Blog
The Constitution And Broad First Amendment Freedoms Are Obsolete, Say Left-Leaning Judges And Constitutional Law Professors
The progressive Georgetown University constitutional law professor Louis Michael Seidman argued Monday in The New York Times that we should just ignore the Constitution and…
Minding the Campus
How Law Schools Evade Market Competition
The plain truth, as many lawyers will tell you (Harvard Law graduate Hans Bader, for instance), is that law school is mostly a drawn-out prelude…
Blog
Chicago Voters Reelect Legally Insane Judge
In November, Chicago voters re-elected a legally insane judge charged with a crime of violence. "The Cook County Democratic Party…
Overlawyered
Free Speech Roundup
Common Cause vs. First-Amendment-protected political speech, part umpteen [Hans Bader, CEI]…
Blog
Community Reinvestment Act Induced Banks To Take Bad Risks, Economic Study Finds
The Community Reinvestment Act, which "prods banks to make loans in low-income communities,” encouraged banks to make riskier loans, concludes a recent study…
Blog
Fear The Regulatory Cliff, Not The Fiscal Cliff
Economist Bruce Bartlett notes that by cutting the federal budget deficit, the much-feared fiscal cliff will actually increase the size of the economy in the…
Blog
Free Speech, The Disfavored Stepchild Of The Law
In a recent column, George Will discussed how college students have been disciplined for racial or discriminatory "harassment" for constitutionally protected expression, such as…
Blog
Appeals Court Overturns Dismissal Of Challenge To Obamacare Contraception Mandate By Religious Colleges
According to law professor Jonathan Adler, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit effectively overturned a district court’s dismissal of a challenge…
Blog
Expert On Gun Regulation Says “Assault Weapons” Bans Are Useless
President Obama is backing a revival of the federal assault weapons ban that expired in 2004. UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, perhaps the leading…
Blog
PolitiFact Is The Liar Of The Year
PolitiFact falsely depicted Michael Cannon, the director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, as suggesting that state law overrides federal law, erroneously…
Blog
Obama’s Low-Quality College Bailout Will Fuel Skyrocketing Tuition
We wrote earlier about perverse federal financial aid policies that encourage colleges to jack up tuition. Recently, the Obama administration came up with something even worse.
The College Fix
Obama’s New College Bailout Will Fuel Skyrocketing Tuition
So argues Hans Bader of the Competitive Enterprise Institute: We wrote earlier about perverse federal financial aid policies that encourage colleges to jack…
Blog
Appeals Court Hears Challenge To Obama Administration Power Grab Over NLRB
This morning, the D.C. Circuit heard oral arguments in Noel Canning v. NLRB, which includes a challenge to President Obama's "recess" appointment of two…
Blog
Victory For Small Business: Lawsuit-Spawning Disabilities Rights Treaty Blocked
"By a vote of 61 to 38 with two-thirds needed, the U.S. Senate" Tuesday "failed to ratify the far-reaching Convention on the Rights of Persons…
National Review
Sneaky Stuff
Some Democrats are trying to sneak through legislative amendments that would, by overturning a number of Supreme Court decisions, both codify and expand disparate-impact causes…
Point of Law
Will lawmakers slip disparate impact, punitive damages into Title VI?
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination by recipients of federal education spending and other programs, does not currently allow…
Point of Law
Hans Bader on Disparate Impact Liability
In his recent article, New Pressure On Schools To Adopt Quotas, Speech Codes, And Low Standards?, senior attorney at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Hans Bader,…
Point of Law
Does Fisher Matter?
The recently-argued Supreme Court case of Fisher v. University of Texas has many people believing that the Court is likely to strike down the explicit…
Blog
More Lawsuits Against Doctors, Hospitals Due To Senate Amendment 3215 To NDAA
Earlier, I wrote about a proposed amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2013, which would dramatically increase lawsuits against schools and…
Fordham Law Review
Conflict Minerals Legislation: The SEC’s New Role as Diplomatic and Humanitarian Watchdog Sneaky Stuff
Congolese activists and others have continually asserted that this regulation will lead, and has already led, to an embargo of Congolese minerals, a drastic cost…
Blog
New Pressure On Schools To Adopt Quotas, Speech Codes, And Low Standards?
