Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Archive for March, 2013

C-SPAN2 video of today’s marriage panel

It’s not embeddable, but here’s a link to a video (may not work in all browsers) of today’s panel on the Marriage Cases at Cato, with Evan Wolfson of Freedom to Marry, former Republican National Committee chair Ken Mehlman, and Cato’s Ilya Shapiro, with me as moderator.

P.S. Okay, now we’ve got a proper video up:

Alternative video at Cato site (parts one, two). Coverage: Luca Gattoni-Celli, American Spectator; Lou Chibbaro Jr., Washington Blade; Kevin Glass, TownHall.com; Adam Polaski, Freedom to Marry.

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“Three cheers for autonomy”

A Bowdoin professor named Sarah Conly has written a book called Against Autonomy: Justifying Coercive Paternalism, and recently took to the pages of the New York Times to argue (which sounds consistent with the book’s thesis) in favor of the Bloomberg soda ban and other interventions. Cato’s Trevor Burrus takes exception and perhaps indicating how extreme Conly’s positions are, even Cass Sunstein declines to get on board.

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Free speech roundup

  • Alarms re: proposed new UK code to regulate press, both print and electronic [John O’Sullivan, Andrew Stuttaford] “Why we won’t sign the press-regulation Charter” [The Spectator: Nick Cohen]
  • Also from the UK: “Police investigate Conservative MP Tim Loughton for calling man ‘unkempt'” [Telegraph]
  • “Teenager arrested for tweeting rap lyric containing the word ‘homicide.'” [Ann Althouse]
  • “CNN Argues that Requiring Captioning of Web Videos Would Violate Free Speech” [Disability Law, Courthouse News; more on new web accessibility push]
  • Administrator at Yeshiva U. hires lawyer to get posts removed from prominent law blogs, Streisand Effect ensues [Scott Greenfield]
  • Philly Mayor Michael Nutter sends letter to city human relations commission demanding investigation of Philadelphia Magazine for publishing article he dislikes [Ken at Popehat, Hans Bader]

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Environment roundup

  • Doughnut oil and the environment: NYT misses a story of unintended consequences [Ira Stoll, SmarterTimes]
  • N.C.: “Guy Who Runs Wilderness Camp Told to Install Sprinklers, Use County Approved Lumber” [Katherine Mangu-Ward]
  • “With Proposed Policy Change, EPA Fully Embraces Role of ‘Environmental Justice’ Advocate” [Cory Andrews, WLF]
  • “While the taxes… are irritating, what has really killed my interest in expanding in California is the regulatory burden.” [Coyote on SLOLeaks blog; another California Coastal Commission horror story]
  • Natural crop breeding = safe, biotech-assisted breeding = unsafe? Tale of the toxic potato teaches otherwise [Maggie Koerth-Baker, BoingBoing] (broken link fixed now)
  • Peak Oil? Welcome instead to Trough Oil, as titanic new fossil fuel supplies begin coming online [Andrew Sullivan]
  • Deregulation of accessory dwellings is a reform both free-marketeers and New Urbanists in search of density can get behind [David Alpert, Greater Greater Washington]

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Supreme Court marriage cases: the week ahead

  • If you didn’t see my Saturday post previewing the DOMA and Prop 8 cases that reach the Supreme Court this week, I’ve now got a virtually identical version up at the Cato blog.
  • On Wednesday, immediately after the Court’s oral argument in Windsor, I’ll be moderating a panel at Cato with former Republican National Committee head Ken Mehlman (NPR profile), Freedom to Marry founder Evan Wolfson (BuzzFeed profile), and Cato’s Ilya Shapiro (AFF profile). Details and RSVP here. If you’re in DC, don’t miss it! If not, watch live online at www.cato.org/live and comment via #CatoEvents.
  • A collection of links on the cases is currently headlining the Cato website.
  • I’ll be speaking Wednesday evening about the cases before the Washington, D.C. chapter of Log Cabin Republicans. I also expect to be doing some national broadcast commentary — details to follow.
  • Last week I spoke at a panel in Cato’s social media series with Jimmy LaSalvia (GOProud) and Trevor Burrus (Cato) on conservatives and same-sex marriage, on topics that included the changing poll numbers and demographics. Aside from going through my analysis of November’s election results, I commented on various aspects of the debate such as the difference between civil and religious marriage (“the same as that between a birth certificate and a christening,” I like to say), the non-connectedness of the gay marriage and abortion issues (on which many others seem to agree with me), and the issue of religious exemptions (“As libertarians, we’re ahead of the curve in considering how anti-discrimination law can trample freedom of conscience.”) No video at the moment.
  • By coincidence, that panel happened to be scheduled against a crosstown event making the opposite case at the Heritage Foundation, which suffice it to say is at a very different place from Cato on this topic. On the question of using 11-year-olds to try to tear down other people’s families, by the way, Rob Tisinai at Box Turtle Bulletin has a nice pre-rejoinder to Heritage: “But Gracie, no one is trying to take one of *your* parents away.”
  • I couldn’t help noticing the following from a March 22 Clarus survey of U.S. voters:

    “Do you think each individual state should be allowed to decide whether same-sex couples can legally marry, or not?”

    Should 53%
    Should not 45%

    “Do you think same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, or not?”

    Do 53%
    Do not 43%

    If these figures are to be credited, at least 6% of the voting public (and possibly much more) overlappingly believes both that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, and that “each individual state should be allowed to decide” on that same question. I think it may be time for a refresher course in constitutional law.

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OMG NYT OKs GMOs

“[T]here is no reliable evidence that genetically modified foods now on the market pose any risk to consumers,” says an editorial in, of all places, the New York Times. [“Why Label Genetically Engineered Food?“]

And while on the subject of publications outperforming expectations, Slate features a sober look at “cancer clusters,” with George Johnson reviewing a new book on the Toms River, N.J. episode.

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