Articles

New paper highlights importance of New Jersey sports gambling case

October 18, 2017 | By JONATHAN WOOD

The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Michelle Minton has a new paper highlighting the importance of the Supreme Court ruling the right way in New Jersey’s challenge to the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act. As Michelle explains, and PLF, CEI, Cato, and WILL explained in our amicus brief in the case, PASPA has been a failu ...

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Supreme Court to hear constitutional challenge to federal sports betting ban

June 27, 2017 | By JONATHAN WOOD

This morning, the Supreme Court decided to review New Jersey’s constitutional challenge to a federal law that purports to forbid almost every state—except, notably, Nevada—from legalizing sports gambling. PLF, joined by Cato and CEI, filed an amicus brief supporting cert. The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, which i ...

Articles

New Jersey places a bet on the Constitution

November 15, 2016 | By JONATHAN WOOD

States are not puppets of the federal government, to be manipulated to accomplish whatever policy the federal government might prefer. If they were, both individual liberty and political accountability would be compromised. That’s why our Constitution forbids the feds from requiring states to govern according to federal instructions. That ven ...

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New Jersey doubles down on sports betting

March 10, 2016 | By JONATHAN WOOD

This week, I participated in a Federalist Society teleconference call on the Third Circuit’s recent en banc arguments over New Jersey’s efforts to repeal its prohibitions against sports gambling. That call has since been released as a podcast and is available here. … ...

Articles

Can the federal government make a city pass a leash law? [Updated]

February 02, 2015 | By JONATHAN WOOD

The obvious answer must be no, right? Setting aside the absurdity of a town’s leash law being a federal issue, the Constitution forbids the federal government from commandeering state and local governments. In New York v. United States and Printz v. United States, the Supreme Court explained that this anti-commandeering principle forbids the ...