It’s not every day that a member of one branch of the federal government tries to be the boss of the leader of a separate branch. But last week, a senior Senator on the powerful Judiciary Committee weighed in to claim that, instead of striving to uphold the Constitution, the Supreme Court should simply follow his branch’s lead. “I trust that he will be a chief justice for all of us and that he has a strong institutional sense of the proper role of the judicial branch,” Senator Patrick Leahy … More
No Comments »
By Ilya Shapiro
On May 11, the Department of Health & Human Services finalized rules requiring insurers to tell any of their customers who get premium rebates this summer that the windfall comes …
Obamacare’s Constitutional Defects, First Amendment Division is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
No Comments »
By Michael F. Cannon
Richard Thaler writes in the New York Times: Justice Scalia is arguing that if the court lets Congress create a mandate to buy health insurance, nothing could stop Congress from passing laws requiring everyone to buy broccoli and to join a gym…Can anyone imagine Congress passing a broccoli mandate law, much less the court allowing it to take [...]
Stop Using Slippery-Slope Arguments? Where Would that End? is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
No Comments »
By Michael F. Cannon
Today, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) became the latest governor to throw sand in the gears of ObamaCare, issuing an eleventh-hour veto of a bill to create an ObamaCare Exchange in New Jersey. An excerpt from his veto message: While I am unwilling to approve the establishment of a statewide health insurance exchange at this [...]
Gov. Christie Vetoes ObamaCare Exchange — ‘At This Time’ is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
No Comments »
By Ilya Shapiro
Earlier this year, the Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy hosted a symposium on “Hyper-Partisanship and the Law.” The journal editors graciously invited me to join an august panel on partisanship in the judiciary that included George Mason University Law School’s Todd Zywicki and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Rachel Brand. (Brand ran the DOJ’s Office [...]
Big Government Causes Hyper-Partisanship in the Judicial Appointment Process is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
No Comments »
By Michael F. Cannon
In the Wall Street Journal, Peter Berkowitz says you probably didn’t. And it shows: It would be difficult to overstate the significance of The Federalist for understanding the principles of American government and the challenges that liberal democracies confront early in the second decade of the 21st century. Yet despite the lip service they pay to [...]
Did You Read the Federalist Papers in College? Grad School? Law School? is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
No Comments »
By Michael F. Cannon
According to WSFA-12 News, Alabama legislators are working on legislation to create an ObamaCare Exchange. But: Governor Robert Bentley [R] will likely veto the bill. “This legislation is premature. The federal government has yet to establish clear guidelines for a health insurance exchange,” said Deputy Communications Director Jeremy King, in a statement to WSFA 12 News. “Also, [...]
Alabama Gov. Vows to Veto ObamaCare Exchange is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
No Comments »
By Ilya Shapiro
This blogpost was co-authored by Cato legal associate Carl DeNigris. Before the argument on the Arizona immigration case yesterday, the Supreme Court scored a blow for American taxpayers by rejecting the IRS’s attempt to overturn the Court’s prior interpretation of a disputed provision of the Internal Revenue Code, 26 U.S.C. §6501(e)(1)(A). By avoiding the issue of whether [...]
Supreme Court Gives Taxpayers a Muddled Win is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
No Comments »
By Ilya Shapiro
For anyone suffering from post-Obamacare-argument Supreme Court withdrawal, this Wednesday the Court takes up Arizona’s controversial Senate Bill (“SB”) 1070. See my blogpost from when the Court granted review for some background. SB 1070 is much-misunderstood: it has nothing to do with sexy political issues like racial profiling and everything to do with boring legal ones like whether a given [...]
Immigration Laws at the Supreme Court: Constitutional but Bad Policy is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
No Comments »
By Michael F. Cannon
In today’s Wall Street Journal, Alan Blinder writes one of the most error-ridden and discourse-debasing op-eds I have ever read. About any topic. Ever. A sampling: [O]ur country was founded on the idea that the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable. Access to affordable health care is surely essential to two [...]
Alan Blinder Owes Me $5 for Wasting My Time is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
No Comments »