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Minnesota Law Gives Public the Cold Shoulder
Minnesota’s Government Data Practices Law allows Minnesota public agencies to charge for public information that many other states give out for free. According to section…
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SEIU Deploys Top-Down Organizing Tactics against California Hospitals
Labor unions no longer gain worker support prior to kicking off organizing campaigns. Now they find it much easier to apply public pressure and intimidate…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
77 new regulations, from gooseberry imports to preventing collisions at sea.
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Regulate-First-Think-Later Approach to Harm Honeybees
European bureaucrats placed a two-year ban on a class of pesticides in the name of “protecting honeybees” when in fact, as one EU official recently…
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Finally Free to Leave SEIU, Michigan Home Care Workers Do Exactly That
Michigan becoming the nation's 24th right to work state in 2012 appeared to pose a challenge to major industrial private sector unions like United Auto…
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Opening brief in Redman v. RadioShack
RadioShack committed the sin of printing credit-card receipts with expiration dates on them, which exposed it to possible liability of $100 a receipt ($1000 if…
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Congressional Scorecard Update: Minimum Wage Fairness Act of 2014
Today, the Minimum Wage Fairness Act of 2014, a bill to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour, failed to gain enough support…
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Sketchy Super PACs
The labor battle in Missouri is becoming supersized because of union super PACs. Unions can support politicians (just Democrats, of course) and policies through super…
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This Minimum Wage Hike Will Kill Jobs
The key thing you need to know about a minimum wage hike is that it will kill jobs. About 80 percent of economists surveyed…
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Obama Administration Attacks Cross-Examination and Due Process Rights in Campus Guidance
Justice Brandeis once observed that “The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.” However…
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Johnson-Crapo Delayed; CEI-Coordinated Coalition Letter Cited as a Factor
Today, in a surprise move, the Senate Banking Committee postponed the vote it had been set to mark up for Johnson-Crapo. Reports vary as…
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CEI Podcast for April 29, 2014: Ten Thousand Commandments
Wayne Crews talks about the new 2014 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments…
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Kings, Contracts, and the Rule of Law: Republic of Argentina v. NML Capital
Co-authored with John Norton Moore and Robert F. Turner Last Monday, April 21, the Supreme Court heard argument in a major case involving issues at…
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Congressional Scorecard Update: Confirmation of David Weil to Wage and Hour Division
On April 28, 2014, the U.S. Senate confirmed another ardent Big Labor supporter, David Weil, to serve as the administrator of the Wage and Hour…
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Ten Thousand Commandments 2014
The 2014 edition of Wayne Crews’ annual Ten Thousand Commandments report comes out today…
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May 8 debate in Washington DC
I’ll be debating Professor Brian Fitzpatrick in Washington, DC, the morning of Thursday, May 8. Registration and details at the e21 site.
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Republican Internet Gambling Ban Undermines States’ and Individual Rights
Despite rhetoric that we need to “restore” the Federal Wire Act in order to protect states’ rights, Republican lawmakers are pushing a bill that…
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Google’s Self-Driving Cars Approach 700,000 Miles of Crash-Free Driving
In a report released last week for CEI, I noted that developers need to be able to demonstrate automated vehicle safety benefits in order…
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Education or Indoctrination?
Bills are being introduced in Connecticut and Illinois that would require school curriculum to teach the history of the labor movement.
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Ninth Circuit win in Apple MagSafe case
The Apple MagSafe settlement paid the attorneys $3.1 million, but the class less than a quarter of that, yet the district court rubber-stamped settlement approval…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
84 new regulations, from spearmint oil to hot air balloons.
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FCC’s Internet Fast Lanes Should Outrun Net Neutrality Bias
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will issue proposed rules May 15, rules expected expected to allow premium pricing for Internet fast lanes alongside the lane…
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A Victory for Taxpayers and Equal Protection: Supreme Court Upholds Michigan’s Proposal 2
Taxpayers of all races pay more when government contracts are doled out based on race, rather than awarded to the lowest bidder. That's one reason…
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California Labor Board Obstructing Farm Workers Union Decertification Bid
Outdated labor law has led to the problem of inherited unions. Research done by the Center for Union Facts has found that less than 10…
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CEI Sues National Park Service and Interior Department under FOIA over Government Shutdown Documents
Last night, CEI filed suit against the United States Department of the Interior and the National Park Service for failing to produce documents in…
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CEI Podcast for April 23, 2014: Reforming Fannie and Freddie
Senior Fellow John Berlau argues that a bill from Senators Tim Johnson and Mike Crapo intended to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would only…
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Driverless Cars, Innovation, and Regulation: Let’s Not Mess it Up
CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman about to take a spin in Google’s self-driving car. (Photo by Marc Scribner) For the past several years, I’ve been…
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Pseudoscience and Clickbaiting Results in Beer Fear
There’s a lot of pseudoscience about food out there. From genetically modified crops to organic foods to corn syrup, to preservatives, passionate opinions abound, but…
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Victory for Maryland Parents and Consumers: Energy Drink Ban Voted Down
A bill that would have banned the sale of energy drinks for minors in Maryland was recently voted down in committee almost unanimously. The…
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Taxable Bitcoins 2: We’re Not Gonna Pay it!
