Watch the Jack Abramoff Interview on “60 Minutes”
Here.
Category Archives: legislation and legislatures
“Implicit Bias in Legal Interpretation”
Ward Farnsworth Dustin Guzior and Anup Malani have posted this draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
What role do policy preferences play when a judge or any other reader decides what a statute or other legal text means? Most… Continue reading
“K Street Suffers from Twitter Jitters”
Interesting Politico report.
“Senate Has Become Chamber of Failure”
WaPo: “In the Senate, it takes 60 votes to do anything big. And neither party has them. So the huge tactical question is not whether big ideas will lose. It is who will own the failure politically.”
“Zombie Lobbyists Occupy Washington”
In These Times reports on the revolving door.
Sen. Reid: I Did Not Go Nuclear
See here (via Jonathan Adler).
Gerhardt and Chafetz Debate: “Is the Filibuster Constitutional?”
Download this PENNumbra debate here.
“Chipping Away at Gridlock”
The NY Times editorializes on Sen. Reid’s use of the nuclear option.
“Carolyn Lerner, Hatch Act enforcer, seeks reforms”
Politico reports.
Potential Major Development in the Senate: Reid Triggers Nuclear Option for First Time
This could have all kinds of implications for judicial nominations and the workings of the Senate across a range of issues if it is not quickly diffused.
Either this gets dialed back quickly or it escalates, and it does so… Continue reading
‘‘Good government’ rules that aren’t”
D. Mark Renaud and Robert L. Walker have written this WaPo oped, which seems right to me, about the new proposed Obama administration ethics rules.
“Eleventh-hour lawmaking with morning-after questions; Passed in the chaos of the Legislature’s last hours, a senator’s ‘gut and amend’ bill on notifying women about breast cancer risks could bring a multimillion-dollar windfall to a firm in his district.”
The LA Times on “gut and amend.”
“In recent decades, Congress has repeatedly crafted laws that weaken or disregard the notion of criminal intent.”
Fascinating WSJ article.