“The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Tuesday gave its verdict in a 100-year-old property inheritance case that had started in a court in Rajasthan in 1918.” The Indian state of Rajasthan, like Pakistan, was part of British India before partition. The top comment: “Our land case in Gaya, Bihar is also going on since 1919. … Our family purchased a part of this land in 1988. We were not told about the dispute. There are more than 30-40 claimants.” [Omer Farooq Khan, Times of India]
Law enforcement for profit roundup
- “When you find yourself threatening to find more reasons to put even more citizens in jail in order to protect your revenue stream, it’s maybe time to take a step back and think about what you’re doing.” [Scott Shackford on Alabama forfeiture debate]
- How IRS spent $20 million on debt collection program that generated $6.7 million in payments [Howard Gleckman, Tax Policy Center]
- “Federal Judge Strikes Down New York City’s Dragnet That Seized Thousands Of Cars Without Warrants” [Nick Sibilla, IJ/Forbes]
- Prison phone calls and other captive markets: “Stop squeezing prisoners’ families for cash” [Megan McArdle]
- “The high price of being wrongly accused in Alabama’s ‘monetized’ criminal justice system” [Ashley Remkus, Al.com]
- “Cop Who Called Asset Forfeiture ‘A Tax-Liberating Goldmine’ Sued for Illegal Traffic Stop and Seizure” [C.J. Ciaramella; Kane County, Ill.]
Second Circuit: Schneiderman can unmask private group’s donors
At least since 1958’s NAACP v. Alabama, it has been thought settled that state demands for the disclosure of private organizations’ membership and donor lists poses very real risks of First Amendment infringement to which courts must be sensitive. Recent years, however, have seen concerted efforts to strip anonymity from donors to at least some non-profit groups with a policy emphasis. One danger — or feature, from the standpoint of some groups doing the campaigning — is that if target groups can be made to divulge such information, their supporters can be exposed to pressure, shaming, and public and private retaliation.
Kamala Harris, then Attorney General of California and now Senator from that state, did not fare well in court in such a campaign while in state office, but New York’s left-leaning Attorney General Eric Schneiderman seems to be enjoying better luck in a similar push. A Second Circuit panel has ruled in favor of his demands for the donor lists of Citizens United, the conservative group whose role in a landmark First Amendment case at the Supreme Court has made it, along with that case, “the Emmanuel Goldstein of the American left.” It will not be surprising if the Supreme Court is soon asked to reaffirm the protections of NAACP v. Alabama. [Trevor Burrus and Reilly Stephens, Cato, and thanks for mention; see also my April 2016 Cato piece]
February 21 roundup
- Minimum 18 age for marriage, stadium subsidies, bill requiring landlords to distribute voter registration material, dollar-home programs, and more in my latest Maryland policy roundup [Free State Notes; earlier on NJ first-in-nation ban on under-18 marriage]
- Now shuttered by California regulation: startup that allowed home cooks to sell meals directly to neighbors [Baylen Linnekin]
- Guess who’s hosting a program of his own on Russia’s RT network? Tub-thumping plaintiff’s lawyer, sometime RFK Jr. pal and longtime Overlawyered favorite Michael Papantonio;
- “Should the governments give LGBT-owned businesses a leg up in public contracts?” (Answer: no. Set-asides and preferences are unfair in themselves and deprive taxpayers and those served of the best price/value proposition.) [Bobby Allyn, NPR Marketplace]
- “Network effects” bogeyman gets deployed to bolster many an antitrust nostrum [David S. Evans and Richard Schmalensee, Cato “Regulation”] “The Future of Antitrust” Federalist Society video with Ronald Cass, Daniel Crane, Judge Douglas Ginsburg, Jonathan Kanter, Barry Lynn, moderated by Judge Brett Kavanaugh;
- Arguments fated to lose: “After 4th DWI, man argues legal limit discriminates against alcoholics” [Chuck Lindell, Austin American-Statesman]
Spend $3,000 on a vacation? Your call. On an investment? No way!
