It’s Electric, but FERC’s Cost–Causation Boogie-Woogie Fails To Justify Socialized Costs for Renewable Transmission
In the United States, electricity in the home is commonplace. We flip a light switch and expect the accompanying light bulbs to brighten the room. We know the electricity needed to power our homes comes from power lines outside of our homes, which carry greater and greater capacity until they reach a distant power plant. [...]
Gay Rights, the Bible, and Public Accommodations: An Empirical Approach to Religious Exemptions for Holdout States
Todd Wathen and his partner of eight years immediately began planning a civil-union ceremony after learning that their love could soon be legally recognized in their home state of Illinois. Wanting a “memorable place” to hold their ceremony, Wathen contacted two bed-and-breakfast inns in Illinois that advertised their ability to hold weddings and other related [...]
The State Department Legal Adviser’s Office: Eight Decades in Peace and War
Today we commemorate the 80th birthday of the State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser. This event marks both a personal and professional celebration for so many of us who have been associated with this remarkable office over the years. The conference has generated a fascinating and diverse set of comparative, historical, and intragovernmental insights [...]
Indians and Guns
The Supreme Court’s recent Second Amendment opinions establish a bulwark of individual gun rights against the state. District of Columbia v. Heller confirmed that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual the right to bear arms for self-defense, and the Court applied this analysis to the states via incorporation theory two years later in McDonald v. [...]
Decarceration Courts: Possibilities and Perils of a Shifting Criminal Law
A widely decried crisis confronts U.S. criminal law. Jails and prisons are overcrowded and violence plagued. Additional causes for alarm include the rate of increase of incarcerated populations, their historically and internationally unprecedented size, their racial disproportionality, and exorbitant associated costs. Although disagreement remains over the precise degree by which incarceration ought to be reduced, [...]
The National Environmental Policy Act in the U.S. Supreme Court: A Reappraisal and a Peek Behind the Curtains
The Supreme Court has decided seventeen cases arising under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the government has not only won every case, but won almost all of them unanimously. Commentators routinely cite the drubbing that environmentalists have received in NEPA cases as evidence of the Court’s hostility toward environmental law and environmentalism. But [...]
Rethinking Federal Circuit Jurisdiction
Thirty years ago, Congress created the Federal Circuit for the overriding purpose of bringing uniformity to patent law. Yet less than half of the court’s cases are patent cases. Most Federal Circuit cases involve veterans benefits, government-employment actions, government contracts, and other matters. Although existing literature purports to study the Federal Circuit as an institution, [...]