Archive for January, 2013

Jeopardy: “New York Times editorials” for $100

A. “Buried in the middle of the penultimate paragraph.”

Q. “Where, amid a long rant against the D.C. Circuit’s decision striking down most recess appointments by the President (“A Court Upholds Republican Chicanery”), would you expect the Times to concede that the practice of holding pro forma sessions to stymie such appointments was pioneered under Democratic Senate rule as a way of restraining President George W. Bush?

No prizes, as distinct from amusement value, in demonstrating what the New York Times thought of the practice back then.

More on the Canning v. NLRB decision: Trevor Burrus/Cato, massive link roundup at How Appealing, John Elwood, Point of Law roundtable, Michael Fox/Employer’s Lawyer (implications for NLRB), @markcalabria (implications for Richard Cordray CFPB appointment), Michael Greve, Mike Rappaport.

Defending the filibuster, and being consistent about it

My colleague John Samples argues for the venerable instrument of Senate obstruction [Philadelphia Inquirer] And some sort of prize should go to Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) who chided “one of the major newspapers in our country” — he probably meant the New York Times — for siding with anti-filibuster Democratic ultras this time around, though it had taken exactly the opposite position when Republicans controlled the Senate. “We’ve got to be consistent.” [Dave Weigel]

Product liability roundup

Should the state pay the legal defense costs of acquitted criminal defendants?

Scott Greenfield, contra Radley Balko, believes the idea would prove “problematic, if not disastrous,” in real life, especially if enacted in the form of two-way fee-shifting (as distinct from a one-way fee payable only to defendants). It is worth noting that although legal systems around the world predominantly embrace loser-pays principles in civil litigation between private parties, they more or less uniformly decline to carry a similar principle over to criminal prosecution.