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.

Randy Barnett and Ilya Shapiro on the pandemic and the Constitution is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Sincere apologies for destroying your house is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Friday at 1 p.m. Eastern: the novel coronavirus and the Constitution is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

• 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]

Supreme Court roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

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

Cato Supreme Court Review 2018-19 is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Cato Constitution Day video is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

August 20 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Mark your calendar: Cato’s Constitution Day Sept. 17 is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Supreme Court roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

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?

Justice Sotomayor on administrative law’s “stacked deck” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system