Complying with federal regulations costs Vanderbilt University $146 million a year, 11% of its overall expenses, the university estimates [Vanderbilt press release via Prof. Bainbridge]
Archive for August, 2015
Last year’s (and next’s) Supreme Court term
Caleb Brown interviews me and Trevor Burrus about some of the term’s lower-profile Supreme Court cases, including Abercrombie & Fitch (religious accommodation), disparate impact housing discrimination, Yates (whether the Sarbanes-Oxley financial accounting law forbids destroying fish), Horne (raisin takings), three-strikes sentencing and (Trevor) the Texas confederate flag license plate case. We also preview next term’s important Friedrich v. California Teachers Association case on public sector union dues collection (more on which, Michael Rosman).
Related: ten cases the Court should have taken last term but didn’t [Mark Chenoweth, WLF]
Labor and employment roundup
- Really, I never want to hear one word ever again about Gov. Andrew Cuomo being “at least good on economic issues” [Peter Suderman and Nick Gillespie, Reason (New York will mandate $15/hour for most fast-food workers, which in many upstate cities could amount to 75 percent of average wage); Heather Briccetti/New York Post (activists bused from one hearing to next to jeer opponents); Nicole Gelinas/City Journal (Cuomo picks online guy to represent business on brick-and-mortar-endangering wage board), Joanna Fantozzi/The Daily Meal (possible legal challenge); Coyote on Card and Krueger study]
- Labor markets don’t behave the way sentimental reformers wish they behaved, part 53,791 [Seattle minimum wage hike: Mark Perry (largest half-year decline in foodservice jobs in region since Great Recession; but see, Brian Doherty on problems with that number series) and Rick Moran (“Employees are begging their bosses to cut their hours so they can keep their food stamps, housing assistance, and other welfare benefits.”); David Brooks via Coyote]
- Employers scramble to monitor, control time worked in response to Obama overtime decree [WSJ] “No one wants to go back to filling out time sheets…. managers fear (rightly) that I will have to set arbitrary maximum numbers of work hours for them.” [Coyote] Business resistance aims for the moment at (deliberately abbreviated) public comment period [Sean Higgins, Washington Examiner] “Can Obama Really Raise Wages for Millions of People So Easily? Quick answer: no” [David Henderson; WSJ/@scottlincicome on seasonal pool-supply company]
- Hillary Clinton and the Market Basket Stores myth [James Taranto]
- Labor Department proposes tightening regulation of retirement financial advisers [Kenneth Bentsen, The Hill]
- Proposed: “well-orchestrated” state ballot initiatives aimed at overturning employment at will [Rand Wilson, Workplace Fairness] My view: “Everybody wins with at-will employment” [Ethan Blevins, Pacific Legal amicus briefs in Supreme Court of Washington, followup on oral argument, and thanks to PLF for citing my work in its amicus brief in Rose v. Anderson Hay and Grain; much more on employment at will in my book The Excuse Factory, also some here]
- The SEIU’s home caregiver membership motel: you can check in, but just try checking out [Watchdog Minnesota Bureau]
Don’t you dare publish this takedown letter!
Martin Singer’s Hollywood law firm, famous for its combative representation of celebrities, has this notion that it can send cease and desist letters to targets and insist that they be kept confidential. Paul Alan Levy to the rescue [CL&P]
Civil commitment laws
Looking for “a sustained, systematic constitutional violation to get outraged about?” Try civil commitment laws [David Post; Cato Unbound symposium]
After an anti-gun suit fails, who should pay?
The gun-control Brady Center put a grieving family up to a meritless suit over the Aurora, Colo. theater shooting. Will it leave them high and dry now, following a predictable award of court costs? [Bearing Arms, Reuters Legal Solutions Blog, Knoxville News, earlier]
Criminal charges against Pennsylvania AG Kathleen Kane
We’ve covered her travails ethical and otherwise, and now she’s facing charges of “obstructing administration of law or other government function, official oppression, criminal conspiracy, perjury and false swearing.” [PAPolitics.com; Pittsburgh Tribune-Review; Wallace McKelvey, Harrisburg Patriot-News] At Philadelphia Magazine, Patrick Kerkstra recalls the sugary treatment Kane was getting from the press, including himself, as recently as 2013.
Republican debate observations
“Cross-examination is the greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth,” a great legal scholar once wrote. Fox News proved it — and generated a superior, entertaining debate — by aiming genuinely hard, personalized questions at the Republican front-runners. We know more now about which candidates are heedless of liberty and the U.S. Constitution, ill-prepared or inconsistent. Would that the press were this tough on all candidates.
I live-tweeted it last night and here are a few highlights, in earliest-to-latest chronological order:
Hmm. RT @cmoraff Carly Fiorina wants tech companies to be nicer to Feds who want to snoop around your data. http://t.co/ZLrdmQXvTu #cato2016
— Walter Olson (@walterolson) August 6, 2015
"The Fourth Amendment is what we fought the Revolution for." Rand Paul vs. Chris Christie, a compelling exchange. #cato2016 #gopdebate
— Walter Olson (@walterolson) August 7, 2015
.@RandPaul: We fought the American Revolution for the Fourth Amendment. Get a warrant. #Cato2016
— David Boaz (@David_Boaz) August 7, 2015
Trump made a good point about expensive, anticompetitive system of penning health insurance within state lines #cato2016 #gopdebate
— Walter Olson (@walterolson) August 7, 2015
"We need to repeal Dodd-Frank." @marcorubio, grabbing an effective @carlyfiorina theme, cites effect on small banks #cato2016 #gopdebate
— Walter Olson (@walterolson) August 7, 2015
Sorry, but @RandPaul gave a misleading account of the Houston pastors' subpoena. My 2 cents: http://t.co/iNR1u06Q3w #Cato2016 #GOPDebate
— Walter Olson (@walterolson) August 7, 2015
Contra @marcorubio & Huckabee, Antonin Scalia in 2008: "of course" Const does not ban abortion http://t.co/s4h8Yznr9C #cato2016 #GOPDebate
— Walter Olson (@walterolson) August 7, 2015
More 140-character commentary on the debates, including the one earlier this week, at this link. And more from Cato colleagues.
Environment roundup
- Good news: U.S. honeybee colonies hit a 20-year high [Christopher Ingraham, Washington Post “WonkBlog”; Shawn Regan, PERC]
- “News Flash: Sitting on a drilling permit for 29 years constitutes ‘unreasonable delay’” [Jonathan Adler]
- Forget it, Seattle kayakers: “Local environmental activists don’t get to make federal policy” [Aaron Renn, L.A. Times]
- Alienating some old friends, Prof. Laurence Tribe says the Constitution doesn’t just let the President make up new law on climate regulation [New York mag]
- Emily Washington on the long, failed history of progressive urban housing policies [Market Urbanism]
- Court in Netherlands orders government to reduce carbon emissions [John Dernbach, American College of Environmental Lawyers]
- If you missed the much-discussed William Saletan piece on GMOs, here it is [Slate; Jon Entine, Genetic Literacy Project]
Here comes a NLRB move to unionize temps
The ever-busy-these-days National Labor Relations Board “invited interested parties to submit amicus briefs in Miller & Anderson, Inc. in connection with the Board’s reexamination of critical issues affecting the ability of unions to organize employees employed by temporary and staffing agencies (‘temporary employees’) in the same bargaining units as employees of an employer that supplements its direct workforce with temporary employees.” [Steven Swirsky/Epstein Becker & Green, Marc Jacobs/Seyfarth Shaw]