Federalism
March 24, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
If you’re the Republican governor of a state as “blue” as Maryland, it’s good politics to differentiate yourself from President Trump from time to time. Maryland’s governor Larry Hogan went so far as to consider running against in Trump in the GOP primaries. Fortunately, he had the good sense not to undertake a mission that quixotic. Now, Hogan is differentiating himself from Trump on responding to the Wuhan coronavirus. But
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October 22, 2019 — Steven Hayward
A few days ago I was on a panel disputing the subject of replacing the current electoral college method of selecting the president with the “national popular vote compact,” in which states adding up to more than 270 electoral votes would pledge to cast their electoral votes for the national popular vote winner, regardless of how any particular state’s voters may have come out. This effectively abolishes the electoral college.
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July 18, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, decided that Virginia’s statutory scheme of regulating and prosecuting “habitual drunkards” is unconstitutionally vague and violates the Eighth Amendment rights of alcoholics. The vote was 8-7. All eight judges in the majority were nominated by Democratic presidents. One, Roger Gregory, was also nominated by a Republican. George W. Bush renominated Gregory, who wasn’t confirmed while Bill Clinton was president, as
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December 11, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
The frenzy surrounding Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination — including, but hardly limited to, the weakly supported charge of sexual assault — obscured the fact that Kavanaugh was by no means the most conservative plausible candidate for elevation to the Supreme Court. In my view, Justice Kavanaugh was likely to be somewhere between Chief Justice Roberts and former Justice Scalia/Justice Alito on the ideological spectrum. That’s not a bad place to be,
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May 22, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Four decades ago a massive uranium deposit was discovered in southern Virginia. This gave rise to one of my first assignments as a lawyer in private practice. Various interests wanted badly to have the uranium mined, but environmentalists were dead set against it. Cissy Spacek, star of the film “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” attended a public hearing at which opposition was vehemently expressed. My job was two-fold. First, help identify a
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May 14, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Today the Supreme Court ruled that a federal law barring states from legalizing sports betting violates the “anti-commandeering doctrine.” That doctrine is part of the Supreme Court’s federalism jurisprudence. It holds that the federal government cannot “commandeer” the states to enforce federal laws or policies. The decision was 7-2 on the core constitutional question of whether the federal law in question — the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA)
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January 8, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Steve Bannon’s days as an influential player may be over. If so, what is his legacy? It’s not the election of President Trump. This was down to Trump himself, as the president likes to remind us. Nor is Bannon’s legacy hanging tough on “Billy Bush weekend,” though at times this seems to be what he is most proud of. And his legacy is not blowing a safe Senate seat in
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January 5, 2018 — John Hinderaker
California has proclaimed itself a sanctuary state, in which public employees, including law enforcement, are directed to defy the nation’s immigration laws. At American Greatness, Michael Walsh writes that California Democrats have fired on Fort Sumter: Now California Democrats—as radical a group of anti-Americans as you will find in this country, whether legal or “undocumented”—have again fired on Fort Sumter. And once again (don’t kid yourselves), the goal is de
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June 25, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Yuval Levin takes a close look at the Senate health care bill. He agrees with those of us who don’t consider it a repeal of Obamacare, Rather, like the House bill, the Senate version “addresses discrete problems with Obamacare within the framework it created, while pursuing some significant structural reforms to Medicaid.” Levin believes, as I do, that “the cause of good policy (almost regardless of your priorities in health
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January 18, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
I wrote here about how the federal government, pursuant to its Affirmative Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) agenda, is forcing the city of Dubuque, Iowa to provide low-income housing to residents of Chicago. As in almost all of my writing about AFFH, I relied on the reporting of my friend Stanley Kurtz. In response to Kurtz’s article, Dubuque’s city manager stated that the article is “not an accurate representation of Dubuque’s
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January 13, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
In discussing the radical implications of President Obama’s “Affirmative Furthering Fair Housing” rule (AFFH), I typically point to what happened in Westchester County, New York as a sneak preview. But Stanley Kurtz directs our attention to an even more chilling example — Dubuque, Iowa. In Westchester County, Obama’s Department of Housing and Urban Development forced the local government to build low-income housing in an upscale community and to encourage people
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January 4, 2016 — Steven Hayward
Paul has offered a good account of the standoff under way in eastern Oregon, but everyone should take in the analysis of Randall O’Toole of the Cato Institute, an Oregon native with special expertise on forest and rangeland bureaucracy. Randall doesn’t think there are any good guys here: There are no good guys to cheer for in the militia takeover of an Oregon federal office building on January 2. The ostensible issue
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May 28, 2014 — Steven Hayward
The Wall Street Journal reports this morning on Nevada cattle ranchers other than Cliven Bundy who are being denied access to public grazing lands on the pretext of drought, even though northern Nevada’s grasslands have grown robustly this year (in part because northern California and Nevada haven’t been nearly as parched as southern California). Here’s the lede to “Grazing Limits Feed Tension in Nevada”: BATTLE MOUNTAIN, Nev.—Rancher Pete Tomera slowed
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April 14, 2014 — John Hinderaker
On Saturday, I wrote about the standoff at Bundy Ranch. That post drew a remarkable amount of traffic, even though, as I wrote then, I had not quite decided what to make of the story. Since then, I have continued to study the facts and have drawn some conclusions. Here they are. First, it must be admitted that legally, Bundy doesn’t have a leg to stand on. The Bureau of
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April 12, 2014 — John Hinderaker
Before I had quite figured out what to make of the Bundy Ranch standoff, it appears to have been resolved. The Bureau of Land Management has announced that in view of the risk of violence, it is withdrawing its forces, which include snipers, from the area. (How many federal agencies employ snipers, anyway? Too many, it is safe to say.) The county sheriff negotiated the terms of the federal government’s
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October 7, 2013 — John Hinderaker
Glenn Reynolds notes the latest Obama administration outrage: by peremptorily closing the Foothills Parkway in Tennessee, without giving notice to those who live in the area, the administration needlessly endangered the safety of a number of schoolchildren in order to make a political point. But what is the political point? Sensible people will draw the conclusion that the Feds can’t be trusted. Glenn writes: If I were in Congress, I’d
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April 15, 2013 — John Hinderaker
A basic assumption underlying our federal system is that in general, a governmental unit that is closer to the people will be more responsive and more efficient than one that is more remote. Therefore, the presumption should be in favor of local or state government control, rather than federal. This presumption has been borne out by experience, as Americans have traditionally expressed more confidence in their local governments than in
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