Posts Tagged ‘Cato Institute’

Randy Barnett and Ilya Shapiro on the pandemic and the Constitution

One you won’t want to miss if you’re following the constitutional issues arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. From the Cato description:

Seven weeks into nationwide shutdowns, people are feeling restless. Have some governors and mayors gone too far, as a constitutional matter, in telling people to leave public parks, roping off “nonessential” goods in big-box stores, and other examples that have gotten national attention? What about prohibiting gatherings that exceed some maximum number of people but enforce social-distancing norms? Now that the debate has shifted to “opening up,” what legal considerations should state officials be taking into account? Can we be required to wear masks in public? For that matter, even if the president doesn’t have total authority to decide when to reopen, does the federal government have a role to play beyond pushing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration on the development of tests and vaccines? Should there be different treatment of people in or from hot spots such as New York City, either by other states or the federal government? Please join constitutional scholar Randy Barnett, in conversation with Ilya Shapiro, for an online forum to discuss these and other issues.

More on the Constitution and the coronavirus in this earlier Cato panel discussion, as well as here, here, here (religious liberty), here.

Sincere apologies for destroying your house

As police battle a Colorado criminal on the loose, the home of innocent bystanders is destroyed. City of Greenwood Village to owners: rough luck, we know, but we don’t owe you anything for that loss. Or might the Supreme Court want to view that as a taking for which fair compensation is owed under the Fifth Amendment? Ilya Shapiro, Trevor Burrus, and Michael Collins on the Cato Institute’s certiorari amicus brief in Lech v. Jackson; Ilya Somin (yes, the oft-confused Ilyas were both involved).

Supreme Court roundup

A Cato-centric selection:

  • Massachusetts bans the most popular variety of self-defense firearms and that violates the Second Amendment, as SCOTUS should make clear [Ilya Shapiro and James T. Knight II on Cato Institute amicus brief in Worman v. Healey] Congress has never passed a law criminalizing the accessories known as bump stocks and the Executive branch can’t change that on its own [Trevor Burrus and James Knight, Guedes v. BATF]
  • Three more Cato certiorari amicus briefs: With return of Little Sisters case, Court should make clear that scope of accommodation under Religious Freedom Restoration Act is not for executive agencies to expand and contract accordion-like [Ilya Shapiro and Sam Spiegelman] Berkeley, Calif.’s ordinance requiring disclosure of the purported risks of cell phone radio frequency (RF) exposure poses First Amendment questions of forced commercial speech [Ilya Shapiro and Michael Collins on return to SCOTUS of CTIA v. Berkeley] Supreme Court has rejected attempt to use Alien Tort Statute to assert universal jurisdiction over human-rights abuses in overseas business, but Ninth Circuit still hasn’t gotten the message [Ilya Shapiro and Dennis Garcia, Nestle v. Doe]
  • Summing up the last Court term: speech by Miguel Estrada and a short video with Ilya Shapiro for the Federalist Society;
  • “Fearful that the Supreme Court will reject a broad interpretation of the CWA’s [Clean Water Act’s] scope, environmentalist groups have been seeking to settle the Maui case before the Court rules.” [Jonathan Adler on Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund]
  • Another case of surprise plain meaning? Advocates argue that Congress didn’t really end Indian reservation status for much of the state of Oklahoma even if everyone at the time thought it did [Will Baude on Sharp v. Murphy; earlier on surprise plain meaning]
  • “An Introduction to Constitutional Law: 100 Supreme Court Cases Everyone Should Know” [new book by Randy Barnett and Josh Blackman; described here, and discussed in this Cato video]

Cato Supreme Court Review 2018-19

The full Cato Supreme Court Review for the 2018-19 term can be read here, with an introduction by Trevor Burrus. Among this year’s highlights: Michael McConnell on the Maryland Peace Cross case and government-sponsored religious symbols, Bruce Kobayashi and Joshua Wright on the Apple indirect-purchaser antitrust case, Braden Boucek on the Tennessee liquor Commerce Clause case, and Simon Lecturer George Will on “The Insufficiently Dangerous Branch.”

