Legal Commentary

Open Thread on Election

Posted on November 05, 2008
One word: wow.

Prop 8: A Look Back and the Road Ahead

Posted on November 05, 2008
I can't add anything more to all the postings about the inspiration and awe so many of us felt last night as Barack Obama won the election, so I won't try. But, and keeping in mind that I've already posted once on Prop. 8 directly and once indirectly, I feel a need to say a few things about the result last night and the road ahead...

Teach your children well

Posted on November 05, 2008
Riffing off Sonja's and Paul's comments about the world that we introduce to our children, let me share the following: My wife and I decided to tell our almost-three-year-old daughter about Obama this morning, mainly because we were so excited about it...

This is what a President looks like . . .

Posted on November 05, 2008
I was moved by Paul's post about the momentousness of last night's election and what it means about the America we live in today and the one we will wake up in tomorrow and the day after that. I also have a very young daughter and found myself thinking last night that as she grows and one day learns about the "President" -- the image her little mind will form will be first and foremost of an African-American man...

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Recounts to Watch

Posted on November 05, 2008
Thanks to blue-again Ohio and Florida, we don't have 2000 all over again, but a number of races remain too close to call. Required or likely recounts will be interesting to watch (candidates semingly in the lead are listed in bold): Minnesota Senate: Coleman (R) v...

Transitions...

Posted on November 05, 2008
I would hope that all of us law-bloggers might burn off our excess energy in the next few months by giving serious thought to the legal issues that confront the incoming President. I don't mean this in a triumphalist fashion, a la Clinton in 1993 -- now that we're in office, we're pulling out the laundry list! I mean it in a more meta fashion -- what are the challenges involved in presidential transitions themselves, and perhaps legal transitions in general? Let me offer a reading list on this issue...

The real reason Obama won: he was once a law professor

Posted on November 05, 2008
In the excitement over Obama's election, pundits are offering varying explanations of this remarkable event. But one underappreciated explanation is this: his academic temperament made a difference. As a law professor, Obama took pains to consider, and have his students consider, both sides of every legal and policy issue...

Another Comment on the Election...

Posted on November 05, 2008
I wanted to echo Paul's thoughtful post -- this is a truly great day for the country, a monumental and historic moment. But it's a work in progress, as Paul says, and I wanted to say just a little about the work that remains to be done. Presidents come from being Senators and Governors; I guess I thought the way we would get our first African-American President was that there would be so many African-American Senators and Governors that, because of sheer probabilities, one of the candidates would be African-American...

9/10-12 and 11/3-5

Posted on November 05, 2008
Last night, as some 160,000 people gathered in Grant Park to take part in a historic moment, my brother-in-law and a friend, both of whom blog for an audience composed substantially of each other, gathered in an apartment in Chicago -- to live-blog the election while watching it on TV...

For what it's worth . . . .

Posted on November 05, 2008
. . . Like most conservative-leaning Americans who follow politics, I resigned myself a long time ago to the fact that, given all the givens, the Democratic Party's candidate would almost certainly be elected President. And, I told myself ("Self, . . ...

Know Hope . . . and Expletives

Posted on November 04, 2008
While everyone is running around worrying about that little election thing today, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in FCC v. Fox Television Stations, considering the FCC's policy on "fleeting" or "isolated" expletives in broadcasting. Officially, FCC v...

Process and Substance Arguments About Prop. 8

Posted on November 04, 2008
Back at the end of my June blogging stint I suggested, based on a conversation I had with a figure in the No-on-Proposition 8 forces, that the forces pushing Prop. 8 (the anti-same-sex marriage rights initiative) might focus more on process arguments (i...

Churches, Tax-Exempt Status, and Michelle Obama

Posted on November 04, 2008
So Nate Oman won't answer her calls. And now Americans United has asked the IRS to investigate a church convention because of her appearance there. Apparently, Michelle Obama spoke before the General Baptist State Convention of North Carolina at the end of October...

The Reluctant Blogger

Posted on November 04, 2008
On this historic day when we are about to elect either the first African-American president or the first female vice-president, I sit at my computer about to embark on a personal first -- my first "real" blog entry. And I'll have to admit; I'm a little scared...

Greetings

Posted on November 04, 2008
Thanks to Dan for the invitation to blog. I have long been impressed by the scope of topics addressed here. Perhaps I can expand the range even further. My own scholarship and teaching have addressed criminal law doctrine and theory, tort doctrine and theory, and topics in moral and political philosophy...

Hiring Freeze Roundup: The Meat Market is Murder

Posted on November 04, 2008
All eyes in legal academia will soon turn from Chicago and Phoenix to the bad old Marriot Wardman Park, where later this week hiring committees will subject would-be professors to the "Meat Market" gauntlet. In these tough economic times, universities nationwide have either embraced, or may soon be compelled to embrace, budget cuts and limits on hiring...

