This morning I was a guest on the Ralph Bristol show on Nashville Superstation WWTN and on the Ray Dunaway show on Hartford’s WTIC, talking about the court ruling striking down Mayor Bloomberg’s soda grab. The Orange County Register also reprinted my Daily Caller piece on the subject (& The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room). Earlier here, etc.
Labor and employment roundup
- Great moments in union contracts: “Many Suburban Cops Allowed To Work ‘Half Drunk'” [NBC Chicago]
- California high court imposes arbitrary damage-splitting rule on mixed-motive firings [Cheryl Miller, The Recorder]
- More tales of much-forgiven Broward County bus drivers [Sun-Sentinel, background]
- Sixth Circuit: SEIU robocalls to harass hospital CEO don’t violate TCPA [Littler]
- Judge rejects EEOC position against alcohol testing of steelworkers in safety-sensitive posts [Paul Mirengoff, PowerLine, Reuters]
- “NYFD made written test impossible to fail, but diversity recruits in Academy can’t meet physical standards either.” [Ted Frank/PoL]
- “The March Toward a Bullying Cause of Action Continues” [Michael Fox, Employer’s Lawyer; TheDenverChannel.com]
- T’wasn’t easy for White House to find a new Labor Secretary to the left of Hilda Solis, but meet Tom Perez [WaPo]
Judge strikes down Bloomberg soda ban, cont’d
My new op-ed at the Daily Caller is their “most shared” this morning. Excerpt:
On Monday, Judge Tingling struck down the soda ban in a sweeping opinion that does everything but hand Mayor Poppins his umbrella and carpetbag. This wasn’t just a temporary restraining order putting the regulation on hold for a few weeks. The judge struck down the ban permanently both on the merits (“fraught with arbitrary and capricious consequences”) and as overstepping the rightful legal powers of the New York City Department of Health…
[For] the mayor and his public health crew… the biggest reproach in the decision isn’t in being found to have gotten the facts wrong, it’s being found to have violated the law.
And if anyone is expected to know and play by the rules, it’s a nanny.
Michael Grynbaum, New York Times:
[Bloomberg’s] administration seemed caught off guard by the decision. Before the judge ruled, the mayor had called for the soda limits to be adopted by cities around the globe; he now faces the possibility that one of his most cherished endeavors will not come to fruition before he leaves office, if ever. …
The measure was already broadly unpopular: In a New York Times poll conducted last August, 60 percent of city residents said it was a bad idea for the Bloomberg administration to pass the limits…
Ross Sandler, a professor at New York Law School, said city laws deemed “arbitrary and capricious” had frequently been reinstated upon appeal.
The Times also profiles Judge Tingling and reports on reactions by New Yorkers in the street (not favorable toward the ban). Coverage from yesterday, including my podcast with Cato’s Caleb Brown, here. NYU’s Rick Hills, as often happens, takes a different view. (& Point of Law; and more) Update: as of March 15 my Daily Caller piece has been recommended on Facebook 3,700 times, surely a record for me.
67 leading law profs: time to reform legal education
A letter to the ABA signed by 67 big names in legal education [Caron/TaxProf] comes to conclusions about the economic organization of law schools very similar to those I reached two years ago in the relevant section of Schools for Misrule (not claiming any particular prescience on my part, others had made a similar case before and the signs were clear enough to anyone who would look). Their recommendations:
Legal education cannot continue on the current trajectory. As members of a profession committed to serving the public good, we must find ways to alter the economics of legal education. Possible changes include reducing the undergraduate education required for admission to three years; awarding the basic professional degree after two years, while leaving the third year as a elective or an internship; providing some training through apprenticeship; reducing expensive accreditation requirements to allow greater diversity among law schools; building on the burgeoning promises of internet-distance education; changing the economic relationship between law schools and universities; altering the influence of current ranking formulas; and modifying the federal student loan program. As legal educators, it is our responsibility to grapple with these issues before our institutions are reshaped in ways beyond our control.