Or listen to a Cato audio with Trevor Burrus, Ilya Shapiro, and Caleb Brown:

Cato Constitution Day video

The video of Cato’s 18th Constitution Day forum, held September 17, is now online, with a line-up of eminent speakers including Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSBlog, Jan Crawford of CBS News, and Judge Thomas Hardiman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, who in the annual B. Kenneth Simon Lecture discussed judicial independence and service during good behavior. I moderate the third panel, on Property Rights, Antitrust, and the Census.

August 20 roundup

  • UK: “British newspapers can legitimately mock parrots and compare them to psychopaths, the press regulator has ruled, after an unsuccessful complaint that the Daily Star misrepresented the emotions of a pet bird.” [Jim Waterson, Guardian]
  • Cato scholars regularly crisscross the country talking to students. Book one (maybe me) at your campus this Fall [Cato Policy Report]
  • Local-government preemption, single-use plastics, lemonade stands, Sen. Cardin on redistricting: my new post at Free State Notes recounts my experience attending the Maryland Association of Counties summer conference;
  • Can a police officer be criminally prosecuted for refusing to risk his life to stop a school shooter? [Eugene Volokh on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School case]
  • I’m quoted on press freakout over new proposed religious liberty regs: “This is a narrowly drawn rule for a minority of federal contractors. It’s really not that radical and not that new.” [Brad Palumbo, Washington Examiner]
  • Beware proposals that would transform antitrust law into general bludgeon for avenging all sorts of grievance against big business [Glenn Lammi, WLF]

Supreme Court roundup

  • Cato batted 12-4 in Supreme Court term that saw Kavanaugh agreeing nearly as often with Kagan as with Gorsuch [Ilya Shapiro; another roundup of the recently concluded term from Jonathan Adler]
  • Not only is Alan Dershowitz wrong about Supreme Court review of impeachment, he’s wrong in a way that practically invites constitutional crisis [Keith Whittington]
  • High court declines certiorari in challenge to Wisconsin butter grading law [Ilya Shapiro and Matt Larosiere, Mark Arnold, Husch Blackwell with update, earlier here and here]
  • “The John Marshall Legacy: A Conversation with Richard Brookhiser” [Law and Liberty audio on new biography; Federalist Society panel with Brookhiser, Hon. Kyle Duncan, Hon. Kevin Newsom, and David Rifkin, moderated by Hon. William Pryor]
  • I’m quoted on Gundy v. U.S., the improper-delegation case: “While the Court majority did not agree this time, the line-up suggests breakthrough imminent” [Nicole Russell, Washington Examiner] From some quarters on the Left, rage at the Supreme Court that got away [Ilya Shapiro at P.J. O’Rourke online magazine American Consequences]
  • “Supreme Court Returns Constitutional Patent Case to Sender” [Gregory Dolin, Cato] on Return Mail v. U.S. Postal Service, earlier on dangers when federal agencies litigate before federal agency tribunals]

Justice Sotomayor on administrative law’s “stacked deck”

Last week the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Return Mail Inc. v. USPS, posing the patent law issue (to quote SCOTUSBlog) of “Whether the government is a ‘person’ who may petition to institute review proceedings under the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act.” On pp. 30-31 of the transcript, Justice Sonia Sotomayor referred favorably to the Cato Institute’s brief on the unique dangers that can arise when federal agencies litigate before tribunals operated by federal agencies.

And that wasn’t even the best part! This was, from her comments immediately afterward, on the failure of the law to specify whether the word “person” includes the government:

It does seem like the deck is stacked against a private citizen who is dragged into these proceedings. They’ve got an executive agency acting as judge with an executive director who can pick the judges, who can substitute judges, can reexamine what those judges say, and change the ruling, and you’ve got another government agency being the prosecutor at the same time.

In those situations, shouldn’t you have a clear and express rule?