Lawsuits against schools and colleges have nothing to do with our troops and their needs. But that didn’t stop Senators from seeking to add a harmful…
Blog
Obama Breaks Pledge Against Middle-Class Tax Hikes By Proposing Tax Increase On Dividends, Capital Gains
Blog
Myths About Thanksgiving
The first Thanksgiving didn’t usher in a time of plenty for the Pilgrims. The Pilgrims continued to confront the specter of starvation until they ditched…
The College Fix
Why Michigan’s Affirmative Action Decision Will Be Overturned
Hans Bader of OpenMarkets.org, explains why the recent appeals court decision to uphold affirmative action in college admissions in Michigan will not stand for long:…
Overlawyered
Discrimination Law Roundup
EEOC continues to pressure employers over use of criminal background checks in hiring process [Hans Bader, Daniel Schwartz, Jon Hyman, earlier]…
Blog
Investment Falls Off A Cliff, Threatening Economy
Investment has fallen "off a cliff" reports The Wall Street Journal, as companies worry about the "fiscal cliff" at the start of next year,…
Blog
Liberal Judges: Equality Is Unconstitutional
On Thursday, a federal appeals court, dividing along ideological lines in an 8-to-7 ruling, struck down a provision of the Michigan state constitution prohibiting racial…
Blog
Bad Economic Omens Since The Election
Since the election, the stock market has fallen substantially. The S&P 500 has fallen over 5 percent. The prospect of "Taxmageddon" (massive tax increases…
Blog
FEMA’s Wasteful “Disaster Socialism”
In the Washington Examiner, Shikha Dalmia of the Reason Foundation notes that FEMA has been as slow after Superstorm Sandy as it was after…
Investor's Business Daily
Obama To Unleash Racial-Preferences Juggernaut
Last month, moreover, the Education Department pressured the Oakland school district to impose "targeted reductions" in the number of black students suspended. The department charged…
Blog
Conservative Self-Deception In 2012 Hid Need For Policy Changes
Cato
OCCUPY PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE: HOW THE GOVERNMENT’S UNCONSTITUTIONAL ACTIONS HURT THE 99%
The constitutional problems with Sarbox primarily lie with the enforcement body that enforces the new regulatory regime–the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB)–and the broad…
Blog
Government Pressure to Remove Billboards Against Voter Fraud Is Not “Market Forces”
Earlier, I wrote about illogical but widespread claims (found on Huffington Post, Daily Kos, and elsewhere) that billboards noting "Voter Fraud Is a Felony"…
Blog
Auto Industry Expert: “Romney’s Plan Also Would Have ‘Saved’ Detroit”
Earlier, we noted that the auto bailouts temporarily look more successful right now than they likely will be in the long-run since Toyota's bogus safety issues,…
Blog
Did Bush Save General Motors? Obama Messed Up Chrysler
If you accept the dubious logic the federal government "saved" the auto industry (which requires ignoring other things that rescued General Motors, such as the…
Blog
Obamacare Will Increase Health Insurance Costs In California, Washington, D.C., And Elsewhere
California officials concede that their state’s Obamacare exchange will hike premiums for policyholders by up to 25 percent. In the District of Columbia, small…
Blog
Investigators: Operation Fast And Furious Was Product Of “Deliberate” Obama Administration Strategy
According to The Daily Caller, congressional investigators have concluded that Operation “Fast and Furious” was “a product of DOJ ‘deliberate strategy’ laid out by” Attorney General “Eric Holder”…
Blog
Scapegoating Free Speech To Hide Massive Government Failures?
