- Bad Texas law requiring breweries to give away territorial rights for free violates state constitution, judge says [Eric Boehm]
- California’s identity theft statute bans so many more things than just identity theft [Eugene Volokh]
-
Cato Unbound symposium on Indian Child Welfare Act/ICWA, to which I contributed, wraps up [Timothy Sandefur on sovereignty and fixes] Minnesota’s Indian foster care crisis [Brandon Stahl and MaryJo Webster, Minneapolis Star-Tribune]
- If you want to hear me translated into Arabic on bathroom and gender issues, here you go [Al-Hurra back in May]
- Asset forfeiture: “New Mexico Passed a Law Ending Civil Forfeiture. Albuquerque Ignored It, and Now It’s Getting Sued” [C.J. Ciaramella] “IRS Agrees to Withdraw Retaliatory Grand Jury Subpoena Against Connecticut Bakery” [Institute for Justice] “California Asset Forfeiture Reform Heading to Approval” [Scott Shackford]
- Evergreen: “‘I never thought leopards would eat MY face,’ sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.” [Adrian Bott]
Filed under: adoption, beer and brewers, forfeiture, Indian tribes, Texas
11 Comments
RE: Bakery.
People need to be fired over that. Why won’t they be? If the IRS won’t do it, then Congress ought to figure out who is responsible and then pass a bullet-proof bill that takes away the authority to pay the people responsible and insulates the judgment fund from paying them.
Ideally, the people responsible for this would be sentenced to prison.
What you are calling for is one small aspect of a much bigger, far-more-pervasive problem: the Civil Service and all of its protections. Recently, administrative judges have ruled that convicted criminals could not be fired from government jobs and gross incompetence is not grounds for dismissal.
Apparently the only grounds for disciplining/firing a government employee currently are whistle-blowing and testifying honestly before Congress.
Reform the Civil Service, give the IGs prosecutorial powers, and much incompetence and criminality will disappear. However, that happening is highly contingent on the results of the next election, at all Federal levels. It would also probably lead to rioting and terrorism by the affected unions.
Regarding the Texas brewery law: I don’t see the issue. The “property” in question only exists in the first place because of other laws regulating how beer is sold and distributed. I wouldn’t feel sorry for the brewers if they no longer got to charge their distributors for the beer and then charge them again for the right to actually sell that beer.
Except it’s not really charging the distributor again just for the right to sell the beer.
The breweries have to sell through a distributor, they can’t sell direct to retailers and they are only allowed to have one distributor in a given area.
It’s that exclusivity that makes the distribution rights valuable.
The law that was struck down prohibited the brewers from charging for the distribution rights while maintaining the exclusivity that makes the distribution rights valuable.
So, the property still exists, and it’s still very valuable, but you have to give it away for free.
If you can’t see the issue with that…
“Except it’s not really charging the distributor again just for the right to sell the beer.”
Since the distributor has no way to legally sell this beer in Texas without obtaining those rights, and since both the beer and those rights have a price tag, I must conclude that yes, it really is.
“The breweries have to sell through a distributor, they can’t sell direct to retailers and they are only allowed to have one distributor in a given area.
It’s that exclusivity that makes the distribution rights valuable.”
Exactly. The rights only have value because of the effects of state laws. I think it’s ridiculous to say the state can’t change a law because it affects this “property” that it created in the first place.
“If you can’t see the issue with that…”
I see issues, but all of them would be better solved by getting rid of that other law that requires one and only one distributor. I don’t see the point in a law saying that a company can’t distribute its own beer, and I don’t see the point in a law saying that only one distributor can be used in a particular area. And the combination of those laws just seems bizarre. It would be like requiring Ford to sell to a dealership instead of the public (such laws exist) and then requiring that there only be one Ford dealership per city (such laws do not exist.) It’s like you’re destroying and creating a monopoly at the same time. And now this new law also seems like it’s specifically benefiting the distributors at the expense of the brewers (I may not think the law is actually unconstitutional and I may not be crying for the brewers, but that doesn’t mean I think it’s a particularly good idea, either.) Does someone in the beer distribution business have a seat in the Texas legislature, or something?
“I see issues, but all of them would be better solved by getting rid of that other law that requires one and only one distributor. ”
Well, we can agree on that much.
” I don’t see the point in a law saying that a company can’t distribute its own beer, and I don’t see the point in a law saying that only one distributor can be used in a particular area.”
It’s one law that says both those things, Not two separate laws.
There is even one state that only has state run liquor stores. Restaurants and bars can sell alcohol for consumption on premises, but only the state owned and operated stores can sell liquor for consumption off premises.
“Does someone in the beer distribution business have a seat in the Texas legislature, or something?”
Very likely yes. Though when the laws were originally passed, it was probably the other way around, one or more of the state legislators had plans to create distributors.
Texas is not the only state that requires the use of distributors and requires exclusive territories for the distributors. And the distributors tend to have a fair amount of political influence in the states that have those kinds of arrangements.
Though Texas is the only state I have heard of where they have barred brewers from charging the distributors for the territorial rights.
Re Mr. Unknown:
“Recently, administrative judges have ruled that convicted criminals could not be fired from government jobs and gross incompetence is not grounds for dismissal.”
Kind of sounds like these are arbitrations before an “independent” arbitrator, rather than an administrative law judge. I’m not aware of any agency that actually has its own judges rule on its own labor matters.
Assuming I’m right, be aware that arbitrators for employee disciplinary proceedings are ordinarily picked from a pool agreed upon by the union and by the government. It would be pretty clear to me, if I were vying for such a job, that any decision which deprived an employee of their job would result in my being booted from the pool for the next go round of assignments. Maybe that’s the problem.
“It would be pretty clear to me, if I were vying for such a job, that any decision which deprived an employee of their job would result in my being booted from the pool for the next go round of assignments. Maybe that’s the problem.”
Perhaps, but should not also decisions preventing the firing of employees for gross misconduct and/or incompetence not also have the same result.
Mike, in a lot of public employment in the US, matters are determined by an ALJ assigned by an agency called the Office of Administrative Hearings or something similar (depending on the specific jurisdiction).
Re Richard:
“in a lot of public employment in the US, matters are determined by an ALJ assigned by an agency called the Office of Administrative Hearings or something similar ”
Live and learn.
That seems to be a more egregious conflict than the one I mentioned (I’ll admit that I am only familiar with disciplinary proceedings in my state & municipal entities within the state that I have worked. For.).
The Administrative Hearing Offices were developed to avoid the situation where specific agencies identify and hire the hearing officer. They basically operate as independently as the courts.