On February 26, 2018, Texas1 filed a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief against the United States, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the U.S. Internal Revenue Service alleging that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a/k/a the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare) was unconstitutional. Six…
Articles Posted in Constitutional Law
Last week, President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order entitled Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States, Exec. Order No. 13,769, 82 Fed. Reg. 8977 (Jan. 27, 2017).1 This order included several controversial provisions that may alter American immigration policy. First, paragraph 3(c) of the Executive…
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in the much-anticipated case Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. (formerly Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., consolidated with Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Burwell and Autocam Corp. v. Burwell). In a 5-4 opinion by Justice Samuel Alito, the Court held that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act…
May is Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month. In his proclamation, President Obama cited the accomplishments of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders and acknowledged the difficulties that members of this community have faced both historically and in the present. Let's take a short trip through our nation's case law to…
Courthouse News Service won a ruling in the Ninth Circuit recently for access to court filings. CNS went to federal court last year to challenge the Ventura County Superior Court policy of delaying the release of court opinions. A U.S. district court judge dismissed the case, finding that it was…
A 1961 Illinois eavesdropping law "likely violates the First Amendment's free speech-speech and free-press guarantees," a federal appeals court ruled. The 69-page decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit blocks enforcement of an Illinois criminal law that made it a felony to make audio recordings of…
In an outrageous misunderstanding of students' off-campus free speech rights, an Indiana school district expelled a high school senior just three months shy of his graduation for tweeting an F-bomb from home at 2:30 AM. Austin Carroll says that he sent the offending F-bomb tweet from home, from his own…
Continental Appliances, Inc., a California manufacturer of a gas wall heater sold at Lowe's, sued the unknown poster of a YouTube video on Friday for claiming that its product creates "an imminent danger of fire and serious injury" because of "uncertain fuel settings." (see below) The lawsuit appears likely to…
The Federal Communications Commission ('FCC') ruled today that anti-abortion activist Randall Terry (inset, right) failed to show "that he is a legally qualified" presidential candidate entitled to "reasonable" broadcast TV access in Illinois. Even if he was, the FCC concluded, Chicago NBC affilate WMAQ did not act unreasonably when it…
A lawsuit filed by current and former employees of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration charges that the agency accessed and spied on their personal e-mail accounts after scientists and doctors alerted Congress and the media that certain radiation-emitting computer detection devices may not be safe or effective. The lawsuit…