Earlier, I wrote about how the U.S. government had scapegoated free speech for the terrorist attacks in Libya, claiming that the attacks were…
The Daily Californian
Guilty Until Proven Innocent
in April 2011, the U.S. Department of Education ordered all American colleges and universities to comply with certain new disciplinary procedures for students accused of…
Blog
PolitiFact Fixes Two Of Its Three Errors Related To The Supreme Court’s Ledbetter Decision
PolitiFact just revised a webpage discussing the Supreme Court’s Ledbetter decision that once contained an error that we discussed here and brought…
Blog
No, Billboards Denouncing “Voter Fraud” Don’t Violate Constitutional “Right To Vote”
One of the most basic principles of constitutional law is that the Constitution only binds the government -- not private individuals -- so…
Blog
PolitiFact Smears Supreme Court, Provides False Political Talking Point For Democratic Party
Earlier, the left-leaning "fact-checker" PolitiFact made the false claim the Supreme Court had declared employees are barred from suing over pay discrimination even…
Blog
Welfare Nation
The Daily Beast
More Fact Checker Fail
Fact checkers from the LA Times to Candy Crowley have made a number of erroneous "factual claims"–and yes, indeed, conservatives, the errors do all seem…
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Racial Quotas Create Double Standards
Your editorial, "Henrico's Numbers," was right to defend colorblind student discipline. It would be a terrible mistake to ignore misconduct by some minority students in…
The Volokh Conspiracy
When Fact Checkers Have Trouble With Facts
Another example of fact checkers having trouble with facts can be found in Politifact’s commentary on whether it was fair for President Obama to criticize…
Blog
Obama Makes False Claim About Supreme Court Decision; Fact-Checkers Parrot It
Reading a Supreme Court decision is so hard! If you are a fact-checker, it's much easier just to let President Obama, a critic of a…
Washington Post
Letter to the Editor: The Limits of Free Speech
Jonathan Turley was right [“Shut up and play nice,” Outlook, Oct. 14] to criticize the Obama administration for backing “the passage of a resolution” at…
Blog
Canadian Government Official Calls Anti-Abortion Speech Illegal “Bullying”
Bullying has been defined by opportunistic politicians to include a broad range of speech, including core political speech. The latest example is anti-abortion advocacy:…
Red State
In panel discussion on Ledbetter, liberals ignore shortchanging amongst Democrats
Blog
Mother Nature And Good Luck, Not Big Government, Saved General Motors… For Now
There are lots of claims that the federal government saved the American auto industry by bailing it out. (Never mind that Ford didn't get…
Blog
Obama Administration Imposes Racial Quotas On School Discipline In Oakland
Under pressure from the Education Department, which investigated it over "racial disparities" and "disparate impact," the Oakland, California, school system has agreed…
National Review
Hans Bader on Fisher
From George Leef's post on National Review Online: Competitive Enterprise Institute lawyer Hans Bader writes here about the precedents involved in Fisher v.
Blog
University Of Texas Violates Court Decisions On Use Of Race In Admissions
When journalists and commentators discuss the Fisher v. University of Texas case, they seem to grapple only with whether the University of Texas's race-conscious admissions…
Blog
Deficit Exceeds $1 Trillion For Fourth Straight Year
National Review
State Attorney General Races to Watch
From Carrie Severino's column in National Review : McGraw has been attorney general of West Virginia since 1992, and his willingness to engage…
Blog
Unemployment Falls As Part-Time Work Expands
Unemployment fell from 8.1% to 7.8%, aided by an increase in part-time employment: "Some 582,000 Americans took part-time positions because of slack business conditions…
Blog
Regulations For Thee, But Not For Me
To liberals, regulations are great -- until they ensnare a liberal politician. Then, suddenly there needs to be an exception to the regulation. An example of…
Blog
Obama Administration Shirks Legal Obligation To Protect Military Voters
“Military absentee ballot requests” are “down 92% in key battleground state Virginia,” notes Cornell Law Professor William Jacobson. “The government has become quite efficient…
Blog
Obama Administration Promotes Dependence On Welfare And Food Stamps: A Bigger Priority Than Public Safety?
