Supreme Court rules for presidential removal power in Trump v. Slaughter
For nearly a century, federal law barred the president from firing members of the Federal Trade Commission unless they could be shown to have committed "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office." The goal of this congressionally imposed restriction was to give agencies like the FTC some measure of independence from politics. But the ...
From Magna Carta to American independence : The legacy behind America’s 250th birthday
This month marks the 811th anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta, an event regarded by many as the foundation of the English Constitution and an inspiration for American independence. Magna Carta's lore has taken on a legendary quality over time, but the tale of the rebel barons compelling the tyrant King John to affix his seal to a document ...
A blatant violation of the separation of powers
"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many… may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." James Madison wrote these words in The Federalist 47 in 1788 after the Constitutional Convention had deliberately divided the three main powers of government among thr ...
Remembering Gordon S. Wood and the idea of America
This week, America lost one of the foremost historians of the American Founding with the passing of Brown University professor Gordon S. Wood. For half a century, Wood helped shape how scholars and ordinary people understood the Revolution, the Founding Fathers, and the ideas that united 13 British colonies into one nation. Through his work, ...
For veteran Floyd Johnson, justice delayed is justice denied
Floyd Johnson served in the U.S. Army from 1983 to 1985 and was honorably discharged after a training exercise in Germany turned deadly. Decades later, while incarcerated in Florida, he was diagnosed with PTSD. The VA rates disabilities on a scale from 0% to 100%, measuring how severely a condition impairs a veteran's ability to function in dail ...
Wall Street Journal : It Isn’t Romantic When the Labor Department Says ‘Your Mine’
Is a truck-repair shop a mine? Yes, according to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. In a divided decision, the D.C. Circuit ruled that KC Transport's maintenance facility in Emmett, W.Va.—a gravel lot serving as a repair shop—qualifies as a "mine" under the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act. This means the Mine Saf ...
Washington Examiner : Backdoor rulemaking— The government’s obsession with guidance
Federal agencies repeatedly govern Americans through documents that are not supposed to carry the force of law. In theory, these "guidance documents" should merely explain how an agency is interpreting existing statutes and regulations. In practice, however, they often function as a shortcut around the lawmaking and rulemaking processes. That sh ...
Federal court hears oral argument on whether HISA’s private enforcement regime is constitutional
Philip Serpe walked horses at the Meadowlands Sports Complex as a teenager without pay and spent his high school evenings volunteering at the track. He won his first Grade 1 race at 28, trained three Grade 1 horses, and built a reputation at some of the top tracks in the country. Now he is serving a two-year suspension from his successful thorou ...
California architect did everything right—and the Board of Architecture fined him $29,000
When Jeffrey Hagen, a California-based architect, agreed to help a longtime client with a Las Vegas project, he did everything by the book. He drew up preliminary plans, submitted them to the city for a permit, and applied for reciprocity with the Nevada State Board of Architecture, truthfully disclosing that he was already working with a client an ...