Law, Politics, and Phil Ivey

Posted on November 04, 2008
So I?ve been distressed a little this political season. All the law professors doing all the political blogging stuff ? all the discussions among my lawyer friends and I that suddenly, out of nowhere, got a little too passionate. And I couldn?t exactly pin down what was bothering me, until I was reading last night about Phil Ivey...

RFK and the Mindless Menace of Violence

Posted on November 04, 2008
I don't know why (okay, yes I do), but with the late news of tonight's outcome, my mind turns to a speech RFK gave 40 years and seven months ago tomorrow (given what happened 40 years and seven months ago today), titled "The Mindless Menace of Violence...

Defining what is beyond the pale of public debate

Posted on November 03, 2008
Last weekend, the Stonewall Legal Alliance at FIU College of Law hosted a day of panels on Florida's Amendment 2, a ballot initiative amending the state constitution to define marriage as a union of one man and one woman and prohibiting creation of substantially equivalent unions...

Stubborn as a Mule (Elephant)

Posted on November 03, 2008
Whether professors should, er, profess their political views in the school setting has been the subject of some attention, including this recent Prawfs discussion and an earlier one last spring. Among the issues raised are questions about the propriety of such expression, both pedagogically and as a matter of professionalism; the extent to which state institutions can and should quash political speech on campus; and the influence a largely liberal (and actively so, by one measure) faculty might have upon students of differing viewpoints (a related concern?inhospitality to conservative views on campus?has in recent years resulted in calls for attention...

Greetings & Salutations

Posted on November 03, 2008
Thanks to Dan and the gang for inviting me back. I?m glad to be here. Since my last visit, I?ve had the opportunity to add a couple of Constitutional Law courses to my teaching load?Comparative Constitutional Law over the summer, and Constitutional Law II this term...

SEIU & Election Politics

Posted on November 03, 2008
If you have a hankering for election-related content, here is a story you might have missed. It's a traditional story about union politicking for a particular candidate -- in this case, SEIU's work for Barack Obama. Some details from SEIU's website:Through October 30, SEIU's members have:Knocked on 1,878,421 doors...

Pelphrey v. Cobb County: The Newest Round of Legislative Prayer Battles

Posted on November 03, 2008
I've been doing a bit of academic writing about legislative prayer lately, and couldn't resist a short post on the most recent legislative prayer case -- the Eleventh Circuit's decision in Pelphrey v. Cobb County. It is huge on both of the two major doctrinal issues -- first, whether legislative prayer can be "sectarian" in the sense of using identifiably denominational language (i...

Long-Time Reader, First-Time Blogger

Posted on November 03, 2008
Thanks for having me, Dan. This is the first time I've tried blogging, and I'm really looking forward to jumping into the discussion. My hope is that blogging will be a productive use of all the extra time I'm going to have after tomorrow when I'll no longer be spending hours a day obsessing over every detail of the election (whatever will we all do with ourselves?)...

Same-Sex Marriage and Young Evangelicals

Posted on November 03, 2008
With Florida's Proposition 2, California's Proposition 8, and Arizona's Proposition 102, my attention was caught by some recent polling data about young evangelicals' position on the subject. According to this study commissioned by Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, 26% of young white evangelical Christians support same-sex marriage, and 58% of them support either civil unions or same-sex marriage...

Logic and Precedent

Posted on November 03, 2008
I'm not a jurisprudence guy, but as I noted in my post about In re Bilski here, I think there are some serious flaws in the way the Federal Circuit settled on the "machine or transformation" test as the only way a process patent claim can be patentable subject matter...

Federal preemption of NYC?s Taxi Rules?!

Posted on November 02, 2008
Fans of federalism will read with dismay Judge Paul Crotty?s opinion in Metropolitan Taxicab Board v City of New York in which the court held that the NYC?s Taxi & Limo Commission may not set fuel efficiency standards for taxis holding a medallion from the city...

Hello, Internet!

Posted on November 02, 2008
Thanks Dan, for inviting me to guest here for the month -- I'm excited to try my hand at this blogging thing. By way of introduction, I teach at Mississippi College Law School (that's the one in Jackson, not Oxford). I have a range of interests, but like Paul and Rick and others, I have a particular one in law and religion issues...

"For Identification Purposes Only"

Posted on November 02, 2008
One of the subplots in the fight over Proposition 8 out here in California has been the appearance of Richard Peterson, a Pepperdine law professor, in ads favoring the proposition. The ads (here's an example) identify Professor Peterson as a Pepperdine professor, a fact that has caused some controversy...

Signing In

Posted on November 01, 2008
I'm delighted to be back for another blogging stint. Thanks, as always, to Dan for having me back and to the readers of this blog for being such an engaged audience.

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