Free Republic

It was a carefully staged Norman Rockwell scene. The street was lined with American flags; a high school band played "God Bless America." Then, under the watchful gaze of Wal-Mart's chief operating officer, Maryland's governor vetoed a bill that would have obliged large businesses to spend more on employee health care. The news here isn't that some politicians wrap their deference to corporate interests in the flag. The news, instead, is that Maryland's State Legislature passed a pro-worker bill in the first place. In fact, the bill passed by a veto-proof majority in the Maryland Senate, and fell just short...

Kevin Drum, writing in a blog for Washington Monthly in response to an argument from Juan Non-Volokh, enunciates what may become the new Democratic argument for the filibuster: you can't change the rules in mid-stream. He writes: "My broader point is that the real issue in the filibuster fight isn't the filibuster itself — or blue slips or Rule IV or any other specific rule — it's the general principle that rules shouldn't be cynically changed en masse just because your guy is in power and you've decided they're no longer convenient. As it happens, I'm not much of a...

A Massachusetts court has recently had to resolve the question, as a matter of tort law, what duty of care a pair of non-married adults owe to each other for injuries resulting from consensual sex between them. I'll leave the details of the case for those with strong stomachs who are willing to read the opinion found in the preceding link. In summary, however, the plaintiff (male) was injured when the defendant (female) changed her position during the middle of intercourse. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendant, finding that, as a matter of law, there...

"When I was in Alabama 13 years ago, they had no child labor law," wrote labor activist Mary Harris Jones, better known as Mother Jones, in 1908. "In Alabama 13 years ago, women ran four or five looms. Today, I find them running some 24 looms. This is the Democratic south, my friends -- this is a Democratic administration. This is what Mr. Bryan and Mr. Gompers want to uphold." The "Gompers" that Ms. Jones judged to be insufficiently concerned about the subjugation of labor was Samuel Gompers, the 10-year-old who was taken out of school to become an apprentice...

It feels like Armageddon is just around the corner. The Republican threat to eliminate the filibuster rule in judicial confirmations has led both parties to cautiously assess what the political landscape would look like if the so-called nuclear option were used. But for many here, this political brawl is only a dress rehearsal for the coming battle over a replacement for Chief Justice William Rehnquist, whose recent illness has led to the expectation that he will retire before the end of the Supreme Court term in June. Legal scholars who have studied confirmations wonder whether the president wants to risk...

U.S. District Court judges by a sizable majority oppose mandatory sanctions for lawyers who file groundless suits, a recent survey shows. The Federal Judicial Center surveyed 400 judges via e-mail in December 2004 and January 2005. The survey, which garnered 278 responses, found that 87 percent preferred the current Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. That rule gives judges the discretion to impose sanctions on attorneys who file pleadings that are frivolous, presented for an improper purpose or lack evidentiary support. The survey, consisting of 13 questions dealing with Rule 11, comes in the wake of the...

Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate leader, calls Majority Leader Bill Frist's proposed compromise on judicial appointments a "big wet kiss to the far right". Certainly this is one of the more uncomfortable non-sequiturs uttered in public in a long time. Does it suggest that that the Majority leader is "enamored" of the far right or that he is merely unhygienic. I can't tell. In any event, is this any way for a Democratic Party leader to talk about the procedure of federal judicial appointments? Has the world's greatest deliberative body sunk this low? The Majority Leader's proffered compromise was both...

Bob Dole says that amending the Senate's rules would be unnecessary if only Senate Democrats would forswear use of the filibuster. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Pete Du Pont recounts that many Democratic Senators have had a change of heart when it comes to the propriety of filibusters: "Other Democratic senators have had similar changes in belief: Joe Biden and Robert Byrd, Tom Harkin, Ted Kennedy, Joe Lieberman, Pat Leahy, Chuck Schumer and their erstwhile colleagues Lloyd Bentsen, and Tom Daschle have all vigorously opposed the use of the filibuster against judicial nominations. Mr. Schumer was for voting judicial...

Thomas Sowell, writing on the pending Senate showdown over judicial confirmations, notes that: "A disinformation campaign has already been launched to depict judges who believe in following the written law as being "activist" conservatives, just like liberal activists." "Those who play this game of verbal equivalence can seldom, if ever, come up with concrete examples where conservative judges made rulings that went directly counter to what the written law says or who made rulings for which there is no written law." It is indeed remarkable that the opponents of many of the current nominees can go so far in their...