Free speech roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Ron Paul campaign sues John Does over anti-Huntsman video is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

On the same day they sponsored a closed-door briefing for Hill staffers which was billed as correcting supposed misreporting and confusion about the law and its onerousness. Such briefings are common when members’ offices are being hit by a torrent of constituent inquiries and want to know how to respond.

An editor at a large publication has asked me to write something about these new developments, so I’ll be working on that piece over the next day or two. In the mean time, let me recommend as a good place to start two excellent blog posts by Rick Woldenberg of Learning Resources Inc. (first, second).

The first post responds to the apparent new strategy of Waxman and Co. of proposing to exempt a couple of categories of generally safe products (ordinary children’s books, fabric-only garments with no plastic or metal fasteners) in the apparent hope that 1) Congress will look like it’s reasonable and “trying to do something”; 2) a few of the more visible (and politically salient) critics of CPSIA will be placated, at least for the moment. (One might add a third objective, whether consciously formulated or not: running the clock until Feb. 10 in the expectation that many of those protesting will at that point be out of the game — no longer in the kids’ product business — and so in less of a position to cause them political mischief.)

I agree with Woldenberg that the (piecemeal and grudging) proposals for exemptions do not begin to address the systematic problems with CPSIA. They leave at the law’s mercy innumerable products that are as close to zero poisoning risk as children’s books and all-fabric garments, or even closer. Indeed, it is hard to see on what rationale those two categories would be exempted and others not, aside from considerations of politics and public relations.

Woldenberg’s second post passes along a report from an unnamed source alleging that the Congressmen are unwilling even to hold hearings on CPSIA between now and its pending Feb. 10 deadline, as various other members of Congress have been asking them to do. If true, this constitutes an astounding display of contempt for the voices now being raised in concern from coast to coast on this issue.

In the mean time, here’s some further reading on the issue:

• Good read on likely adaptations to law: hobby forums go private, outlaw-artisans, fewer choices, wink-wink “12 and up” labeling [ZRecommends]
• Former chief economist of CPSC Paul Rubin criticizes law [Forbes comments, scroll to #38]
• May I scream now? “Specialty Store for Babies With Hip Dysplasia Threatened by CPSIA” [Upscale Baby]
• The most common misinformation to circulate about CPSIA is that thrift stores and secondhand sales have been exempted [Ed Morrissey, Hot Air]. The ABA Journal initially printed that, then to its credit ran a correction [in update] Earlier, some reports had erroneously asserted that resellers, like manufacturers, were legally obliged to test items; that also isn’t so. The truth is that while thrift stores are not directly obligated to test, they are liable if they inadvertently sell an old item any part of which (even a snap, button or bolt) exceeds the stringent new standards. Since a broad-based testing regime will normally be incompatible with the economics of a thrift store, that will leave them with the unpleasant alternative of 1) ceasing to sell kids’ goods; 2) predictably being in noncompliance on a lot of old items (without knowing which ones) and hoping no one actually enforces the law against them.

  Unfortunately, the famous urban-legends site Snopes.com is making itself at best unhelpful on the issue: in a “pending” entry it correctly refutes the resellers-must-test error, but then proceeds to spreads its own “only bad guys need worry” urban legend to minimize concern about the stores’ legal exposure. One response: “Snopes is Wrong on the CPSIA“. Although Snopes does much good work on many subjects, the contestability of their views on more political matters will come as no surprise to readers of Ted or, for that matter, of Patterico [more]

• One reader thought I was incorrect to describe Rep. Ron Paul as casting the only vote against CPSIA, because a roll call showed that the Texas Republican was absent and the vote was unanimous. As usual with this sort of discrepancy, what’s going on is that the bill during its procedural history went through more than one vote. If you’d like to look the stages up in detail, they’re here.
• Some journalistic coverage worth checking out: L.A. Times [harsh effects on medium-sized kids’ clothing makers], CNNMoney.com, Wichita Eagle, WJXT Jacksonville [books], Danbury (Ct.) News-Times [books], and Troy (N.Y.) Record. And legal-journalism professor Mark Obbie asks: why have consumer and legal reporters been so slow to pick up on the story? (My working theory: many of them, at least in the prestige media, tend to take their cues on “consumer safety” issues from the same sorts of groups who gave us CPSIA).

CPSIA, continued is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Hailed almost universally on its passage last year–it passed the Senate 89 to three and the House by 424 to one, with Ron Paul the lone dissenter–CPSIA is now shaping up as a calamity for businesses and an epic failure of regulation, threatening to wipe out tens of thousands of small makers of children’s items from coast to coast, and taking a particular toll on the handcrafted and creative, the small-production-run and sideline at-home business, not to mention struggling retailers. How could this have happened?

(cross-posted from Point of Law). For our earlier coverage, follow our CPSIA tag.

P.S. The piece as first posted included a Vermont publication’s quote attributed to David Arkush of Public Citizen; that organization almost immediately wrote in to point out that Arkush has disavowed the quote in question, so I substituted a different one. The conversation at Greco Woodcrafting tracing the matter is well worth a close look.

Forbes.com: Down with the CPSIA! is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

June 7 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

After all, the success of the November fund-raising demonstrated that Paul was going to be picking up more than a percent of the vote in the early primaries, which, unfortunately, has made Paul the most prominent libertarian since the death of Milton Friedman. At this point, Jacob Levy has said (or linked to) just about everything I was going to—right down to the same naive youthful New England flirtation he and I both had with the first national Paul campaign in (1987 for me, 1988 for Levy) and quick alienation when each of us realized the man and a good chunk of the associated movement was creepy-nuts. (I don’t think Levy and I ever met, however.)

Two more points, however:

• It’s fascinating how agrarian populism has turned around 180 degrees from William Jennings Bryan’s Cross-of-Gold speech to know-nothingism demand for a gold standard. (But the irrational scapegoating of Jewish bankers is consistent across the centuries.)
• It’s extraordinarily disappointing to see Reason, once the magazine of Virginia Postrel and Walter Olson, turn into a defender of the worst elements of paleo-libertarianism. There were hints of this in a largely celebratory 2004 piece on tax protesters that ignored the fact that many of the leaders of that fringe movement were simply scamming the gullible for personal gain by selling fantastic literature on magical incantations to absolve one from tax liability. But in the last few months Reason senior editors went whole hog on Ron Paul, knowing that it could only blow up in the face of the libertarian movement, and (together with the too-public silence from the libertarians like me who knew better) have set back the cause years. Levy’s point on sample sizes is precisely correct, and I’m even more pessimistic than Radley Balko: now it’s going to be a long time before I can say that I’m a libertarian in mixed company without having to issue a disclaimer.

See also David Bernstein and Steven Horwitz.

Update: credit to Ilya Somin for speaking up early; he comments again.

Update: Tim Sandefur, an early critic of Paul, is blogging up a storm, including a comprehensive list of links to other blog discussions.

OT: on the Ron Paul phenomenon is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

November 8 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system