Zoning rules that severely restrict home construction cut off millions of poor people from jobs and affordable housing. The Minneapolis reform is the most extensive reduction in zoning achieved by any major American city in a long time.
Few will agree with Cambridge political scientist David Runciman's proposal to lower the voting age to 6. But standard reasons for rejecting the idea raise serious questions about many adult voters, too.
Body slams, reasonable retaliation, and Russian software.
We've got a grant -- we've finished the first video (under 4 minutes) -- but we need a good title for the whole series.
In a case I'm working on, Jeffrey Epstein's victims hope to set aside a non-prosecution agreement based on violations of their rights under the Crime Victims' Rights Act.
Bush lost because voters punished him for the recession of the early 1990s - an event he did not cause. This is just one example of a broader phenomenon of voters rewarding and punishing politicians for things they do not control.
Some VC-related holiday gifts for the law and public policy mavens in your life.
Strong originalist arguments exist for overruling the dual sovereign doctrine in a case being argued before the Supreme Court today.
(Not necessarily religiously discriminatory hostility, of course.)
The ruling concerns flooding of property undertaken by the San Jacinto River Authority in order to mitigate the effects of Hurricane Harvey. Issues raised in the case are similar to those at stake in ongoing federal court litigation.
The ruling is the latest in a long line of setbacks for the administration's efforts to punish sanctuary jurisdictions by withholding federal law enforcement grants.
An interesting new decision from the Fourth Circuit -- although I'm not sure it's right.
If referenda are a legitimate mechanism for making political decisions, then it is also legitimate for them to be overruled by new referenda. Those who live by the referendum sword risk dying by it.
A creative legal theory, roundly rejected.
Bridge malefactors, mandatory blank reports, and a leaky judge.
The Court seems very likely to rule that the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment applies to state governments, and that at least some asset forfeitures violate the Clause. Potentially a big win for property rights and civil liberties.
"You'll never know how evil a technology can be until the engineers deploying it fear for their jobs" in Episode 241 of the Cyberlaw Podcast
The factory stands on land seized in a taking that forcibly displaced over 4000 people, and attracted widespread widespread opposition. The lessons and legacy of the Poletown case remain relevant today.
The "trial of the century" may not happen after all.
Q: Can the federal government hold people in custody indefinitely when they have not been charged with, or convicted of, any crime?
Judge Tigar's (ND CA) asylum decision is an especially inappropriate target for Trump's ranting, given the weakness of the Administration's position on the legal issues raised by the case.
The case both addresses important legal issues, and could have substantial practical implications.
Covered cheeks, cheeky hyphens, and uncovered booking photos.
A nice passage from Rogers & Hammerstein, which I heard on John McWhorter's excellent Lexicon Valley podcast.
We really should, as Chief Justice Roberts suggests, be thankful for the "independent judiciary" on this Thanksgiving Day.
FGM is a horrible crime. But banning it is one of many issues the Constitution leaves to the states, much like banning rape and murder. Yesterday's court decision striking down the law was correct.
FASORP is suing the Harvard Law Review and the New York University Law Review for their identity politics quotas.
To read Menninger today is itself punishment.
So holds a federal court, concluding that such e-mails with photos of gun crime victims, coupled with statements such as "Thought you should see a few photos of handiwork of the assault rifles you support," were protected by the First Amendment.
Policing such behavior, the court concludes, is a matter for the states, because it isn't authorized as a regulation of commerce or as necessary and proper to comply with treaties.
Antidiscrimination laws are here to stay, but they must not trump constitutional rights.
For some reason, Harvard's admissions staff keep giving Asian American applicants lower "personal ratings" than white applicants. It's funny how that works.
The Supreme Court has ordered reargument in a crucial property rights case. The outcome could hinge on an extremely dubious theory put forward in an amicus brief by the federal government.
Amicus brief on electoral college discretion
The Arizona Supreme Court got it right: categorical denials of bail to persons charged with sexual assault violates the Constitution.
My case involving Weldon Angelos illustrates the problem with "stacking" federal mandatory minimum gun charges from a single episode. The statute will apparently soon be amended to become a true recidivism statute.
The statute in that case was a funding condition on federal money given to universities -- but the Court's decision held that the government could impose the same rule categorically, whether or not the universities got funds.
The San Diego jury did its job in acquitting a church nursery school volunteer of Satanic ritual abuse.
It's not a lovely name. But you may be interested in this new organization.
I'd love to have people's comments this week, since I owe the journal a final draft Saturday the 24th. [UPDATE: Just to be clear, the article aims to provide a coherent framework for understanding the current precedents, not to come up with new rules from scratch.]
A major new brief in the Seventh Circuit sanctuary city case
The ACLU no longer even pretends to believe in civil liberties.