“University settles student’s lawsuit over emotional-support guinea pig for $40,000”
Kendra Velzen had a note from a doctor prescribing the companionship of the rodent, but Grand Valley State University outside Grand Rapids, Mich. nonetheless resisted her request to keep the guinea pig with her at class, in the dorm, and in food service areas. Now school administrators have folded. [Eric Owens, Daily Caller](& Greenfield)
CEQA and California’s “reputation as a lousy place to do business”
A highly placed Democrat in Sacramento is acknowledging the problems with the state’s environmental-review law, which empowers complainants to stop, slow down or drive up the cost of new development projects. Among those who’ve learned to turn CEQA to their own uses: NIMBY-minded neighbors, business competitors seeking to hobble rivals, and unions looking for a shakedown tool. [Los Angeles Times]
Guns roundup
- Report: White House at pains to hush anti-gun groups from voicing their more extreme ideas [Washington Times]
- If we were really serious about reducing gun violence… [Steve Chapman] Futility of gun buyback programs [Trevor Burrus podcast, Cato]
- Lawyer hit with $20,000 sanction after federal judge says he didn’t adequately vet client’s dubious gun-malfunction case [Legal Intelligencer/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]
- No one’s talking about gun confiscation, right? Right? [Gateway Pundit, Christopher Fountain, more]
- D.C. councilmember sponsors bill requiring gun owners to buy $250K liability insurance [WaPo, earlier] Discussion of mandatory liability insurance for gun owners with Jacob Sullum, Don Taylor of Duke, and Michael Barry of the Insurance Information Institute [Reason/HuffPost]
- “Obama’s gun agenda is at least as much about provoking Republicans to say and do things to alienate women voters as it is about passing laws.” [@davidfrum]
- “The Second Amendment Protects Both Keeping and Bearing Arms” [Ilya Shapiro, Cato]
Judge to Bloomberg: unhand that soda
In a sweeping decision, trial court judge Milton Tingling has struck down the ban on sugary drinks decreed by the New York City Department of Health, which had been scheduled to go into effect tomorrow. I discuss the ruling in a Cato podcast above. I’m also quoted by Jillian Kay Melchior at National Review Online:
It was a sweeping ruling, because the judge said not only was the ban arbitrary and capricious, but it also went beyond the public-health agency’s powers under the statute. It meant that, even if Bloomberg went back and got a better factual justification for it, he had no legal right to do it. The agency just plain lacked the power. It means that the powers that public-health agencies claim because of emergency dangers like a raging epidemic — they don’t get to rule by dictate about other elements of our life that are not emergencies.
Other coverage: New York Post, CBS New York, Moin Yahya, David Henderson. As the law’s effective date approached, city residents were learning more about its unpleasant effects on such everyday activities as ordering beverages to split with pizza delivery, mixers at nightclubs, table pitchers to serve kids’ birthday parties, and, most recently, coffee, the subject of a virally famous poster from the local Dunkin’ Donuts operation.
P.S. And now I’ve got a Daily Caller piece out on the decision. See follow-up post here.
Update: NIH distances itself from Stanton Glantz tobacco-influence study
Or maybe “disavowed” is a better word. Questioned by Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins said he was “troubled” by the revelation that NIH funds paid for a laughably conspiracy-minded report by Stanton Glantz attacking political conservatives, calling it an “unfortunate outcome” and saying, “We thought we were funding a different kind of research when those grants were awarded.” This is not the first (or the fifth, or the tenth) round of axe-grinding advocacy “research” from Glantz — the National Cancer Institute dished out more than a million dollars this time — and one must wonder at what point he will stop asking the general public to pay for it. [Science Mag; Jacob Sullum; earlier]
DoJ suddenly drops high-profile New Orleans prosecution
Some locals are “stunned” that Justice would drop the River Birch case after four years of vigorous prosecution, and wonder whether there is any link to recent resignations and misconduct charges among high-level figures in the U.S. attorney’s office. [New Orleans Times-Picayune, more, earlier]