-odonnell-cops-a-plea/feed/ 0     “How Campaign Finance Laws Made the British Press so Powerful” http://overlawyered.com/2011/07/how-campaign-finance-laws-made-the-british-press-so-powerful/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/07/how-campaign-finance-laws-made-the-british-press-so-powerful/#comments Fri, 29 Jul 2011 05:21:19 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=24076 My Cato colleague John Samples detects a perhaps intended consequence of the imposition of regulations that stifle political speech other than that conveyed by the institutional press. More: Paul Sherman, Make No Law (Institute for Justice blog).

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/07/how-campaign-finance-laws-made-the-british-press-so-powerful/feed/ 0     April 4 roundup http://overlawyered.com/2011/04/april-4-roundup-4/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/04/april-4-roundup-4/#comments Mon, 04 Apr 2011 13:40:04 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=22347
  • Verbal fireworks from Judge Kozinski in Ninth Circuit “stolen valor” case [Above the Law]
  • Measure of artificially contrived scarcity: “NYC Taxi Medallions Approach $1 Million.” Would officials in Washington, D.C. really consider introducing such a destructive system? [Perry, more]
  • Workers’ comp OK’d in case where simulated chicken head blamed for subsequent emotional disability [Lowering the Bar]
  • “NBA referee sues sports writer over tweet” [Siouxsie Law] “Lessons from Dan Snyder’s Libel Suit” [Paul Alan Levy/CL&P, earlier]
  • Litigation rates similar for poor and good nursing homes, researchers find [US News] Effects of medical liability reform in Texas [White Coat, scroll] New York’s Cuomo caves on medical liability plan [Heritage] Sued if you do, sued if you don’t in the emergency room [same]
  • “Federal Government Wants to Bully School Bullies, and Demands School Help” [Doherty, Bader, Popehat, Bernstein] New York law firm launches school-bullying practice [Constitutional Daily]
  • Mass tort settlements: “The market for specious claims” [S. Todd Brown, Buffalo, SSRN]
  • Could Gene McCarthy’s candidacy have survived Arizona elections law? [Trevor Burrus, HuffPo]
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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/04/april-4-roundup-4/feed/ 3     John Edwards, victim http://overlawyered.com/2011/03/john-edwards-victim/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/03/john-edwards-victim/#comments Fri, 04 Mar 2011 16:18:02 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=21846 Even the disgraced White House hopeful deserves better than to be tripped up by slippery and undefined campaign-finance laws, argues Mickey Kaus (at the Daily Caller, new home of Kausfiles).

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/03/john-edwards-victim/feed/ 0     (Still) misreporting Citizens United http://overlawyered.com/2011/02/still-misreporting-citizens-united/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/02/still-misreporting-citizens-united/#comments Wed, 09 Feb 2011 13:47:23 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=21403 At The Atlantic, civil libertarian Wendy Kaminer catches Washington Post columnist Katrina Vanden Heuvel misrepresenting the role of campaign spending in the defeat of Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold, and the New York Times — in a more appalling lapse of journalistic standards — digging in to defend gross misstatements about the high court’s opinion.

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