In three significant cases before the Supreme Court this term — Hosanna-Tabor Church v. EEOC on religious liberty, U.S. v. Jones on warrantless GPS search, and Sackett v. EPA on rights to challenge regulatory agency actions — the justices have been unanimous in rejecting the Obama Administration’s position. This Department of Justice, it seems, keeps asserting a vision of virtually unfettered executive-branch power that even its own appointees on the Court find unpersuasive. “If the government loses in the health-care or immigration cases,” writes my Cato Institute colleague Ilya Shapiro, “it won’t be because its lawyers had a bad day in court or because the justices ruled based on their political preferences. It will be because the Obama administration continues to make legal arguments that don’t pass the smell test.” [WSJ]
Labor and employment law roundup
- Connecticut: “Medical Marijuana Bill Includes Restrictions For Employers” [Daniel Schwartz, my take earlier]
- More on Montgomery County Maryland police-disability scams [WaPo editorial, earlier] California cop-pension backlash [Greenhut]
- Highest rate of per capita EEOC charges is in Deep South [David Foley, Labor Related]
- Are unpaid internships immoral? Illegal? [David Henderson/Econlog, more]
- NLRB memo launches assault on common language found in personnel manuals [Daniel Schwartz]
- Year’s most embarrassingly awful dispute over whether employee misconduct was within scope of employment [Lowering the Bar, adult content]
- Ominously, Canadian Supreme Court has read labor union rights into the nation’s constitutional Charter, most recently in Fraser case [Workplace Prof on new book; CFLR; Roy Adams/SocialPolicy.org]
“Click it or ticket,” extended
You didn’t think it was going to stop with humans, did you? The fines in New Jersey for driving with pets not restrained by harnesses or carriers are a lot bigger than the fines for driving with unbelted people [John Cichowski, “Not buckling up your pet in the car can mean big fines,” NorthJersey.com] (& Alkon)
EPA’s aerial surveillance of farms
“Snapping photos of livestock farms from an airplane is a legal and cost-effective way to help protect Nebraska and Iowa streams from runoff contamination, say officials with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.” The agency does not inform landowners that it is conducting the flights. [Omaha World-Herald, Reuters] “The EPA says it doesn’t rely solely on the aerial photos in taking enforcement actions against feedlots and their owners, but it does use them to identify businesses to target.” [Alexander Cohen, Business Rights Center]
Bloomberg’s soda Waterloo?
General derision continues from many quarters, if not all, for Mayor Bloomberg’s soda-snatch scheme. “Just don’t get caught with the weed AND a 24 ounce Coke” [NYT comment via John Elwood, Volokh] Baylen Linnekin finds it “just part of a typical news cycle in the Bloombergosphere” and points out that “The unsweetened juice of an apple — that symbol of New York City — contains at a minimum exactly the same number of grams of sugar per ounce (3.25 g) as Coca-Cola (3.25 g).” Ira Stoll suspects Bloomberg has surrounded himself overmuch with yes-men. More: George Will (“‘The essence of contemporary liberalism,’ ‘preposterous,’ ‘sinister'”)
Diversity hiring on law school faculties, cont’d
Point of Law has been continuing its discussion of racial preference and diversity hiring at law schools in the wake of the Elizabeth Warren brouhaha. I’ve now concluded my contribution with a second post (first one here). Excerpt from my new post:
…were competing approaches to diversity permitted, newcomers would be more likely to find an institution that suits their own desired experience: some would seek a pledge that advancement would be race- and sex-blind, others an assurance of encountering colleagues from backgrounds very different from their own.
Of course that’s not the world we live in. In our actual world, all law schools must conform to a prescribed format. Accreditation officials will haul up any institution that tries to be race-blind, and HLS will scramble to claim hiring credit for Prof. Warren’s vague family lore of Cherokee ancestry.
Should outsiders care? One reason to care might be if the prevalence of identity politics tends to reinforce the problem (assuming it is a problem) of ideological imbalance in the legal academy. In Schools for Misrule I conclude that it does, though only as one of many contributing factors….
AEI, “Global Governance and the Challenge to the American Constitution”
I was at this interesting event yesterday and you can follow my live-Tweeting here.
“Woman sues dead pilot for plane crash allegedly caused by drunken passenger”
You shouldn’t have let my common-law husband and his drunken coterie onto your charter flight, they were too obviously a safety hazard, alleges the suit, filed in a British Columbia court. [CNN]
Judge Easterbrook vs. the attitudinal model
At the Swarthmore commencement, Judge Frank Easterbrook explains why our Supreme Court would continue to generate many 5-4 cases even if all its members were appointed by a single President, and very many 9-0 cases even if its members were appointed by Presidents who were extremely different from each other politically. “In the United States, the Rule of Law really does differ from a Rule of Judges. Neutrality is a comfort to all who must stand before a court, and to all of us who favor equal justice under law.”
Mayor Bloomberg’s future appointees?
Harvard audience cheers as scientist proposes “requiring people to exercise.” [Barton Hinkle, Reason]