- Michigan Supreme Court race: three seats at stake, including Stephen Markman’s [Charles Crumm/Mt. Pleasant Morning Sun, Collin Levy, WSJ]
- Notable state attorney general races include West Virginia, Missouri, Montana [Ballotpedia, Governing; Carrie Severino, NRO] Battle of the sleazy ads in Washington race [Seattle Times]
- “Fixed-income retiree” in Kaine ad turns out to be well-connected Virginia trial lawyer [Paul Bedard, Washington Examiner ] “33% of settlements is a fixed income, in a way” [Chris DeRose]
- Federal free-cellphone scheme enriches some political influentials [Washington Free Beacon]
- History of judicial elections in the US: rethinking the received account [Stuart Banner, Jotwell, on Jed Shugerman]
- After election, expect renewed push for limits on campaign spending [Ira Stoll]
- John Roberts’ doing? “Supreme Court not top campaign issue,” didn’t come up at debates [USA Today] Do libertarians fare better with Republican presidents’ Supreme Court picks, or just libertarian lawprofs? [Bernstein, Radia, etc.]
Archive for 2012
If a massive storm KO’s turnout in the Northeast…
…it’ll probably be the first time a lot of folks grasp one of the solid advantages of the Electoral College over a national popular vote system. (Background on the approaching Hurricane Sandy: “And with some trees still leafy and the potential for snow, power outages could last to Election Day, some meteorologists fear.”)
More: Derek Muller reviews Tara Ross, “Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College” [Law and Liberty]
“Offense 101”
A modest proposal for freshman orientation [Julian Sanchez] Separately, Greg Lukianoff is out with his much-awaited new book, “Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate” [Ken at Popehat, New York Times]. And a speech code at SUNY New Paltz warns “all members of the campus community” not to “discuss” material that “shows…aversion” to persons over 30 [Volokh]
October 26 roundup
- Remembering George McGovern: “The endless exposure to frivolous claims and high legal fees is frightening” [Bob Dorigo Jones]
- “One student was told she couldn’t cast a vote for homecoming queen unless she submitted to the tracking regime.” [CNet via Doctorow, BoingBoing]
- Couple says law firm sued them following crash of RV they’d sold months earlier [Chamber-backed Southeast Texas Record]
- L.A. city council moves to ban pet stores [L.A. Times via Amy Alkon]
- “Willie Gary’s law firm ordered to pay $12.5 m to lender” [Nate Raymond, Reuters] Touring the tasteful promotional materials of longtime Overlawyered favorite Gary [Above the Law]
- Further debunkings of Lilly Ledbetter narrative [Victoria Toensing, Adler, more, earlier] And fact-checking PolitiFact could turn into a full-time job; Hans Bader is still on the case [CEI]
- Fifth Circuit panel backs Louisiana monks’ right to produce handcrafted caskets [NOLA.com, Ilya Shapiro/Cato, earlier]
Mistrial in Teresa Wagner case
“A federal jury rejected Teresa Wagner’s First Amendment claim that the University of Iowa College of Law denied her a faculty position due to her conservative politics, but deadlocked over her Equal Protection claim that she was passed over in favor of less qualified candidates. The U.S. Magistrate Judge declared a mistrial on the 14th Amendment claim.” [Paul Caron, TaxProf, with many links; earlier here, etc.; Bainbridge, more, related on faculty political leanings]
I appeared in the press a fair bit commenting on the case, including Blaze TV (above) and Iowa Public Radio as well as stories in the Daily Iowan, AP, the New York Times and elsewhere.
“Yale’s New Low and the Sad Saga of Wendy Murphy”
If Yale is any example, universities are surrendering without much of a fight to the Obama administration’s demands that they not give overmuch due process to students and faculty charged with sexual misconduct. And why does the press persist in treating as perfectly respectable Wendy Murphy, the oft-refuted roving criminal justice commentator and occasional Title IX complainant? [KC Johnson, Minding the Campus, earlier]
Economic incentives and the Aqueduct horse deaths
In the New York Daily News, Lawrence Cunningham argues that skewed economic incentives — some of them advanced by the actions of federal prosecutors, who applied muscle in a tax-fraud settlement to press for the casino-ization of Aqueduct Race Track — contributed to the deaths of 21 racehorses, most of whom were entered in races with purses artificially inflated so as far to exceed their own economic worth. “Politicians and prosecutors should not direct business changes without understanding their significance. What’s happening to the horses at Aqueduct could have been prevented.”
Law schools roundup
- U. Miami: “Law School Email Draws Fire Amid Hotly Contested Retention Election for 3 Top Florida Judges” [ABA Journal, earlier on election]
- Janet Jenkins sues Liberty U. School of Law, charging assistance to custody-nappers; school describes suit as baseless [ABA Journal, earlier on Miller-Jenkins custody case]
- “Maybe a lawprof is not what you want in a politician. And yet, Bill Clinton was a lawprof. So was Hillary Clinton. And there are different types of lawprofs. They don’t all listen, give ground, and offer complex caveats!” [Ann Althouse]
- “Former law student became a chronic litigant” [Boston Globe]
- Andrew Morriss on Tamanaha’s Failing Law Schools [Liberty Law]
- “Institute for Humane Studies Webcast on the Pros and Cons of Law School” [Ilya Somin]
- Fred Rodell knew: reasons not to write law review articles [Matthew Salzwedel, Lawyerist] What a rising law professor should put in a book review [Pierre Schlag via Prof. Bainbridge]
- Bradley C.S. Watson on law school progressivism [National Review, pay site, mentions Schools for Misrule]
Update: New York high court rules 4-3 that lap dances are not “art”
Paul Caron, TaxProf, on one of the more closely watched tax rulings. Earlier here.
“‘Donations’ to state agency let landlords avoid charges”
Between 2006 and 2011 the Iowa Civil Rights Commission engaged in a practice of filing housing discrimination charges against landlords, which it would then settle through “donations” that went directly to the commission rather than the state’s general fund, reports Jason Clayworth at the Des Moines Register. “The requests came after sting operations in which representatives of the commission would, for example, pose as prospective tenants and tell landlords over the phone that they needed a service dog for anxiety reasons and quiz them as to whether a pet deposit would apply to them.”