Pacific Legal Foundation continues to be on the front lines in the constitutional challenge to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. In a new complaint filed yesterday on behalf of client Matt Sissel, PLF attorneys have asked Judge Beryl Howell to rule that Congress ignored the Constitution’s Origination Clause when it enacted the Obamacare [...]
Meet R.J. Bruner and his crew. Bruner (in the middle, there) is one of the many hardworking entrepreneurs who keep our economy thriving—and whose hard work and ingenuity improve the standard of living for all of us. Of course, when he founded Wildcat Moving two years ago, he didn’t do it as an act of [...]
Dean Erwin Chemerinsky published this article last week on the ABA Journal’s website complaining about the Supreme Court’s decision in Knox v. SEIU. That’s the case in which the Supreme Court said that the union must ask non-members before it takes away their money to run a political campaign. As I explain here, the rule [...]
The Supreme Court today issued its decision in Knox v. SEIU, the union fees case in which PLF (joined by Cato, MSLF, and CCJ), filed this amicus brief. The case was about whether the union violated the law by requiring non-members to pay a special assessment to support a political campaign without first issuing the [...]
Prof. Samuelson has a thorough response to my post about John Adams and individual liberty. While it’s true I’m not a great admirer of Adams (I’m much fonder of his son), my point was not biographical or historical, but philosophical: democracy is an instrumental good, one that is valuable only insofar as [...]
At the Liberty Law Blog, Prof. Richard Samuelson argues that John Adams’ defense of religious liberty offers a model for our own day. Adams refused to write Article III of the Massachusetts Constitution—which provided for an established church—because it was inconsistent with his belief in religious freedom. Instead, Samuelson writes, “Adams punted,” [...]
In an article for The New Republic, Jeffrey Rosen writes that the recent decision in the Hettinga case has “unmasked” the continuing machinations of Rosen’s “Constitution in Exile” conspiracy. I say his conspiracy because in Rosen’s eyes, the widening circle of lawyers, judges, and law professors who are drawing attention to the many [...]
I spoke this morning with Armstrong & Getty about President Obama’s comments about the judiciary’s power to strike down laws as unconstitutional. You can listen here. I think the whole thing is a tempest in a teapot. No doubt President Obama was wrong to say that his health care overhaul was “passed by a strong [...]
In the run-up to the oral arguments in the Obamacare cases, I have a series of posts over at PLF Liberty Blog explaining the issues involved. The first installments are listed below; the rest are coming between now and the arguments, which begin a week from today. What to look for in the Obamacare arguments [...]
The discussion over my article, In Defense of Substantive Due Process, is continuing at Cato Unbound. Prof. Gary Lawson has posted his response here, and now the general discussion is beginning. I responded to David Bernstein’s questions this morning, and I’ll have some further thoughts soon. Please join the discussion! Update: Is my position true [...]