“Rasmussen has a poll out today that shows that only 7 percent of Americans support Wickard v. Filburn, the 1942 Supreme Court case upholding the use of the Commerce Clause to regulate a farmer’s wheat growing for personal consumption.” [Ammon Simon, NRO “Bench Memos”] David M. Wagner: “Too bad nine of ’em are on the Supreme Court.”
Posts Tagged ‘constitutional law’
Annotated Declaration of Independence
P.S. In case the link format isn’t clear enough: to read Barnett’s post, click here.
Obamacare decision roundup
- “We won everything but the case.” Ilya Shapiro at SCOTUSBlog on what it’s like to have your arguments succeed while your client goes down. Recommended;
- David Kopel applauds, especially the Medicaid ruling limiting strings on federal support of states;
- Michael Greve turns thumbs down: “the Chief’s supposed act of statesmanship has bought nothing that is worth having.”
- Clark Neily: “as litigators know very well, it is always more important what a court did than what it said. … Notwithstanding the majority’s assurances … the Court ratified what many perceive as the most significant expansion of federal power in 75 years.”
- John Podhoretz: Roberts’ artful dodgery on tax issue does the Court no credit. Similarly: Jim Huffman;
- From a David Frum reader: did Roberts bail because the four justices to his right got too frisky on severability?
- And Cato’s star-packed event looking at the meaning of the NFIB v. Sebelius decision will take place live on the web this coming Monday, Jul. 2, 1:30-4:45 Eastern.
Roberts as military strategist
The wise general does not always march forth and capture a city, even one of great strategic importance, if he knows his forces are unlikely to hold it against the inevitable counterattack. He may be better off taking only the territory he has a good chance of holding on to.
P.S. And see this Sun-Tzu-citing Will Wilkinson analysis.
NFIB v. Sebelius quote of the day
“For those of us who oppose the Affordable Care Act as a policy matter, this is a bad day,” [Georgetown law professor Randy] Barnett said. “For those of us in this fight to preserve the limits of constitutional government, this is not a bad day.” [Ezra Klein; more from Prof. Barnett at Daily Beast] Similarly, at more length: Sean Trende, RCP via Tom Smith, Right Coast. Contrasting views: Ilya Shapiro, Philadelphia Inquirer (“an unfortunate convergence of two unholy strains of constitutional jurisprudence: liberal activism and conservative pacifism”); Ramesh Ponnuru (“The resulting law may be a better one than Congress wrote. It is not, however, the law that Congress wrote.”).
And here is a podcast from the Cato Institute with colleagues Roger Pilon, Ilya Shapiro, Trevor Burrus, Michael Cannon, and Michael Tanner:
And a video interview with Trevor Burrus here. Don’t forget, if you didn’t check in on it at the time, yesterday’s periodically updated Twitter-scroll post with (at last count) 43 tweets and dozens of links to relevant posts and resources.
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.
June 4 roundup
- “Man cited for littering after cash to panhandler hits ground” [USA Today]
- AIG and sunshine: “Spitzer’s Loose Public Talk and Private Emails” [Lawrence Cunningham, Concurring Opinions]
- Mississippi attorney took 45 percent contingency fee, but “all the contracts came up missing from [his] office” [Insurance Journal] When it comes to billing disputes, California state bar seems keen on protecting lawyers against clients [Lawrence Schonbrun, Recorder]
- Philip K. Howard on NPR [TED Radio Hour]
- About that “Constitution in Exile” bogeyman [Barnett, Bernstein]
- Come the revolution, comrade, you will gladly pay your Connecticut taxes: Gov. Dannel Malloy approves $300K for ultra-left New Haven People’s Center [CT News Junkie via Zachary Janowski, Raising Hale] Update: Governor reverses stance.
- New law keeps many homemakers from qualifying for credit cards [Sheryl Nance-Nash, Diane Katz/Heritage]
“‘People’s Rights Amendment’ Would Knock Out People’s Rights”
George Will gets to the essence of this grotesque assault on civil liberties, fed by demagoguery over the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision:
McGovern [Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass.] stresses that his amendment decrees that “all corporate entities — for-profit and nonprofit alike” — have no constitutional rights. So Congress — and state legislatures and local governments — could regulate to the point of proscription political speech, or any other speech, by the Sierra Club, the National Rifle Association, NARAL Pro-Choice America or any of the other tens of thousands of nonprofit corporate advocacy groups, including political parties and campaign committees.
