Heritage and Prop. 19

Posted by Tim Lynch

Over at the Huffington Post,  I scrutinize a recent Legal Memorandum published by the Heritage Foundation on the Prop. 19 ballot initiative.

Here is an excerpt:

The Heritage memorandum claims that if Prop 19 were approved, it would conflict with the federal criminal statute, the Controlled Substances Act and thus “invite litigation that would almost certainly result in [Prop 19] being struck down” as unconstitutional. This legal claim is dead wrong. While it is true that the supremacy clause of the Constitution makes it clear that federal law will override a conflicting state law, that clause simply has no application here. The federal law on marijuana remains in force, but that does not mean that a state government is under any obligation to assist the feds. As the Supreme Court noted in New York v. United States (1992), the state governments are neither “regional offices nor administrative agencies” of the federal government. Let’s take another example. Suppose Congress were to criminalize, say, cotton candy–would California be in violation of the Constitution because its police agents are not now empowered to arrest people producing and possessing cotton candy? No. Nor could Congress compel the California legislature to move against cotton candy producers and consumers. Here again is the Supreme Court: “Even where Congress has the authority to pass laws requiring or prohibiting certain acts, it lacks the power directly to compel the States to require or prohibit those acts.” (New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144, 166 (1992)). Prop 19 is consistent with the constitutional principle of federalism.

For additional Cato scholarship on drug policy, go here and here.

John Ashcroft Returns to Heritage Foundation

Posted by Tim Lynch

Dana Milbank has an article about an Ashcroft address at Heritage yesterday. 

Here’s an excerpt:

Ashcroft, in his own conciliatory gesture, implicitly acknowledged that he was on the wrong side in the Hamdi v. Rumsfeld detention case, in which the Supreme Court ruled against the Bush administration. “The Hamdi case was a bit of an anomaly because Hamdi was an American citizen, and it’s been considered settled law for a long time that American citizens always have the right in American courts to petition the court for habeas corpus,” Ashcroft allowed.

Well, yes, it was settled law right up until Bush’s lawyers launched their attack on the writ of habeas corpus.  Nowadays those lawyers play down the dangerous legal positions they advanced during their tenure.  Cheney is the exception.

How the World of Campaign Finance Is Changing

Posted by John Samples

Journalists are looking closely at the DISCLOSE bill, Congress’ response to Citizens United.  CQ says DISCLOSE will loosen independent spending by the parties on their candidates.

Why is Congress liberalizing party spending? CQ explains:

According to one GOP attorney, opponents of the Supreme Court’s decision are realizing that they will have a difficult time challenging the constitutional right of outside groups to spend money, so this bill is a response to free up the parties to compete.

Mark that. Citizens United has altered the incentives regarding speech. In the past, Congress tried to suppress speech to win elections. Now leaders must liberalize in order to compete for votes.

John Paul Stevens, Defender of High-Tech Freedom

Posted by Timothy B. Lee

I’m saddened to hear of the retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens. Whatever you might say about his jurisprudence in other areas, one place where Justice Stevens really shined was in his defense of high-tech freedom.

Justice Stevens wrote the majority opinion in some of the most important high-tech cases of the last four decades. In other cases, he wrote important (and in some cases prescient) dissents. Through it all, he was a consistent voice for freedom of expression and the freedom to innovate. His accomplishments include:

  • Free speech: Justice Stevens wrote the majority decision in ACLU v. Reno, the decision that struck down the infamous Communications Decency Act and clearly established that the First Amendment applies to the Internet. In the 13 years since then, the courts have repeatedly beat back attacks on free speech online. For example, Justice Stevens was in the majority in ACLU v. Ashcroft, the 2004 decision that struck down another attempt to censor the Internet in the name of protecting children.
  • Copyright: Justice Stevens wrote the majority opinion in the 1984 case of Sony v. Universal, the case in which the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the VCR by a 5-4 vote. The decision, which today is known as the “Betamax decision” after the Sony VCR brand, made possible the explosion of digital media innovation that followed. When the recording industry tried to stop the introduction of the MP3 player in 1997, the Ninth Circuit cited the Betamax precedent in holding that “space shifting” with your MP3 player is permitted under copyright’s fair use doctrine. The iPod as we know it today probably wouldn’t exist if Sony had lost the Betamax case. Justice Stevens also wrote an important dissent in the 2003 decision of Eldred v. Ashcroft, in which he (like the Cato Institute) argued that the Constitution’s “limited times” provision precluded Congress from retroactively extending copyright terms.
  • Patents: The explosion of software patents is one of the biggest threats to innovation in the software industry, and Justice Stevens saw this threat coming almost three decades ago. Stevens wrote the majority decision in the 1978 case of Parker v. Flook, which clearly disallowed patents in the software industry. Three years later, Stevens dissented in the 1981 case of Diamond v. Diehr, which allowed a patent on a software-controlled rubber-curing machine. Although the majority decision didn’t explicitly permit patents on software, Stevens warned that the majority’s muddled decision would effectively open the door to software patents. And he has been proven right. In the three decades that followed, the patent-friendly U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has effectively dismantled limits on software patents. And the result has been a disaster, with high-tech firms being forced to spend large sums on litigation rather than innovation.