While the Obama administration left the Mexican government completely in the dark about Operation Fast and Furious (which sent guns to Mexican drug cartels), …
Blog
Obama Imposes Billions In Costs On Taxpayers In Order To Prevent Legally Required Disclosures
Yesterday, ABC News reported that "Defense contractor Lockheed Martin heeded a request from the White House . . . one with political overtones – and announced…
Legal Newsline
AGs of S.C., Okla. and Mich. Join Challenge of Dodd-Frank
From John O'Brien's article on LegalNewsline: The suit challenges the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was created by the law…
Blog
Obama Administration Sent Guns To Drug Cartels
The Obama administration's botched Operation Fast and Furious, which provided weapons used in hundreds of crimes and killing sprees in Mexico, was broader than…
Washington Examiner
EPA refuses to talk about think tank suit demanding ‘secret’ emails
From Mark Tapscott's article in The Washington Examiner: Environmental Protection Agency officials are keeping mum today about a potential landmine of a lawsuit…
Blog
Omens Of Another Recession? Durable Goods Orders Drop Sharply
In a bad omen for the economy, "durable-goods orders" sank "13.2% in August," far more than economists "had expected." “Bookings also fell for machinery,…
Legal Brief
CEI v. EPA – Complaint Re: Secret Accounts
Full Document in Available in PDF Plaintiff COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE (“CEI”) for its complaint against Defendant UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (“EPA”or…
Blog
Massive Payoff To City For Dropping Challenge To Tool Used To Impose Racial Quotas In Lending
The Obama administration declined to pursue a fraud claim worth up to $180 million against a city to get it to drop its pending…
PJ Media
Heckler’s Veto: NYC Prohibits Controversial Subway Ads in Wake of Islamist’s Vandalism
UPDATE: Hans Bader: Scapegoating Free Speech.
Blog
Scapegoating Free Speech
In the aftermath of a terrorist attack in Libya that killed our ambassador and three other Americans, the Obama administration was quick to scapegoat a…
Hot Air
PBS NewsHour Omits Obama’s Support for Blasphemy Law
From Hot Air: Hans Bader of the Competitive Enterprise Institute also wrote on September 13 that: the…administration was earlier criticized by…
Legal Brief
Dodd-Frank Challenge – Amended Complaint
Full Document Available in PDF…
Blog
Wall Street Journal: Obama Administration Undermined Welfare Reform’s Work Requirements
"The Administration has made welfare's work requirements far weaker," explains The Wall Street Journal in a detailed editorial today: an HHS regulatory "information…
Forbes
Rick Ungar Is Wrong: Obama Is the Biggest Spender in World History
National Review
The Crusade against ‘Bullying’
From George Leef's post in National Review: In a College Insurrection piece, attorney Hans Bader of the Competitive Enterprise Institute writes about the…
Reason
Not for Teacher: Criminalizing Free Speech in North Carolina
Blog
EPA Celebrates Mass Murderer Che Guevara For Hispanic Heritage Month
Blog
Rules Are For The Little People, Not Cabinet Secretaries
Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of Health & Human Services, violated the Hatch Act by engaging in partisan politics at a "taxpayer-funded public event." But…
Hot Air
One Film That Put Free Speech in the Cross Hairs
From Hot Air: Hans Bader, Senior Attorney at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, wrote on September 13 that “the Egyptian government said, ‘We ask…
Blog
Disturbing Calls For Censorship In America By Professors, Journalists, U.S. Diplomats, And Egyptian Government
In response to a film that mocked Mohammed, journalists on MSNBC, a professor, and the Egyptian government called for punishment of the film's producers.