Newspapers, magazines, broadcasting entities, online journalism operations — and most religious institutions — are corporate entities. McGovern’s amendment would strip them of all constitutional rights.
Incredibly, versions of this radical rights-stripping measure has been endorsed through resolutions by the state legislatures of Vermont, Hawaii, and New Mexico, with backing from groups like Public Citizen. [Ilya Shapiro and Kathleen Hunker, Cato; Hans Bader, CEI; earlier] More: Professor Bainbridge (“utterly moronic”)] Among sponsors of this extraordinary measure: Reps. Earl Blumenauer (Ore.), David Cicilline (R.I.), Steve Cohen (Tenn.), John Conyers, Jr. (Mich.), Jim Cooper (Tenn.), Peter DeFazio (Ore.), Eliot Engel (N.Y.), Sam Farr (Calif.), Bob Filner (Calif.), Gene Green (Tex.), Raul Grijalva (Ariz.), Janice Hahn (Calif.), Martin Heinrich (N.M.), Maurice Hinchey (N.Y.), Jesse Jackson, Jr. (Ill.), Walter B. Jones, Jr. (N.C.), Barbara Lee (Calif.), Jim McDermott (Wash.), Christopher Murphy (Ct.), Richard Neal (Mass.), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D.C.), John Olver (Mass.), Chellie Pingree (Maine), Louise McIntosh Slaughter (N.Y.), Adam Smith (Wash.), John Tierney (Mass.), and Peter Welch (Vt.). Murphy is running for an open U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut.
“Usually, to avoid detection…”
“…we [Judge Janice Rogers Brown and I] dress as Lillian Hellman and Yosemite Sam respectively.” — Michael Greve on his participation in the presumed conspiracy to restore the dreaded “Constitution in Exile” of pre-New Deal days. [Liberty and Law]
Soon-to-be Prof. Greve (he will be joining the George Mason law faculty after many years at AEI) was at Cato this week to discuss his remarkable new book, The Upside-Down Constitution. At the risk of damning with faint praise, I will say that his book is the most stimulating work I know of on the subject of federalism to have been published in my lifetime. If I could sum up his thesis, it would be that one of the past century’s gravest constitutional malfunctions has been that the states (not a misprint, he means the 50 states) have overrun their proper role in the constitutional scheme. More on his thesis here, here, and, on “Madison’s nightmare,” here. In all seriousness, I recommend The Upside-Down Constitution highly; although it’s demandingly complex in places, I can’t imagine reading it without one’s understanding of the constitution, and federalism in particular, being permanently changed.
April 30 roundup
- Because Washington knows best: “U.S. ban sought on cell phone use while driving” [Reuters, earlier here, here, here, etc.] More here; and LaHood spokesman says Reuters overstated his boss’s position.
- Janice Brown’s Hettinga opinion: Lithwick can’t abide “starkly ideological” judging of this sort, except of course when she favors it [Root, earlier] At Yale law conclave, legal establishment works itself into hysterical froth over individual mandate case [Michael Greve] And David Bernstein again corrects some Left commentators regarding the standing of child labor under the pre-New Deal Constitution;
- Latest antiquities battle: Feds, Sotheby’s fight over 1,000-year-old Khmer statue probably removed from Cambodia circa 1960s [VOA, Kent Davis]
- Sebelius surprised by firestorm over religious (non-) exemption, hadn’t sought written opinions as to whether it was constitutional [Becket, Maguire] Obamanauts misread the views of many Catholics on health care mandate [Potemra, NRO]
- “20 Years for Standing Her Ground Against a Violent Husband” [Jacob Sullum] How Trayvon Martin story moved through the press [Poynter] And Reuters’ profile of George Zimmerman is full of details one wishes reporters had brought out weeks ago;
- Coaching accident fraud is bad enough, making off with client funds lends that extra squalid touch [NYLJ]
- Kip Viscusi, “Does Product Liability Make Us Safer?” [Cato’s Regulation magazine, PDF]