Now unpaywalled: my WSJ piece on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ resolution branding the National Rifle Association a domestic terrorist organization. Earlier here, here, and here (mayor says resolution will have no effect on contracting)
Archive for 2019
Discrimination law roundup
- Supreme Court reconvenes for new term and tomorrow will hear cases over whether Title VII ban on sex discrimination extends to sexual orientation and gender identity [SCOTUSBlog symposium with contributors including Richard Epstein, William Eskridge; Will Baude, Volokh Conspiracy; George Will; earlier here, here, here, etc.]
- New York City Commission on Human Rights declares it a violation of anti-discrimination law to use the term “illegal alien” in workplace, rental, or public accommodation contexts “with the intent to demean, humiliate, or offend a person or persons.” Does it complicate matters that both federal law and the U.S. Supreme Court use “illegal alien” as a neutral descriptive? [Hans Bader]
- Minneapolis passes law restricting landlords’ taking into account of tenants’ past criminal histories, evictions, credit scores [Christian Britschgi, Reason]
- Obama-era Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) mandated burdensome pay data reporting by employers. Will courts allow a course correction? [Federalist Society teleforum with G. Roger King and James A. Paretti Jr., earlier here and here]
- Professor who directs social justice center at Washington, D.C.’s American University proposes new federal Department of Anti-Racism that would wield ample power to order everyone around along with preclearance authority over all “local, state and federal public policies”; also “no political appointees” [Politico via Amy Alkon; Kelefa Sanneh, The New Yorker with more on work of Prof. Ibram X. Kendi]
- Late in its tenure, Obama administration began warning Fannie Mae that discouraging some of the riskiest mortgages (>43% debt-to-income) “could be seen as a violation of the Fair Housing Act.” Fannie and Freddie “quickly complied” and brought the punch bowl back out [Damian Paletta, Washington Post/MSN]
Scholarship gone right, and wrong
Old, new property law casebooks make for a contrast of doctrine versus indoctrination [Charles Rounds Jr., Martin Center] Former Yale dean Anthony Kronman’s latest book, The Assault on American Excellence, is a pointed critique of trends at elite universities [Caron/TaxProf; I reviewed one of Kronman’s earlier books back when] Shortcomings of present law school model leave dire need for alternatives [Mark Pulliam, Southeast Texas Record] “On the Ethics of Legal Scholarship” [Marquette Law Review symposium with Carissa Byrne Hessick, Paul Horwitz, and others]
In the name of child welfare
Three pending federal bills “call for increasing CPS [Child Protective Services] investigations of minor marks on children… The proposed bills should raise special concerns for families of children with rare medical conditions and disabilities” [Diane Redleaf] Argument: negotiations for kinship care in the shadow of threatened CPS proceedings amount to a parallel, hidden foster care system [Josh Gupta-Kagan, Stanford Law Review via Diane Redleaf] “Why Jailing Parents Who Can’t Pay Child Support Is Questionable Public Policy” [Hans Bader, FEE]
Liability roundup
- Philadelphia Common Pleas Court, long a forum-shopping destination, draws lawyers to sue over cladding after London’s Grenfell Tower fire [David Murrell, Philadelphia magazine]
- Georgia lawprof Elizabeth Chamblee Burch argues in new book that lawyers are enriching themselves at the expense of their clients in mass tort multidistrict litigation [her site; Katheryn Tucker, Fulton County Daily Report; Leigh Beeson, UGA Today, more]
- “Court cases reveal secret litigation networks for trucking accidents” [Aaron Huff, Commercial Carrier Journal]
- U.S. Chamber report on private rights of action and privacy claims by Mark Brennan, Adam Cooke, and Alicia Paller of Hogan Lovells;
- “Is PFAS the next asbestos? Probably not, lawyers say, but it may come close” [Daniel Fisher, Legal NewsLine]
- Uh-oh: “Progressive advocates have recently begun working with legislators in a handful of states to provide a qui tam mechanism for enforcing state statutory rights.” [Myriam Gilles and Gary Friedman, SSRN]
Eensy weensy interstate impact
Is it constitutional for the Endangered Species Act to prohibit a property owner’s act of mistakenly stepping on one of a swarm of tiny spiders when there’s no evidence such an action has any impact on interstate commerce? [Trevor Burrus on Cato amicus brief in Fifth Circuit case of Yearwood v. Department of the Interior on listing of bone cave harvestman spider]
Downfall of the Excuseman
Dear lawyers: you might want to avoid portraying a superhero character in your advertising “if you actually do the thing your character purportedly fights against” such as injuring your clients and then making excuses [Kevin Underhill, Lowering the Bar; Cook County, Ill. judge sentences Jordan Margolis to three years]
October 2 roundup
- Supreme Court should step in to protect freedom of association against California’s push to obtain donor identities for controversial groups [Ilya Shapiro and James Knight on Cato certiorari amicus brief in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Becerra, earlier]
- Civil liberties implications pretty dire if taken seriously: “Trump White House Mulls Monitoring the Mentally Ill for Future Violence” [Cato Daily Podcast with Julian Sanchez and Caleb Brown]
- Online platform liability: “all the ignorance about and hostility toward Section 230 of late has been infecting the courts.” Take for example the Ninth Circuit [Cathy Gellis, TechDirt]
- New book (not seen by me) by Bruce Cannon Gibney, The Nonsense Factory: The Making and Breaking of the American Legal System, draws a favorable review from Tyler Cowen and a less favorable one from Mark Pulliam;
- The loophole that lets 3.1 million persons — even millionaires — collect SNAP benefits even though they wouldn’t otherwise meet eligibility standards, and why some state agencies are fine with this [Angela Rachidi and Matt Weidinger, AEI]
- Mark your calendar for Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Nov. 16: I’ll be a featured speaker (as will author Dave Daley) at “Reclaiming Our Democracy: The PA Conference to End Gerrymandering” [Fair Districts PA]
San Francisco: forget that NRA contractor blacklist
A memo last week from San Francisco Mayor London Breed made clear that “the City’s contracting processes and policies have not changed and will not change as a result of the Resolution” by the Board of Supervisors branding the National Rifle Association a domestic terrorist group. [Joshua Koehn, San Francisco Chronicle] The resolution had proclaimed that the city should take all reasonable steps to identify and limit business and financial links between its vendors and contractors and the membership organization, but Breed pointed out that the city enacts changes to its law only by ordinance, not by resolution, which means the swaggering language had no effect off the playground. It had been widely predicted that courts would strike down a move by the city to coerce contractors in this way. Earlier here and here.
Cato Constitution Day video
The video of Cato’s 18th Constitution Day forum, held September 17, is now online, with a line-up of eminent speakers including Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSBlog, Jan Crawford of CBS News, and Judge Thomas Hardiman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, who in the annual B. Kenneth Simon Lecture discussed judicial independence and service during good behavior. I moderate the third panel, on Property Rights, Antitrust, and the Census.