Yesterday by a 9-0 vote the Supreme Court agreed with a Cato amicus brief that the Securities and Exchange Commission has no power to seek fines or penalties after the statute of limitations has expired on challenged conduct by arguing that it did not discover the conduct until recently. I’ve got a discussion at Cato at Liberty. (& SCOTUSBlog, which also hosts this opinion analysis by Jonathan Macey)
Archive for February, 2013
Congress set to expand Violence Against Women Act
Because the important thing is to show that lawmakers have their hearts in the right place, which means not lingering over doubts about the constitutionality of the restrictions on speech or the implied rebuke to double-jeopardy norms or the nature of the delegation of federal power to tribal courts. Who cares about that stuff anyway when there’s a message to be sent about being tough on domestic violence?
P.S. In case you wondered, the U.N. is in favor.
To be jailed in Arizona for driving under the influence…
…you don’t actually need to have driven under the influence. If it’s an illegal substance, metabolites in your blood may suffice whether or not you were impaired at the time you actually did the driving. At least that’s the ruling of a state court of appeals; the Arizona Supreme Court could still reverse it. [John Ross/Reason, Scott Greenfield]
Canada high court upholds hate speech laws
In a serious blow to speech rights north of the border, the Supreme Court of Canada has upheld so-called hate speech laws as consistent with Canadian constitutional guarantees. The decision partially upheld the legal punishments applied by a Saskatchewan tribunal to a man who distributed anti-gay literature. [The Globe and Mail]
P.S. As has been pointed out, precedent in Canada on this issue was already pretty bad before the latest decision, so “serious blow” may not be the right phrase, except in the sense of hitting someone who’s already down. More: Howard Friedman via Volokh; Jacob Sullum.
Labor and employment roundup
- On minimum wage these days, Krugman lets politics sit in for economics [David Henderson] Minimum wage hikes don’t cost jobs? A notion so ideologically convenient just has to be true [Steve Chapman]
- “Is employment a ‘human right'”? [Richard Epstein, Hoover “Defining Ideas”]
- Project labor agreements are an unjustified giveaway in New Jersey’s post-Sandy reconstruction [Trey Kovacs, CEI Open Market]
- Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake proposes public pension reform [Baltimore Sun] Reality check on sunny New York projections [@NYDNHammond]
- Peter Kirsanow on EEOC crackdown on criminal background checks [Employee Screen]
- Three Missouri Dems favor bill making it felony for lawmakers to propose bills limiting union powers [Robby Soave, Daily Caller]
- Meet the brothers who are standing up to union violence in Philadelphia construction [Jillian Melchior, NR, earlier]
Better stay home with your parents, kid
Watch out for this soon to be up-and-coming Safety First proposal, as outlined by Vivian Hamilton of William and Mary Law: raising the driving age from 16 to 18. [Concurring Opinions]
New York Times Magazine versus snack foods
On Sunday the New York Times published a long, breathless screed attacking food company marketing (“Inside the hyper-engineered, savagely marketed, addiction-creating battle for ‘stomach share.'”) The article itself furnishes an example of empty, hype-fueled journalistic calories, or so I suggest in a new op-ed at the Daily Caller.
Judge orders man to take down Facebook comments critical of McDonald’s class action settlement
“Wayne County, Mich. Judge Kathleen MacDonald slapped a Dearborn man with an injunction ordering him to take down his Facebook comments critical of a class-action settlement of a case against McDonald’s for selling non-halal meat.” [Daniel Fisher, Forbes; Paul Alan Levy, Public Citizen; Ted Frank, PoL] More: Blue Dog Thoughts.
Koop on the medical-phthalate scare
“He would preach, ‘Try having a colonoscopy or dialysis without soft plastic tubing; or would you like a sigmoidoscopy with a steel tube?'” [ACSH]
Update: “slain in the Spirit” church suit settles
Following up on last January’s report: the Disciple Fellowship Christian Church of East St. Louis, Ill. has reportedly settled Cheryl Jones’s suit claiming that ushers were not properly provided to catch falling worshipers during a service in which congregants “received the Spirit”. Jones was injured when others fell on her. We have earlier reported on similar cases from Michigan, Oregon, Tennessee, and Australia. [Christina Stueve Hodges, Madison-St. Clair Record; update ($3K)]