- Detroit: pension trustees’ sins come home to roost [Steve Malanga, City Journal; Aaron Renn/Urbanophile; Steven Greenhut (CALPERS next?)] Role of binding arbitration [Malanga, IBD]
- Since declaring bankruptcy San Bernardino has given police $2 million in raises [Scott Shackford] Twenty-eight members of Santa Monica police force made more than $200K last year [Ira Stoll, Future of Capitalism] “Do other big city balance sheets resemble Detroit’s?” [Public Sector Inc.]
- Phoenix firefighters sue insurance company over workers’ comp denials [ABC 15]
- Under new California law, county worker who stole $360,000 may forfeit pension [San Diego Union-Tribune]
- “Crime Rate in Camden, NJ Going Down After Unionized Police Force Sacked” [Ed Krayewski, Reason (“On any given day, 30 percent of the force was absent because of the liberal sick policies.”)]
- Trying to drop one’s membership in the Michigan Education Association can be a long-drawn business [Sean Higgins, Washington Examiner]
- Lawrence Harmon, Boston Globe; Police unions fight to protect even worst of bad apples [Greenhut, City Journal on California and use of “Brady lists”]
Posts Tagged ‘California’
Discrimination award $27K, attorneys’ fee award nearly $700K
A Ninth Circuit panel has ratified that result in a gender discrimination case under California law, ruling that federal district judge Claudia Wilken was within her discretion to approve the award even though, as defendant United Parcel Service argued, “plaintiff Kim Muniz recovered comparatively little in damages and had not prevailed on most of her claims.” [Julia Love, The Recorder; Muniz v. UPS]
Police and prosecution roundup
- Why license plate scanning is an up-and-coming front in the surveillance wars [Radley Balko]
- Prosecutor whose lapse sent innocent man to prison for 25 years will go to jail — for ten days [Adler, Shackford]
- “Nurse fights charges she helped father commit suicide” [Phil. Inq., Barbara Mancini case, via @maxkennerly]
- California inmates released, crime rates jump: a Brown v. Plata trainwreck? [Tamara Tabo, Heather Mac Donald/City Journal]
- Driver arrested under Ohio’s new law banning hidden compartments in cars even though he had nothing illicit in the compartment [Shackford] Tenaha, Tex. traffic stops, cont’d: “Give Us Cash or Lose Your Kids and Face Felony Charges: Don’t Cops Have Better Things to Do?” [Ted Balaker/Reason, earlier]
- Arizona Republic series on prosecutorial misconduct [4-parter]
- Few act as if they care about Mr. Martin-Oguike’s fate at hands of a false accuser [Scott Greenfield]
Labor and employment roundup
- Reminder: Second Amendment rights run against the government, not against your employer or other private parties [Eugene Volokh]
- Invasion of privacy? Employees continue to win awards and settlements by way of surreptitious recording devices in workplace [Jon Hyman]
- Gov. Brown signs bill creating overtime entitlement for California nannies, private health aides [Reuters, L.A. Times]
- Does rolling back a benefit under a public employee pension plan violate the Contracts Clause? [Alexander Volokh, Reason Foundation]
- Even as anti-bullying programs backfire, some propose extending them to workplace [Hans Bader, CEI, earlier]
- Background on Harris v. Quinn, SCOTUS case on herding family home carers into union fee arrangements [Illinois Review, earlier]
- “California unions target business-friendly Dems” [Steve Malanga]
“Live With a Foreigner Who Doesn’t Have a Green Card?…”
“…You Must Keep Your Guns Locked Up,” on pain of criminal punishment. At least that’s the import of an odd new California measure signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown. [Eugene Volokh]
Environmental roundup
- California: “Governor [Brown] signs Prop. 65 toxic chemical warning reform” [Sacramento Business Journal] What finally passed was a minuscule tweak mostly aimed at the law’s application to food and alcohol [Bruce Nye, Cal Biz Lit] Court helps in baby food case [JD Supra]
- “Taxpayer-Funded Journal Walks Back BPA Cancer Claim After Statistical Meltdown” [Trevor Butterworth]
- Recalling when the federal government (along with the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations] funded an attack on the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause [Gideon Kanner, more]