Blog
Lawmaker Bullies Employer Because Its Employee Supported Gay Marriage
Maryland State Delegate Emmett Burns (D-Baltimore), who has a long record of hostility to business (a 90 percent bad MBRG rating), gave more evidence of that…
Blog
Federal Government: Fire Good Employees, Hire Bad Ones
The Obama administration is pressuring employers outside the financial sector to hire felons, even as its regulations force employers in the financial sector to fire "thousands…
Hot Air
Not ‘Two Decades’ After All… Lilly Ledbetter Deceived DNC, Knew Of Her Pay Disparity Since 1992
From Matt Vespa's post on Hot Air: This is an update on my previous post on Lilly Ledbetter. It appears that not only…
Overlawyered
Lawmaker Tries to Shut Up Linebacker, Cont’d
From Overlawyered: I’ve got a post at Maryland for All Families following up on the free-speech controversy that flared up when Del. Emmett…
Blog
Fact Checking Lilly Ledbetter’s False Speech At The Democratic National Convention
Former pay-discrimination plaintiff Lilly Ledbetter, in speaking at the Democratic National Convention on September 4, repeated the false claim that she learned about the…
Wall Street Journal
Letter to the Editor: Welfare Waivers Violate the Law
Sen. Rick Santorum is right to criticize the Obama administration for unlawfully claiming the authority to waive the work requirements contained in the 1996 welfare-reform…
Blog
Massive Fraud Against Clients In Class Action Lawsuit Brought By Obama As Lawyer?
I have often written about abuses in class-action lawsuits, such as lawyers ripping off their clients, or using settlement money for ideological causes…
Daily Caller
Obama’s African-American Clients Got Coupons, Not Cash
From The Daily Caller: Hans Bader, senior attorney and counsel for special projects at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told TheDC, “When it comes…
Blog
“Fact Checker” Repeals The Laws Of Supply And Demand: The Bias Of PolitiFact
The left-leaning, self-proclaimed "fact checker" PolitiFact ignored the most basic economic law, the law of supply and demand, in claiming that cap-and-trade legislation, which…
Washington Examiner
Letter to the Editor: Only Congress Has Power to Rewrite Welfare Law
Re: "The truth about welfare reform," Aug. 27 Steve Chapman was right that the Obama administration has "opened the door to changes in welfare reform…
PJ Media
Higher Education Bubble Spawns Demographic Decline Among Educated Americans
From Instapundit: HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Higher Education Bubble Spawns Demographic Decline Among Educated Americans. As college…
Blog
Higher Education Bubble Spawns Demographic Decline Among Educated Americans
The Washington Times takes note of the burgeoning higher education bubble in a recent editorial: The cost of a college education has…
Blog
Obama Justice Department Recruits Lawyers With “Severe Intellectual Disabilities,” But Excludes Conservatives
Reality is often stranger than fiction. A former Justice Department lawyer, who publishes at PJ Tatler, has obtained documents from the Justice Department detailing…
News Busters
CNN Ignores Conservative Experts When Slamming Romney Welfare Ad as ‘False’
From Matt Hadro's article in Newsbusters: Hans Bader, senior attorney at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, added that "Waiving work requirements in favor of…
Blog
Prominent Lawyer: Obama Administration Illegally “Eviscerates Welfare Reform”
In The Washington Times and a recent study, attorney Andrew Grossman explains in detail how the Obama administration violated the law in claiming…
Blog
Is Government Motors Headed For Bankruptcy Again?
The tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer money spent on the auto bailouts did not fix the automakers' underlying problems, but rather helped…
Blog
Wishful Thinking About Religious Freedom And Gay Marriage
One of the reasons that social conservatives oppose gay marriage is the belief that if it is legalized in a state, private institutions, like…
Blog
California’s Unconstitutional Proposition 37
Writing in the Daily Caller, legal commentator Walter Olson says that California's Proposition 37 is bad policy that will only enrich opportunistic lawyers:…
Blog
Equal Pay Should Be For Equal Work, Not Unequal Work
Yesterday, I criticized the assumption that people should receive equal pay for unequal work, such as requiring the average woman to be paid exactly…
Overlawyered
California’s Prop 37: Prop 65 in Organic Garb
From Overlawyered: From Hans Bader: would the measure be open to challenge as unconstitutional, or as federally preempted? …
Blog
When Wage Gaps Are Fair
When I and my wife first got married, she worked shorter hours than I did, and used her additional time outside the workplace for activities…