So if you enjoy your iPod and your uncensored Internet access, you have Justice Stevens to thank. Best wishes for a long, comfortable, and well-deserved retirement.

Monday Links

Posted by Chris Moody

  • Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron: “Economists find weak or contradictory evidence that higher government spending spurs the economy. Substantial research, however, does find that tax cuts stimulate the economy and that fiscal adjustments—attempts to reduce deficits by raising taxes or lowering expenditure—work better when they focus on tax cuts.”

Post-State of the Union Links

Posted by Chris Moody

  • Time for the SOTU fact check:  Cato experts put some of President Obama’s core State of the Union claims to the test. Here’s what they found.
  • During this year’s SOTU, President Obama criticized the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case. Today’s podcast examines the Court’s ruling.

An Appalling Breach of Decorum

Posted by Roger Pilon

This morning, Politico Arena invites comments on Obama’s SOTU attack on the Supreme Court.

My response:

I join my Arena colleagues, Professors Bradley Smith and Randy Barnett, in condemning the president’s remarks last night singling out the Supreme Court for its Citizens United decision last week, which overturned law that the government itself admitted would even have banned books.  Not only was Obama’s behavior an appalling breach of decorum, but he didn’t even get his facts right.  As Brad, former FCC chairman, noted in his Arena post last night, and a bit more fully here, the decision did nothing to upset law that prohibits foreigners, including foreign corporations, from contributing anything of value to an American election.  Obama, the sometime constitutional law professor, should have known that.  At the least, his aides had plenty of time to research the question before he spoke.  This is just one more example of the gross incompetence or, worse, the indifference to plain fact that we’ve seen in this administration.

But it’s the breach of decorum that most appalls.  By constitutional design, the Supreme Court is the non-political branch of government.  Like members of the military, Supreme Court justices are invited to the State of the Union event, but they do not stand and applaud when the president makes political points that bring others to their feet.  For the president to have singled the justices out for criticism, while others around them stood and applauded as they sat there still, is simply demagoguery at its worst.  I would not be surprised if the justices declined next year’s invitation.  And Obama wanted to change the tone in Washington?  He sure has.

Keeping Pandora’s Box Sealed

Posted by Ilya Shapiro

In today’s Washington Times, Ken Klukowski and Ken Blackwell co-authored an op-ed about McDonald v. Chicago and the Privileges or Immunities Clause titled, “A gun case or Pandora’s box?”

If that title sounds familiar, it should. Josh Blackman and I have co-authored a forthcoming article called “Opening Pandora’s Box? Privileges or Immunities, The Constitution in 2020, and Properly Incorporating the Second Amendment.“  As Josh put it in his reply to the Kens, “imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.”

Going beyond the title, there are several errors in the piece,  which I will briefly recap:

First, the Kens argue that the Supreme Court should uphold the Slaughter-House Cases, out of a fear that reversal — and thereby a reinvigoration of Privileges or Immunities — would empower judges to strike down state and local laws. What they neglect to mention is that it has been the role of the judiciary since Marbury v. Madison to strike down laws that violate the Constitution. There is near-universal agreement across the political spectrum that Slaughter-House was wrongly decided, causing the Supreme Court to abdicate its constitutional duty by ignoring the Privileges or Immunities Clause for 125 years. The Kens want to continue this mistaken jurisprudence.

Next, the Kens describe the Privileges or Immunities Clause as a general license for courts to strike down any law they do not like. This is not accurate. Neither the Privileges or Immunities Clause nor any other part of the Fourteenth Amendment empowers judges to impose their policy views. Instead, “privileges or immunities” was a term of art in 1868 (the year the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified) referring to a specific set of common law, pre-existing rights, including the right to keep and bear arms. The Privileges or Immunities Clause is thus no more a blank check for judges to impose their will than the Due Process Clause — the exact vehicle the Kens would use to “incorporate” the Second Amendment.

To set the record straight, Josh and I are working on an op-ed — not so much to respond to the Kens’ flawed analysis but to present the correct historical and textual view of the Privileges or Immunities Clause. To see our arguments in greater detail, read our article and Cato’s McDonald brief, both of which I’ve previously blogged about here , here, and here.

