- Report: FBI investigation of Prenda lawyer Paul Hansmeier now extends to his mass ADA filings [KSTP, KMSP, Stephen Montemayor/Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Tim Cushing/TechDirt earlier]
- Meanwhile: “Sanctioned Austin ADA attorney now targeting websites” [KXAN on Omar Rosales, earlier]
- “It is a crime to ‘allow’ a pet to make a noise ‘that frightens wildlife’ on National Park Service land. Yeah.” [@KatMurti on David Rosenthal, Daily Signal]
- Looking to the states as a counterweight to dangers from Washington? Hope your federalism insurance is paid up [Rick Hills]
- A defense of the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s punitive, fine-happy turn in recent years. Beleaguered manufacturers are unlikely to agree [Brian Joseph, Fair Warning; the CPSIA fiasco and magnets episode]
- Michael Greve versus Adrian Vermeule on administrative law, originalism and the Constitution [Law and Liberty]
Archive for January, 2017
Food and Drug Administration roundup
- “The agency’s fear of Type II errors inhibits drug development and harms patients.” [John Cohrssen and Henry Miller, Regulation]
- Where’s the agency headed under Trump? [Alex Tabarrok; more on slow FDA hiring] Further on drug prices [Ira Stoll]
- Which is more dangerous: the battery pack in a vaping set-up, or getting between Sen. Schumer and a camera? [Nick Gillespie; Steven Greenhut and David Bahr on the case against the FDA’s “deeming” rules]
- Speaking of things the new administration should try to undo, don’t forget the bad stuff the agency is up to on pipes and cigars [Rick Newcombe, Reason]
- Cal. Gov. Brown signs “right to try” legislation [L.A. Times] Advocates propose federal version [Liz Szabo, MedCityNews] Related earlier;
- FDA peculiarly confident that radical reductions in salt intake in food supply will result in health benefits [Ronald Bailey, Reason]
Fighting the last war, on courts and executive power
Some on the left are still blasting judges as activist for standing up to Obama administration assertions of executive power in the regulatory sphere. That might prove shortsighted considering what’s on the agenda for the next four years, or so I argue in a piece in Sunday’s Providence Journal.
I take particular exception to a Bloomberg View column in which Noah Feldman, professor at Harvard Law, assails federal district judge Amos Mazzant III for enjoining the Department of Labor’s overtime rule for mid-level employees (earlier). In a gratuitous personal jab, Feldman raises the question of “whether Mazzant sees an opportunity for judicial advancement with this anti-regulatory judgment” in light of the election results, though he offers not a particle of evidence that the judge, an Obama appointee, is angling for higher appointment under the new administration.
The problems with the overtime rule were both substantive and procedural. As I mention in the piece, “more than 145 charitable nonprofits signed a letter begging the department to allow more than a 60-day public comment period. It refused.” That letter is here (via, see Aug. 5, 2015 entry). I also mention that a court recently struck down the Department of Labor’s very bad “persuader rule” that would have regulated management-side lawyers and consultants; more on that from Daniel Fisher, the ABA Journal, and earlier.
After pointing out that many of the rulings restraining the Obama administration have been written or joined by Democratic-appointed judges, I go on to say:
Judges rule all the time against the partisan side that appointed them.
And we’ll be glad of that when the Trump executive orders and regulations begin to hit, and Republican-appointed federal judges are asked to restrain a Republican White House, as they have often done in the past.
We should be celebrating an energetic judiciary that shows a watchful spirit against the encroachments of presidential power.
L.A. bans criminal record inquiries in hiring, even for non-L.A. employers
“Not to be outdone by San Francisco or New York City, the City of Los Angeles has enacted the strictest ‘ban the box’ ordinance in the country, and its many requirements are detailed and onerous….Notably, the employer need not be located within the city” to be covered, provided it has “10 or more employees who perform an average of at least two hours of work each week in the City of Los Angeles.” Employers cannot ask about criminal convictions before offering jobs, and can do so afterward only by using a multi-step process — providing a rationale in writing, holding a job open for at least five days while the applicant responds, then writing another document of justification — designed to facilitate successful litigation over the withdrawal of an offer. [Karen Dinino, Christine Samsel, and Sherli Shamtoub/Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck]