Under a bill that passed the state legislature with little opposition and now heads to the desk of Gov. John Bel Edwards (D), Louisiana “is poised to become the first [state] in the nation where public-safety personnel will be a protected class under hate-crime law.” That will bring us much closer to the end of all principled conservative opposition to hate-crime laws, so thanks for nothing, Louisiana. [New Orleans Times-Picayune, Washington Post] My case against the idea, which has been pushed by the Fraternal Order of Police union, is here.
Archive for May, 2016
House Judiciary: freeze that slush
The House Judiciary Committee, by an 18-6 vote, has given its approval to the Stop Settlement Slush Funds Act of 2016, which would curtail the Department of Justice’s practice of using legal settlements to funnel money to favored groups [Rep. Bob Goodlatte press release, Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz, Dan Lungren testimony, U.S. Chamber] Earlier here (Randal John Meyer), here, etc.
Campus free expression roundup
- 21 professors, including Bartholet, Epstein, and McConnell, write letter to Department of Education Office of Civil Rights [OCR] challenging its directives on campus sexual harassment [Ashe Schow, Washington Examiner] Student suing Colorado State over multi-year suspension adds OCR as a defendant [Scott Greenfield; more, George Will]
- President Obama has been saying things students need to hear about intellectual freedom at commencements [Howard and Rutgers, Jonathan Adler] “Does Obama understand that his own government is responsible for the safe-space phenomenon he frequently decries?” [Robby Soave]
- Protesters these days disrupting and physically shutting down a lot of pro-Israel campus speeches and events on US campuses [Observer; UC Irvine]
- “Jokes, insensitive remarks, size-ist posters”: from a distance the doings of the University of Oregon’s Bias Response Team can seem kind of hilarious. Maybe not up close [Robby Soave/Reason, Catherine Rampell/Washington Post] “Towson U. [Maryland public university] implements ‘hate/bias’ reporting system to ensure ‘anti-racist campus climate’” [The College Fix]
- Read and marvel at the arguments being deployed against Prof. Dale Carpenter’s proposal for bolstering free expression at the University of Minnesota [Susan Du, City Pages] “Why Free Speech Matters on Campus” [Michael Bloomberg and Charles Koch]
- Faculty at George Mason University law school unanimously affirm commitment to renaming school after Justice Antonin Scalia [Lloyd Cohen, Michael Greve]
Climate advocacy as “racketeering”: they knew
They knew, because their own allies had told them: “As you know, deception/disinformation isn’t itself a basis for criminal prosecution under RICO.” — an official of the Union of Concerned Scientists, writing to the organizers of a campaign to enlist scientists behind a call for a RICO investigation of the fossil fuel industry for its statements about climate change. The letter added, explaining UCS’s unwillingness to back the letter, “We don’t think that Sen. [Sheldon] Whitehouse’s call gives enough of a basis for scientists to sign on to this as a solid approach at this point.” [Reason]
Despite cautions like these, calls for a RICO investigation soon caught on among the political class and an investigation launched by Democratic state attorneys general has now aimed dragnet climate subpoenas at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and, thus far less directly, at nearly 100 advocacy, free-market, and university-based groups. “These include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, the George Mason University Law and Economics Center, the American Enterprise Institute, the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, the Cato Institute [which publishes Overlawyered], the National Black Chamber of Commerce, the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, the Heritage Foundation, and on and on,” writes Ronald Bailey. CEI responded to the subpoena here (in a brief written by Andrew Grossman) and here, and on May 13 Cohen Milstein, the private contingency-fee law firm representing the attorney general of the Virgin Islands, responded, reserving the right to compel compliance with the subpoena, which demands the production of ten years’ worth of documents.
Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are among public figures who have backed calls for a racketeering investigation of fossil fuel companies’ participation in climate debates. I have found no evidence that either has expressed concern about the direction in which such investigations are headed.
Federal judge: DoJ lawyers told untruths, need ethics classes
A federal judge has handed down one of the most spectacular rebukes in memory to the courtroom conduct of the U.S. Department of Justice [DOJ], for hiding the ball in a challenge to the administration’s DAPA immigration initiative. Writes Ilya Shapiro:
[Judge] Hanen’s remedy consists of five components:
(1) all the lawyers at DOJ headquarters who litigate in the 26 states that challenged DAPA (most of them) have to go back to school for an annual ethics course taught by an outside expert;
(2) DOJ has to certify annually for five years that these lawyers are indeed going to school;
(3) the attorney general must report within 60 days “a comprehensive plan to prevent this unethical conduct from ever occurring again,” and “what steps she is taking to ensure that . . . the Justice Department trial lawyers tell the truth — the entire truth.”; …
Declaring that the lawyers had acted in “bad faith” and that their “conduct is certainly not worthy of any department whose name includes the word ‘Justice,'” Hanen added: “The court does not have the power to disbar the counsel in this case, but it does have the power to revoke the pro hac vice status of out-of-state lawyers who act unethically in court.” [Joel Gehrke, Washington Examiner; Josh Blackman, NRO] But see: Orin Kerr asks whether the order exceeds the court’s jurisdiction.
An on-the-clock future for white-collar work in America?
Welcome to Thomas Perez’s new on-the-clock white-collar workplace, in which employers will be under the legal gun to monitor lunch breaks, revoke permission to telecommute, disallow “comp time” setups allowing a day with the kids, and forbid email or company-cellphone use after business hours. I’ve got a link-heavy new post at Cato surveying the damage after the Department of Labor’s final adoption of its new overtime rules, much criticized already in this space. The press is already reporting on the business consequences.
Maryland Gov. Hogan signs forfeiture reform
Gov. Larry Hogan yesterday signed an important package of reforms to forfeiture law in Maryland. Applause to all who helped make this happen, including Sen. Michael Hough, Rob Peccola and Lee McGrath of the Institute for Justice, and Gov. Hogan.
P.S. Some coverage of a January press event in which I participated at the Capitol, calling attention to the case for asset forfeiture reform in Maryland: Frederick News-Post, Maryland Reporter, WBAL. [cross-posted from Free State Notes]
Supreme Court and constitutional law roundup
- Cato files amicus in “hydroponic gear + discarded tea leaves = raid their house” case [Ilya Shapiro and Randal John Meyer, earlier on Harte v. Johnson County, Kansas Commissioners]
- Call off contest for most wrongheaded op-ed about SCOTUS vacancy, clear winner has emerged [Gregory Diskant]
- “If police tell you about a good body shop after an accident, beware this one thing.” [@clickbaitSCOTUS on Ocasio v. U.S.]
- “Maryland Court Suppresses Evidence Gathered By Warrantless Stingray Use” [Tim Cushing, TechDirt]
- Evenwel v. Abbott: “Supreme Court Leaves Meaning of ‘One-Person, One-Vote’ Unclear” [Ilya Shapiro/Cato, earlier]
- Ripeness is all: Thomas/Kennedy dissent in Arrigoni Enterprises v. Town of Durham will excite inverse taking mavens [Gideon Kanner]
- Some reactions to Donald Trump’s release of a list of 11 judges he’d consider for SCOTUS nominations [Ilya Shapiro, Volokh Conspiracy quartet of Eugene Volokh, Jonathan Adler, Orin Kerr, Ilya Somin; Justice Don Willett‘s online humor has not spared Trump]
ALI turns down proposal to redefine criminal sexual assault
“In a rebuke to a feminist idea that has migrated from college campuses to mainstream culture, an influential legal group overwhelmingly rejected Tuesday a provision that would have endorsed an ‘affirmative consent’ standard for the purpose of defining sexual assault.” [Bradford Richardson, Washington Times] The American Law Institute proposals, which would have significantly expanded the definition of criminal sexual assault, had drawn sustained criticism from some civil libertarians [Stuart Taylor, Jr., John Fund, Ashe Schow/Washington Examiner; more, Scott Greenfield first and second posts] The ALI project in general is supposed to be aimed at restating courts’ current consensus in applying and interpreting the law, but often becomes the scene of efforts to tug the law in one direction or another. “Affirmative consent” has made inroads as a standard in the college disciplinary setting.
Sweden: image vs. reality
Please update your mental image of Scandinavian policy: “Being more like modern Sweden actually means deregulation, free trade, a national school voucher system, partially privatized pensions, no property tax, no inheritance tax, and much lower corporate taxes. Sorry to burst your bubble, Bernie.” [Johan Norberg, Reason; Daniel Mitchell, Cato]
While we’re at it, Sweden has fewer than one-sixth as many lawyers per capita as the U.S., in part because its rules of civil procedure are drawn so to discourage needless legal combat.