Are You a Criminal? Maybe You Are and Don’t Know It

Posted by Tim Lynch

Yesterday, Michael Dreeben, the attorney representing the U.S. government, tried to defend the controversial “honest services” statute from a constitutional challenge in front of the Supreme Court.  When Dreeben informed the Court that the feds have essentially criminalized any ethical lapse in the workplace, Justice Breyer exclaimed,

[T]here are 150 million workers in the United States.  I think possibly 140 [million] of them flunk your test.

There it is.  Some of us have been trying to draw more attention to the dangerous trend of overcriminalization.  Judge Alex Kozinski co-authored an article in my book entitled “You’re (Probably) a Federal Criminal.”  And Cato adjunct scholar, Harvey Silverglate, calls his new book, Three Felonies a Day to stress the fact that the average professional unknowingly violates the federal criminal law several times each day (at least in the opinion of federal prosecutors).  Not many people want to discuss that pernicious reality. To the extent defenders of big government address the problem at all, they’ve tried to write it all off as the rhetoric of a few libertarian lawyers.  Given yesterday’s back-and-forth at the High Court, it is going to be much much harder to make that sort of claim.

For more on this subject, go here, here,  and here.

Tuesday Links

Posted by Chris Moody

  • Why the Supreme Court should strike down the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board: “Imagine a government agency with the authority to create and enforce laws, prosecute and adjudicate violations, and impose criminal penalties. Then throw in the power to levy taxes to pay for all the above. And for good measure, make the agency independent of political oversight.”

Likely Supreme Court Tie Would Be a Loss to Property Owners

Posted by Ilya Shapiro

Today, the Supreme Court heard argument in Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection, which is a Fifth Amendment Takings Clause challenge involving beachfront property (that I previously discussed here).

Essentially, Florida’s ”beach renourishment” program created more beach but deprived property owners of the rights they previously had — exclusive access to the water, unobstructed view, full ownership of land up to the “mean high water mark,” etc. That is, the court turned beachfront property into “beachview” property.  After the property owners successfully challenged this action, the Florida Supreme Court – “SCOFLA” for those who remember the Bush v. Gore imbroglio – reversed the lower court (and overturned 100 years of common property law), ruling that the state did not owe any compensation, or even a proper eminent domain hearing.

As Cato adjunct scholar and Pacific Legal Foundation senior staff attorney Timothy Sandefur noted in his excellent op-ed on the case in the National Law Journal, “[T]he U.S. Constitution also guarantees every American’s right to due process of law and to protection of private property. If state judges can arbitrarily rewrite a state’s property laws, those guarantees would be meaningless.”

I sat in on the arguments today and predict that the property owners will suffer a narrow 4-4 defeat.  That is, Justice Stevens recused himself — he owns beachfront property in a different part of Florida that is subject to the same renourishment program — and the other eight justices are likely to split evenly.  And a tie is a defeat in this case because it means the Court will summarily affirm the decision below without issuing an opinion or setting any precedent.

By my reckoning, Justice Scalia’s questioning lent support to the property owners’ position, as did Chief Justice Roberts’ (though he could rule in favor of the “judicial takings” doctrine in principle but perhaps rule for the government on a procedural technicality here).  Justice Alito was fairly quiet but is probably in the same category as the Chief Justice.  Justice Thomas was typically silent but can be counted on to support property rights.  With Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor expressing pro-government positions, that leaves Justice Kennedy, unsurprisingly, as the swing vote.  Kennedy referred to the case as turning on a close question of state property law, which indicates his likely deference to SCOFLA.

For more analysis of the argument, see SCOTUSblog.  Cato filed an amicus brief supporting the land owners here, and earlier this week I recorded a Cato Podcast to that effect. Cato also recently filed a brief urging the Court to hear another case of eminent domain abuse in Florida, 480.00 Acres of Land v. United States.

Obama, International Law, and Free Speech

Posted by Tim Lynch

Stuart Taylor has a very good article this week about the Obama administration, international law, and free speech.  This excerpt begins with a quote from Harold Koh, Obama’s top lawyer at the State Department:

“Our exceptional free-speech tradition can cause problems abroad, as, for example, may occur when hate speech is disseminated over the Internet.” The Supreme Court, suggested Koh — then a professor at Yale Law School — “can moderate these conflicts by applying more consistently the transnationalist approach to judicial interpretation” that he espouses.

Translation: Transnational law may sometimes trump the established interpretation of the First Amendment. This is the clear meaning of Koh’s writings, although he implied otherwise during his Senate confirmation hearing.

In my view, Obama should not take even a small step down the road toward bartering away our free-speech rights for the sake of international consensus. “Criticism of religion is the very measure of the guarantee of free speech,” as Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School, wrote in an October 19 USA Today op-ed.

Even European nations with much weaker free-speech traditions than ours were reportedly dismayed by the American cave-in to Islamic nations on “racial and religious stereotyping” and the rest.

Read the whole thing.