Posts Tagged ‘wayward Republicans’

Liability roundup

June 21 roundup

  • “Law Professors: Three Centuries of Shaping American Law”: The Economist favorably reviews new Stephen Presser book;
  • Profile of Texas Supreme Court notes that its members regularly face opposition at election time from alliance of plaintiffs’ bar with some social conservatives [Mark Pulliam]
  • 10 lawyers, 6 others charged in alleged workers’ comp fraud scheme targeting Latinos in California [Associated Press]
  • Employee’s ADA case against Novartis backfires, court orders her to pay nearly $2 million; her attorney quit case after discrepancies in her background were discovered [Kathleen O’Brien, NJ.com]
  • To protect the children, feds ban a product one of whose functions is to keep drugs out of hands of children [Christian Britschgi, Reason]
  • Budget choices and trade-offs faced by advocacy groups don’t give them constitutionally required standing to sue [Daniel E. Jones and Archis Parasharami, WLF]

Politics roundup

  • Vice presidential candidate Bill Weld, at Libertarian ticket town hall with Gary Johnson: trade war that followed Smoot-Hawley tariff “croaked the world economy.” Points for using “croaked” in a policy debate [CNN transcript]
  • Litigator in chief? USA Today deep dive on Donald Trump’s lawsuit involvements including non-payment and tax categories [earlier]
  • Lawyers and law firms had given 350 times more to pro-Clinton than pro-Trump efforts as of late May [American Lawyer, graphic] Should a lawyer work for Trump? [Josh Blackman]
  • Be warned. “If Congress refuses to act, Hillary will take administrative action” against guns, her campaign vows [J.D. Tuccille]
  • Raises interesting constitutional issues whatever one’s views of a #NeverTrump revolt [Washington Examiner]
  • Trial lawyer/social conservative slate bid to control Texas GOP goes down in flames. [Texas Tribune, earlier]

Politics roundup

  • Disparage at thy peril: three Democratic lawmakers demand FTC investigation of private group that purchased $58,000 in ads disparaging CFPB, a government agency [ABC News] So many politicos targeting their opponents’ speech these days [Barton Hinkle]
  • A pattern we’ve seen over the years: promoting himself as outspoken social conservative, trial lawyer running for chairman of Republican Party of Texas [Mark Pulliam, SE Texas Record]
  • Some of which goes to union political work: “Philly Pays $1.5 Million to ‘Ghost Teachers'” [Evan Grossman, Pennsylvania Watchdog via Jason Bedrick]
  • “However objectionable one might find Trump’s rhetoric, the [event-disrupting] protesters are in the wrong.” [Bill Wyman/Columbia Journalism Review, earlier]
  • Hillary Clinton’s connections to Wal-Mart go way back, and hooray for that [Ira Stoll and column]
  • I went out canvassing GOP voters in Maryland before the primary. Here’s what they told me. [Ricochet]

Texas: a ploy fails

“Flush with trial lawyer cash, the PAC’s public face is ‘Texans 4 Justice,’ which portrays itself as a conservative grassroots group.” It didn’t work: Texas GOP primary voters yesterday returned incumbent Supreme Court justices. [Texas Observer, Houston Chronicle, earlier]

Related: Plaintiff’s lawyer Steve Mostyn, “omnipresent” in Austin, and his involvement with “Conservative Voters of Texas” [Chamber-backed Legal NewsLine]

Public employment roundup

  • “Retirement benefits cost Connecticut more than half of payroll” [Raising Hale] Jagadeesh Gokhale, “State and Local Pension Plans” [Cato] “In the report Krugman cites, the researchers note (repeatedly) that the trillion-dollar figure is very likely a dramatic understatement of the size of the unmet liability.” [Caleb Brown]
  • California: “Bill would reinstate state workers who go AWOL” [Steven Greenhut]
  • Eyebrow-raising federal salaries at unaccountable-by-design CFPB [John Steele Gordon, Commentary]
  • “North Carolina Ends Teacher Tenure” [Pew StateLine]
  • Not all states would benefit from a dose of Scott Walkerism, but Massachusetts would [Charles Chieppo, Governing]
  • “Prison Ordered to Hire Back Guards Fired over an Officer’s Murder Because Everybody Else Was Awful, Too” [Scott Shackford]
  • “New York State Lags on Firing Workers Who Abuse Disabled Patients” [Danny Hakim, New York Times] NYC educators accused of sex misconduct can dig in for years [New York Daily News]
  • “Pennsylvania’s GOP: Rented by Unions” [Steve Malanga, Public Sector Inc.] NYC’s Working Families Party expands into Connecticut [Daniel DiSalvo, same]

Not-so-new frontiers of privatization

Half a century ago, selling the Tennessee Valley Authority was regarded as a free-marketeers’ politically impossible dream. Now guess who’s for it — and who’s against. (Hint on the latter: R-Tenn.) [Knoxville News via Future of Capitalism]

P.S. More on this welcome Obama initiative from Chris Edwards: “former Cato chairman Bill Niskanen was barred by Congress for even looking into TVA reform when he was on President Reagan’s CEA.” So progress marches on. And: Fortune 1933 article on TVA.

Copyright and D.C. lobbying: that was fast

The House Republican Study Committee calls for reconsideration of over-restrictive copyright law, then un-calls for it a day later [TechDirt, rueful update; Alex Tabarrok]

P.S. And check out this upcoming Dec. 6 Cato discussion of the newly published Copyright Unbalanced: From Incentive To Excess (Mercatus Center; Jerry Brito, ed.)

June 28 roundup

  • Cato Institute settles lawsuit over its governance [Adler]
  • As regulators crack down on payday lending, Indian tribes fill the gap [Business Week] Tribal leaders say they are at war with the CFPB, and no, there is no Elizabeth Warren angle [Kevin Funnell]
  • “SEA LAWYER. A shark.” [1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue via Nancy Friedman]
  • Trial lawyers in Oklahoma, as in Texas and Florida, endow slate of favored GOP candidates [Tulsa World]
  • Simple reforms could ease path to more interstate adoptions of foster kids [Jeff Katz, Washington Post]
  • “Can you say ‘overzealous service mark claimant’?” [@internetcases]
  • “Today, anyone can sue anyone else, regardless of how ridiculous the claim may be. But it wasn’t always like this.” [Don Elliott, The Atlantic]

June 11 roundup

  • Nortel portfolio now used for offense: “How Apple and Microsoft Armed 4,000 Patent Warheads” [Wired]
  • Via Bill Childs: “This shows up in Google News despite fact that it’s lawyer advertising.” [TheDenverChannel.com] At “public interest watchdog” FairWarning.org, who contributed this article about Canadian asbestos controversies? Byline credits a law firm;
  • Another Bloomberg crackdown in NYC: gender-differential pricing in haircuts and other services [Mark Perry]
  • A “Pro-Business Regulation Push” from Obama White House? Oh, Bloomberg Business Week, sometimes you can be so droll [Future of Capitalism]
  • “Trial Lawyers’ Support of Republican Candidates Yields Less Than Stellar Results” [Morgan Smith, NY Times; Examiner editorial; more from TLRPac on Texas election results]
  • “Community banks to Congress: you’re crushing us” [Kevin Funnell]
  • If an emergency injunction could stop one reality-TV show, why couldn’t it stop them all? [Hollywood Reporter]