The Gun-Free School Zones Act Is Doubly Dubious
The federal law relies on a risible reading of the Commerce Clause to restrict a constitutional right.
The federal law relies on a risible reading of the Commerce Clause to restrict a constitutional right.
The results of America's overly burdensome housing regulations aren't great. But they're not an "emergency."
The president's plan to promote public safety by deploying troops in cities across the country is hard to reconcile with constitutional constraints on federal authority.
It makes the case for abolishing ICE and transferring its funds to state and local police.
The president signed an executive order on Monday establishing specialized units within the National Guard to support federal law enforcement in American cities.
His executive order directs the Justice Department to deny federal funds to jurisdictions that use cashless bail for suspects for many types of crimes. The plan is another assault on federalism and separation of powers.
As part of his response to the alleged crime emergencies taking place nationwide, Trump signed an executive order restricting federal funding from jurisdictions with cashless bail policies.
The Trump administration is considering plans for a "Reaction Force" of National Guard troops to deploy quickly to American cities with signs of civil unrest.
Using the FBI to track down AWOL Texas Democrats is an unnecessary expansion of federal law enforcement authority.
The anticommandeering doctrine stands in the way of Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Kathy Hochul's focus on "assault weapons" is puzzling, since the perpetrator easily could have killed the same number of people with a gun that did not fall into that politically defined category.
Congress considers a consensus housing supply bill while the White House cracks down on the homeless.
The Trump administration's lawsuit against New York City challenges decades of sanctuary policies and local independence.
The court ruled the state and local policies are protected by the Tenth Amendment.
A mifepristone manufacturer is unsuccessful in evading West Virginia's prohibition on abortion, even when performed by medication.
Academics are supposed to discover nonobvious, counterintituitive truths. But, especially in recent years, much of my work involves defending positions that seem obvious to most laypeople, even though many experts deny them.
The taxes on sound suppressors, short-barreled rifles, and short-barreled shotguns, originally enacted in 1934, were meant to be prohibitive, imposing bans in the guise of raising revenue.
Telling states to pay for a share of the food stamp program makes a lot of sense and would likely reduce fraud.
Now nearly 100 state AI laws will remain in force—and nearly 1,000 more are already waiting in the wings.
The deployment of National Guard soldiers on a DEA drug raid is a serious test of whether the Posse Comitatus Act means something or not.
The Senate parliamentarian says the 10-year AI moratorium may be passed by a simple majority through the Senate's budget reconciliation process.
Although the appeals court said the president probably complied with the law he invoked to justify his California deployment, it emphasized that such decisions are subject to judicial review.
The ruling is the latest in long line of court decisions striking down executive efforts to attach conditions to federal grants that were not approved by Congress.
The government's lawyer told a 9th Circuit panel the president's deployments are "unreviewable," so he need not even pretend to comply with the statute on which he is relying.
On its face, the law gives the president sweeping authority to deploy the military in response to domestic disorder.
An interesting tidbit from today's NYT profile of Justice Amy Coney Barrett
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer concluded that the president failed to comply with the statute he cited—and violated the 10th Amendment too.
In a federal lawsuit, California's governor argues that the president's assertion of control over "the State's militia" is illegal and unconstitutional.
Trump and the right are living out their fantasies of rewriting the awful summer of 2020.
Like it or not, Gonzales v. Raich remains good law, and federal prohibition is constitutional under current doctrine.
While there is no constitutional right to receive grants, the Constitution does bar grant conditions that undermine constitutional rights.
Middlebury professor Gary Winslett argues the South—not China—poached the Rust Belt’s manufacturing base by out-competing it on policy.
The decision is based on precedents in similar cases during Trump's first term.
The article covers state sanctuary policies, their constitutional basis, how they can constrain Trump's mass deportation efforts, and how Trump can try to get around them.
State Attorneys General appear more interested in lining up with their political tribe than they are in defending state interests.
Justice Thomas dissents from the Court's continued unwillingness to hear bills of complaint filed under the Court's original jurisdiction.
Voters overwhelmingly favored the new policy, which a former state legislator unsuccessfully tried to block.
Newsom is a prototypical modern progressive governor whose pro-democracy tour of Southern states evoked more mocking than fear.
If Musk is truly serious about fiscal discipline, he'll advise the president-elect to eschew many of the policies he promised on the campaign trail.
Although the framing is a transparent political ploy, it is reassuring to see that the vice president has not abandoned her opposition to the federal ban.
Democrats will live to regret doing this if they have the votes to do it.
He returned S.B. 961 to the California Senate for all the wrong reasons.
His new stance could encourage Vice President Kamala Harris to emphasize her opposition to federal marijuana prohibition.
It remains unclear whether either would do anything about that as president.
The court indicates the law would be constitutional so long as it does not claim to declare a federal law "invalid."
States cannot invalidate or refuse to recognize federal law.