“The SEC’s ‘accredited investor standard’ effectively means that most Americans — unless they have at least $1 million in assets or $200,000 in annual income — are increasingly cut off from investment opportunities.” [Thaya Brook Knight, Cato Policy Analysis and summary]
Housing roundup
- “One year ago, Portland enacted inclusionary zoning. One year later, “apartment construction in Portland has fallen off a cliff.”” [@michael_hendrix citing Dirk VanderHart, Portland Mercury] Better policy is to focus on building supposedly unaffordable housing [Scott Sumner]
- Intractable problems of residential zoning and of public schooling in the U.S. have a great deal to do with each other [Salim Furth, American Affairs]
- New NBER study “suggests building energy codes hurt the poor, too” [Vanessa Brown Calder, Cato]
- Upzoning of Dumbo helped catalyze Brooklyn’s revival [Ira Stoll] How Henry George and followers influenced NYC property and tax policy, and the tax deal that helped touch off the Manhattan building boom of the 1920s [Daniel Wortel-London, The Metropole]
- How to live in some apartments forever without paying, and more tips for unscrupulous NYC tenants [Jeremiah Budin, Curbed]
- For “but,” read “therefore”: “Marin County has long resisted growth in the name of environmentalism. But high housing costs and segregation persist.” [David Henderson, quoting]
Hospital to pay $89,000 for failing to accommodate employees who objected to flu shots
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has announced that Mission Hospital in Asheville, N.C. will pay $89,000 for 
failing to accommodate employees “who declined flu vaccinations based on their religious beliefs.” [EEOC press release] Mission had in fact agreed to exempt employees from the flu shot based on religious objections, but required that they declare their intention ahead of time. And that turned out to be not accommodating enough, since not requiring that extent of advance notice would not in the EEOC’s view have posed an undue hardship on the employer — hence the expensive lesson.
At our religious discrimination tag can be found cases of employees who claimed a Title VII religious discrimination right not to serve alcoholic drinks as part of the duties of a flight attendant, not to haul beer as part of a job as a trucker, not to participate in an employer’s hand-scanner system for fear that it was connected to the Biblical “Mark of the Beast,” and to take prayer breaks in groups as large as 11 at an employer that did not think it could spare that many workers off the floor at the same time.
Under federal law enacted in 1972, employers regularly come under legal constraint to grant such accommodations to workers of many different religious sects. Although from much of the current debate one might imagine that liberals were historically skeptical of accommodation requirements, the actual history is more complicated. As I wrote a while back, “Surprisingly or otherwise, the pressure for federal law to become more indulgent toward private employees’ demands for religious accommodation [has] come both from liberal lawmakers like John Kerry and Hillary Clinton and from conservatives like Rick Santorum and Bobby Jindal.”
Under the elastic “undue hardship” standard, employers may face much uncertainty as to how much disruption of their business they must put up with in the name of accommodation. The flu-shot example suggests that risks to co-workers, customers, and the general public might sometimes enter the calculus as well — an expensive guessing game at best.
P.S. I’ve got a post at Cato making a related point: is it really libertarians who should catch flak for being too indulgent toward persons who want to be excused from vaccination?
NYC: 5Pointz building owner must pay graffiti artists
To quote John K. Ross’s summary for Short Circuit:
In 2002, owner of dilapidated industrial property in Queens, N.Y. entrusts its care to a group of artists, who improve its condition and cover it in graffiti, turning it into a tourist attraction and cultural site. In 2013, the owner, who plans to demolish the warehouses and build luxury condos, whitewashes over the art. District court: Which violated the Visual Artists Rights Act; pay $6.75 mil in damages to 21 artists. If the owner had waited a few more months while he got his building permits in order, he’d have been assessed a far more modest penalty.
More: Alan Feuer, New York Times, ABA Journal. More on the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 here.
Where the Justices, and states, might be headed on partisan gerrymandering
Ballotpedia asked me to contribute to a mini-symposium on how the Supreme Court may deal with the partisan gerrymandering cases cases of Gill v. Whitford (Wisconsin) and Benisek v. Lamone (Maryland), and you can read the results here (see also my Cato write-up).
Separately, I’m scheduled to testify in Annapolis on state-level proposals for redistricting reform on Feb. 26 (House of Delegates) and March 1 (Senate). Come up and say hello afterward if you’re there.
Mulvaney memo on the CFPB
Acting Director Mick Mulvaney’s memo on the future of the Consumer Financial Protection Board “encapsulates a humility and restraint and respect for rule of law that is often all too lacking in government.” [Ira Stoll, New York Sun]