Reason magazine’s Brian Doherty recently addressed the IRS’s recent announcement that bitcoin transactions are taxable. As I addressed in my last piece, while the…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
84 new regulations, from stair-climbing wheelchairs to crustacean irradiation.
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UAW Drops Volkswagen Union Election Appeal
Remember when the United Auto Workers lost in a unionization vote at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and filed an appeal to overturn the…
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The NLRB Shows Union Favoritism
Unions have always had special privileges in America, but ever since 1973, when United States v. Enmons exempted them from compliance with the Hobbs Act,…
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CEI, Former State Department Officials Defend Freedom of Contract in Supreme Court Case against Argentina
[caption id="attachment_74355" align="alignright" width="300"] Argentina President Cristina Kirchner[/caption] Can a country seeking to welsh on its debts invoke sovereign immunity to evade not just court…
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CEI Podcast for April 17, 2014: Brexit Strategy
Iain Murray, CEI's Vice President for Strategy, along with Freedom Association Director Rory Broomfield, won second place Institute for Economic Affairs' Brexit Competition. The goal…
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Paycheck Protection and Union Dishonesty
Paycheck protection and right-to-work are under siege in Missouri’s continuing labor fight.
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CEI Testifies against National Labor Relations Board Rule to Allow Ambush Elections
On three separate panels, I testified last week against the flaws inherent in the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) latest proposed rule. The NLRB…
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First Ever Constitutional Ruling against Dodd-Frank Voids Destructive “Conflict Minerals” Section
Today’s ruling of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that Dodd-Frank’s "conflict minerals" disclosure mandate violates the First Amendment is the first time ever a court has…
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Encouraging News about Honeybee Health
A recently released study in Europe reports some good news about honeybee health, which should prompt public officials to reexamine a recent ban on…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
59 new regulations, from rearview cameras to pocket gophers.
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Unions Attack Right-to-Work
The battle over Right-to-Work is heating up in Missouri, as proponents and opponents pour on the rhetoric.
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Wasserman on cy pres
University of Pittsburgh Law Professor Rhonda Wasserman has a paper on cy pres forthcoming in the USC Law Review, “Cy Pres in Class Action…
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Unconstitutionally Overbroad New Jersey Anti-Bullying Law Challenged; Reference To “Head Lice” Deemed “Bullying”
New Jersey's anti-bullying law, which applies to the state's schools and universities, is so overly broad that a fourth-grader was punished just for…
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CEI’s WorkplaceChoice.org Scores Paycheck Fairness Act
The Competitive Enterprise Institute scored Wednesday’s vote in the U.S. Senate on the passage of S. 3772, The Paycheck Fairness Act, a bill that would…
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EEOC Loses Hypocritical Lawsuit against Employer over Background Checks
"In this case the EEOC sued the defendants for using the same type of background check that the EEOC itself uses." So began a…
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Pompeo-Butterfield Food Labeling Bill: Valuable But Needs Work
Earlier today, Reps. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) and G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) introduced a bill in the House that would establish federal standards for the labeling of…
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Administration’s Lack of Transparency Extends to States; The Independence Institute Reports New Findings
Although President Obama occasionally clings to the claim that his administration is the “most transparent” in history, with more and more revelations, this gets farther…
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Threatening Free Speech, New Jersey Court Allows Parents to Be Sued for Children’s Facebook Posts
Earlier, we wrote about a Wisconsin town whose ordinance holds parents liable for bullying by their children, including certain speech. We and law professor…
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CEI Podcast for April 9, 2014: A Consumer’s Guide to Chemical Risk
Senior Fellow Angela Logomasini talks about her new Consumer's Guide to Chemical Risk.
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Opening brief in Pearson v. NBTY, Inc., No. 14-1198 (7th Cir.)
