Articles

Can Congress grant a state a monopoly over an industry at the expense of the rest of the nation?

March 17, 2014 | By JONATHAN WOOD

Today, PLF and the Cato Institute filed this brief supporting New Jersey’s cert. petition in its challenge to the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA)’s grant to Nevada of a monopoly on sports-gambling. This federal statute was adopted in 1992 and forbids any state that didn’t already have legalized sports-gamb ...

Articles

What are the odds that SCOTUS will have to decide the constitutionality of Nevada’s monopoly on sports gambling?

November 03, 2014 | By JONATHAN WOOD

Last term, the Supreme Court considered a petition to hear New Jersey’s challenge to a federal law that forbids any state from liberalizing its sports gambling laws except Nevada. PLF and Cato submitted an amicus brief asking the Court to take up the case to decide an important constitutional question: can Congress arbitrarily discriminate am ...

Articles

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

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 ...