Video Games, Catfish, and the Greenhouse Gas Initiative

Video Games

The Supreme Court has struck down a California state ban on the sale or rental of violent video games to minors.

Senior Counsel Hans Bader comments.

“Restrictions on video games restrict both the rights of adults (video game designers) and minors (those video game consumers who are under age 18). The idea that minors have free speech rights is not a recent invention by Supreme Court justices. Take a look at the Supreme Court’s decision in 1943 in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, for example (a case decided soon after the Supreme Court first applied the First Amendment to state and local governments rather than just the federal government). Nor is it somehow unique among courts in finding that minors have such rights. For example, the California Supreme Court unanimously rejected the prosecution of a minor over a poem that had violent imagery. See In re George T., 33 Cal.4th 620 (2004) (prosecutors could not prosecute minor for poem with violent imagery disseminated to other minor).”

Catfish

New regulations put forward by the FDA and USDA would essentially ban Asian catfish imports.

Adjunct Scholar Fran Smith comments.

“The U.S. government would be putting a wholly disproportionate regulatory burden on only one type of fish. This is bad for consumers and taxpayers and sets a terrible precedent for U.S. trade relations, especially in these troubled economic times.”

Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative

A new lawsuit filed in New York says the state’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative violates state law because the legislature never approved the interstate compact.

CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman, a co-counsel in the New York suit, explains.

“This plan increases taxpayers’ electric bill for an ineffective compact that, worst of all, is illegal under New York law. While there are 10 states in this compact, New York is distinct because the governor entered into the compact without any approval from his state legislature.”