In a settlement of several class actions over the labeling of glucosamine supplements, class counsel settled for a claims process that paid the class under…
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Professional Licensing: A Risk to the Free Markets and Freedom of Speech
From physicians to dentists to lawyers, the licensing requirements of many professions are well known—but for bloggers? A recent case in North Carolina demonstrates the…
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Food Policy Fight: Junk Study on Vegetarian Diet
Log on to Twitter and you might read: "A vegetarian diet is associated with poorer health, a higher need for health care, and poorer quality…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
79 new regulations, from whistleblowers to watermelon promotion.
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In re Apple MagSafe Power Adapter Litigation oral argument in the Ninth Circuit Tuesday
Class counsel collected $3.1 million in the Apple MagSafe Power Adapter Litigation, but their putative clients received less than $900,000, and perhaps even less than $500,000—the…
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Is High-Frequency Trading a Form of Front-Running?
On 60 Minutes, Michael Lewis accused high-frequency traders of front-running. Apparently it’s become necessary to remind critics of high-frequency trading of the definition of “front-running.” Front-running – n. “The…
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CEI Podcast for April 3, 2014: Clean Air Act Costs and Benefits
Senior Fellow William Yeatman is skeptical of an EPA report claiming the Clean Air Act will have nearly $2 trillion in annual benefits by 2020.
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Is the Stock Market Really Rigged?
Everyone seems to be jumping into the debate about high-frequency trading, now that Michael Lewis is peddling his new book, Flash Boys. Lewis contends…
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Consumer’s Guide to Chemical Risk
Will these chemicals make me fat? That sounds like a weird question, but some consumers may actually have such worries, thanks to a constant barrage…
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Taxable Bitcoins: Property or Money?
Is Bitcoin currency or property? It depends on which parts of the federal government you ask. Last week the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced that bitcoins…
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Why Is Obama’s Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulation Delayed?
In April 2013, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued its Draft 2013 Report to Congress on the…
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Ryan FY 2015 Budget Calls for Transportation Funding Rationalization
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., released his FY 2015 budget today. In just three pages, he calls for surprisingly sensible reforms to…
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U.N.’s Narrative of Fear on Climate Change
In their latest report on climate change, officials at the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) once again fail to address important developments in…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
64 new regulations, from refrigerators to Korean chicken.
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Why and How I’m Celebrating Human Achievement Hour
"Better to light one incandescant bulb than curse the darkness" Tonight is Human Achievement Hour, a time to celebrate human progress and…
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Human Achievement of the Day: Hydrogen Power from Plants
Early in the week I wrote about a major breakthrough toward the peaceful use of nuclear fusion. While that type of energy could drastically…
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Interested in co-authoring a law review article?
I keep a list of law review articles I’d like to write. That list has grown to thirteen, ten of which are about class action…
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Human Achievement of the Day: Bionic Eyes
You won’t see the glory of human achievement if you abide by the World Wide Fund for Nature's recommendation that you spend an hour…
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Human Achievement of the Day from HumanProgress.org: Organ Replacement Technology
We are only three days away from Human Achievement Hour (March 29, 8:30pm to 9:30pm)! What better way to celebrate than with a post from…
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CEI Podcast for March 27, 2014: Bait and Reciprocal Switch
CEI Fellow Marc Scribner talks about his new paper, “Bait and Reciprocal Switch: Forced Access Regulation Threatens the Rail Renaissance.”…
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Human Achievement of the Day: 3D Printing Cups, Cars, Houses, and Faces
3D printing is a relatively recent technological development that has already begun to revolutionize model-building, structural and other medical procedures, and construction of items from…
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Sneaky Regulation? Federal Agencies Issue over 24,000 “Public Notices” Annually
A mixed economy like ours does not remain static. Economic activity increasingly shifts toward government outright (health care, retirement, education) or exists under "Mother-May-I" constraints…
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Human Achievement of the Day: Autonomous Vehicles, from Imagination to Reality
[caption id="attachment_55209" align="alignright" width="300"] CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman about to take a spin in a Google self-driving car in May 2012. (Photo by Marc…
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How Matt Drudge (and Other Obamacare Victims) Can Escape the “Liberty Tax”
Former Competitive Enterprise Institute Research Associate Michael Mayfield provided invaluable assistance with this post. Matt Drudge's widely discussed…
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CEI Appeals Agency’s Withholding of Documents about Its 2013 Government Shutdown Shenanigans
Earlier, I wrote about how Obama administration officials have been very “tight-lipped in response to FOIA requests” about their “government shutdown shenanigans,” such as closing private…