- CEQA reform [Calif. enviro review] in baby steps at most for now [SF Chronicle, Mercury News, L.A. StreetsBlog, Daily News, PublicCEO, Planetizen]
- Under decisions by the CPSC interpreting CPSIA, you’re probably not going to be able to make your product for kids out of recycled materials [Nancy Nord]
- “EPA Fares Well in D.C. Circuit” [Adler]
- Mandatory labeling of genetically modified foods are a bad idea [not just me saying that, but Scientific American editors; earlier]
Labor and employment roundup
- Defend yourself in the press against an employee’s litigation publicity, and you’ve “retaliated”? If you say so, Your Honor [Jon Hyman]
- Hijab-wearing applicant never informed Abercrombie she needed religious accommodation of Look Policy; 10th Circuit reverses EEOC win [Wolters Kluwer, EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch]
- What, no more drop-ins from other states? “Gov. Jerry Brown signs athlete workers’ comp bill” [L.A. Times, background]
- ProPublica on supposed decline and fall of employment class actions after Wal-Mart v. Dukes [Ted Frank, my take]
- How many online readers need to follow OFCCP press releases on federal-contractor law but have so little fluency in English that they require a version in Hmong, Lao, Tagalog, or Urdu? [Department of Labor]
- What happened to the carpal tunnel epidemic? The condition itself didn’t go away [Freakonomics via Ira Stoll]
- Gail Heriot on affirmative action at Cato Constitution Day [video]
October 7 roundup
- More regulation of online speech: what could go wrong? “‘Eraser’ law gives California teens the right to delete online posts” [ABA Journal, Eric Goldman, Scott Greenfield]
- Gov. Brown signs bill to grant law licenses in California to illegal immigrants [Reuters]
- “Court: website alleging police corruption shouldn’t have been shut down” [Ars Technica; Lafayette, Louisiana]
- License to speak: Eugene Volokh and Cato Institute challenge licensing of DC tour guides;
- Thanks to Keith Lee at Associates Mind for including us in list of recommended law sites;
- St. Paul disparate-impact housing controversy: “How Mischievous Obama Administration Officials Scuttled An Important Supreme Court Case” [Trevor Burrus, see also]
- Great circle of tax-funded life: public sector lobbying expenditures [Washington state via Tyler Cowen]
The California disease
“We once had to get something like 7 permits just to remove a dangerous and dilapidated deck. …Approximately the same expansion that cost us just under a million dollars in Alabama several years ago was going to cost over $5 million [in] Ventura County, and the County was still piling on requirements when we gave up. … Even as a service business we do a bit of this [manufacturing avoidance], no longer stick-building anything but having all our buildings, cabins, stores, etc built in Arizona as modular buildings and then shipped to California.” [Coyote]
Guns roundup
- On Tuesday, Sen. Dick Durbin convenes hearing intended to bash “Stand Your Ground,” ALEC, and anyone associated with either; keep an eye on the testimony of my Cato colleague Ilya Shapiro who may prove more than a match [Sun-Times, Tuccille, Keating; background; hearing now postponed] Accuracy problems dog Coalition to Stop Gun Violence on SYG [John Hinderaker, PowerLine] Demagoguing Lane, Belton slayings is no way to “balance” media skew on Martin/Zimmerman [Ann Althouse]
- Following “finger-gun” episode at another Maryland school: “Gun gesture leads to suspension for Calvert sixth-grader” [WaPo, earlier] Why a mom changed her mind on letting kid play with toy guns [C. Gross-Loh, The Atlantic]
- Advocacy play-by-play: “A how-to book on inciting a moral panic” [James Taranto]
- If you think gun liberties are shrinking overall in America, check out this map [Volokh] “Illinois Supreme Court: Second Amendment Protects Carrying Outside the Home” [Volokh] “Chicago abolishes gun registry in place since 1968” [Reuters]
- Forthcoming Nicholas Johnson book “Negroes and the Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms” [Law and Liberty]
- Database cross-checks put California on slippery slope confiscation-wise [Steven Greenhut]
- Cato amicus brief: Supreme Court should clarify that the Second Amendment “protects more than the right to keep a gun in one’s home.” [Shapiro, Cato; Woollard v. Gallagher, Maryland]