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Human Achievement of the Day: Breakthrough toward Unlimited Clean and Cheap Energy
Shocking as it might seem, some of us at CEI agree with environmentalists that reducing personal waste is a good idea. Voluntarily reducing our individual…
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Kicking off Human Achievement Hour 2014
Annually since 2009, my colleague Michelle Minton has organized a celebration of economic liberty for one hour at the end of March, known as Human…
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Draconian Dodd-Frank Durbin Debit Controls Need Not Be More Destructive, Court Rules
As the weather finally turns to spring, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals today blew a nice cool breeze of common sense. A bipartisan three-judge…
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Agencies Withhold Documents about Closures of Private Businesses in Government Shutdown
In last October's government shutdown, the Obama administration closed down, or blocked access to, many private businesses that had been allowed to operate in earlier…
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Johnson-Crapo Is Phony Fannie-Freddie Reform
Ever since the phrase appeared in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet," and its variations, have…
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The Wrong Way to Regulate High-Frequency Trading
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Beekeeper Speaks Out against Anti-Pesticide Campaigns
Anyone worried about honey bee survival should read the piece by Canadian beekeeper Lee Townsend in the Guelph Mercury newspaper. In recent years, beekeepers have…
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Ohio Constitution Prohibits Union Release Time
Yesterday, Media Trackers reported the Ohio Centerville Classroom Teachers Association membership agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement that is still waiting on approval from…
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MtGox is Dead, Long Live MtGox!
MtGox, once a pillar of the Bitcoin exchange market, filed for bankruptcy on March 10. In February, the website had ceased withdrawals before ceasing…
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Car Dealership Takes Advantage of Union Tactics
A common practice of labor unions is to use myriad tactics -- protests, picketing, intimidation, and coordinating with progressive allies -- to apply pressure on…
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New Data: Code of Federal Regulations Expanding, Faster Pace under Obama
The annual Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) is the "codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
67 new regulations, from reformulated gasoline to vitamin D2.
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Bureaucrats Line Up to Regulate Bitcoin
The regulators are tasting blood around bitcoin, and like sharks they are positioning for the kill. The blood that they taste was not actually shed…
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CEI Podcast for March 12, 2014: CEI Turns 30
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Supreme Court Overwhelmingly Votes to Uphold Rights of Private Property Owners
The Supreme Court has decided an important property rights case in favor of the private property owners and against the claim of the federal government…
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Reining in the Executive Branch Bureaucracy, Part 11: Sunset Regulations and Implement a “One In, One Out” Procedure
Since the Federalist Papers, America has debated “Energy in the Executive.” But President Obama’s 2014 agenda framed by his…
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More Unfunded Mandates for Private Colleges: Activists Seek Restrictions on Campus Sex in California
Legislators impose all sorts of misguided or costly mandates on colleges and schools that harm young people directly or indirectly. California activists are now seeking…
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Minimum Wage Increase Is Still Bad Policy
For the past two years, President Obama has proposed raising the federal minimum wage in his State of the Union address. The main…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
84 new regulations, from soybean referendums to jaguars.
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“Muscle Milk Magnificence”
A former CCAF intern files an entertaining objection to a bad lawyer-driven settlement that doesn’t comply with Ninth Circuit Law, and Above the…
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The “California Rule” and the “The Fall of Pacific Grove”
In my previous post, I described the "California rule," which puts state governments in a legal straitjacket when trying to reform underfunded public pensions.
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Reining in the Executive Branch Bureaucracy, Part 10: Congress Should Create an Annual Regulatory Reduction Commission
Since the Federalist Papers, America has debated “Energy in the Executive.” But President Obama’s 2014 agenda framed by his…
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CEI Podcast for March 6, 2014: The ALERT Act and Regulatory Transparency
Last week was Stop Government Abuse Week in Congress, and the House passed a number of reform bills that would increase government transparency. One of…
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The Law Should Not Enable Union Violence
A general contractor is approached by a representative of a local union and told he “needed to hire a certain number of his guys.” When…
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How the “California Rule” Holds Back Pension Reform
These days, local governments announcing bankruptcy seems like routine in California. Since the onset of the 2008 financial crisis, many state and local governments have…
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To Enact Pension Reform, Make Good Policy Good Politics
In my previous post, I looked at some basic principles that should guide state policy makers when tackling pension reform. Now, we turn to the…