You can find just about any kind of restaurant imaginable in our nation’s capital, but what you won’t find, no matter how hard you look, is a gun store. D.C. residents who want to buy guns, like Tracey and Andrew Hanson, have to leave the district to get them. D.C. law specifically allows residents to buy firearms from outside the District.
So the Hansons visited Frederic Mance, a federally licensed gun dealer in Texas. D.C. law had no problem with the Hansons buying a gun from Mance, and the law of Texas allowed Mance to sell to the Hansons. The Hansons agreed to buy handguns from Mance in what would be an otherwise entirely lawful transaction, but there was a problem: the federal government (of course).
Federal law categorically forbids firearms dealers from selling handguns to anyone not a resident of the state in which the dealer does business. The purported justification for this restriction is that the government doesn’t believe licensed dealers can handle complying with the laws of the purchaser’s state—even though they are required to do just that should the customer want something like a bolt-action rifle, shotgun, or even (heavily restricted) machine guns.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/supreme-court-really-needs-start-defining-scope-second-amendment
2019-02-28
Cato: MPD’s NEAR Act Implementation: The Wrong Way to Do the Right Thing
In 2016, the D.C. City Council unanimously passed the Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Results (NEAR) Act, partly based on a pilot program in Richmond, California, that sought to implement a holistic approach to crime fighting. Recently, the ACLU of the District of Columbia (ACLU DC) filed suit against the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) to implement the component of the NEAR Act that requires police to track demographic and other relevant data of individuals who police stop and frisk for weapons or otherwise search. MPD Chief Peter Newsham has admitted the department has not yet been able to comply with the law’s data collection requirement and recently a federal judge indicated that he was preparing an injunction in ACLU DC’s favor to compel the department to produce and publish the data.
As a policing researcher, the value of new empirical data is high, because, until recent decades, we haven’t had much of it. For just one example, this paucity of reliable policing data led the federal government to underestimate the number of persons shot and killed by police in the United States by about 150 percent every year. Thanks to the researchers at the Washington Post, we now know that police officers fatally shoot an average near 1,000 individuals every year instead of the roughly 400 that were annually reported by the FBI. Data is particularly helpful when trying to measure the racial and ethnic impacts of intrusive policies like stop and frisk because claims of racial bias are nearly impossible to prove in a single circumstance, but data can support or undermine claims of racial bias depending on population and other variables. While numbers by themselves cannot tell the whole story of any given policy, well-cultivated data can show where and in what circumstances disparities arise, giving researchers information to explain what is happening.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/mpds-near-act-implementation-wrong-way-do-right-thing
As a policing researcher, the value of new empirical data is high, because, until recent decades, we haven’t had much of it. For just one example, this paucity of reliable policing data led the federal government to underestimate the number of persons shot and killed by police in the United States by about 150 percent every year. Thanks to the researchers at the Washington Post, we now know that police officers fatally shoot an average near 1,000 individuals every year instead of the roughly 400 that were annually reported by the FBI. Data is particularly helpful when trying to measure the racial and ethnic impacts of intrusive policies like stop and frisk because claims of racial bias are nearly impossible to prove in a single circumstance, but data can support or undermine claims of racial bias depending on population and other variables. While numbers by themselves cannot tell the whole story of any given policy, well-cultivated data can show where and in what circumstances disparities arise, giving researchers information to explain what is happening.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/mpds-near-act-implementation-wrong-way-do-right-thing
2019-02-27
Cato: The First Amendment Allows You to Draw Your Own Conclusion on Same-Sex Marriage
Earlier this year in Masterpiece Cakeshop, the Supreme Court contended with the issue of whether cake-baking is protected speech under the First Amendment, and thus whether a Christian baker could refuse to design a wedding cake for a same-sex ceremony. The Court ended up punting on the case’s major questions, but now the Arizona Supreme Court is facing a similar issue, this time with calligraphers instead of bakers.
Artists Joanna Duka and Breanna Koski are practicing Christians who own and operate Brush & Nib, an art studio in Phoenix, Arizona. In addition to designing wedding invitations using calligraphy, they produce recreations of wedding vows and other custom artistic works. Phoenix’s public accommodation law would require them to design invitations and vows for every ceremony—even those that conflict with their sincerely held faith. The city imposes draconian punishments for failing to comply with this law; Joanna and Breanna could face fines of $2,500 per day, or up to six months in jail. It seems that in Phoenix, Christian artists who oppose same-sex marriage must choose between practicing their faith and running a business if they want to avoid both bankruptcy and jail time.
Cato of course has a long history of supporting both gay rights and the First Amendment. We were the only organization in the entire country to have filed briefs supporting the petitioners in both Masterpiece Cakeshop and the marriage cases that ended in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015). Now, joined by professors Dale Carpenter and Eugene Volokh—who differed on Masterpiece Cakeshop because they consider cakemaking not sufficiently expressive for the First Amendment to apply—Cato has filed an amicus brief arguing that expressive small businesses (including calligraphers) are indeed protected from speech compulsions.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/first-amendment-allows-you-draw-own-conclusion-same-sex-marriage
Artists Joanna Duka and Breanna Koski are practicing Christians who own and operate Brush & Nib, an art studio in Phoenix, Arizona. In addition to designing wedding invitations using calligraphy, they produce recreations of wedding vows and other custom artistic works. Phoenix’s public accommodation law would require them to design invitations and vows for every ceremony—even those that conflict with their sincerely held faith. The city imposes draconian punishments for failing to comply with this law; Joanna and Breanna could face fines of $2,500 per day, or up to six months in jail. It seems that in Phoenix, Christian artists who oppose same-sex marriage must choose between practicing their faith and running a business if they want to avoid both bankruptcy and jail time.
Cato of course has a long history of supporting both gay rights and the First Amendment. We were the only organization in the entire country to have filed briefs supporting the petitioners in both Masterpiece Cakeshop and the marriage cases that ended in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015). Now, joined by professors Dale Carpenter and Eugene Volokh—who differed on Masterpiece Cakeshop because they consider cakemaking not sufficiently expressive for the First Amendment to apply—Cato has filed an amicus brief arguing that expressive small businesses (including calligraphers) are indeed protected from speech compulsions.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/first-amendment-allows-you-draw-own-conclusion-same-sex-marriage
Cato: A Double Win in the Dusky Gopher Frog Case
By a vote of 8-0 (Justice Kavanaugh did not participate), the Supreme Court today gave a rational reading of both the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and its own power to review administrative agency actions. The decision in Weyerhaeuser v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is an important win for property owners against arbitrary agency decisions. See Cato’s amicus brief here.
The case arose when the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), which administers the ESA on behalf of the Secretary of the Interior, designated a large parcel of land in Louisiana owned by Weyerhaeuser and a group of family landowners as critical habitat for the endangered dusky gopher frog, a small population of which lives today in Mississippi. The problem, however, was that the frog had not lived in Louisiana for decades and, worse still, the land in question, far from being critical habitat, was no habitat at all since it was unsuitable for sustaining the frog’s life cycles. On appeal, FWS did not dispute that critical habitat must be habitat; it argued instead that habitat includes areas that would require “some degree of modification” to support a sustainable population of a given species. In her dissent from the Fifth Circuit’s decision, Judge Priscilla Owen nicely summarized the immense practical implications of that view: “If the Endangered Species Act permitted the actions taken by the Government in this case, then vast portions of the United States would be designated as ‘critical habitat’ because it is theoretically possible, even if not probable, that land could be modified to sustain the introduction or reintroduction of an endangered species.”
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/double-win-dusky-gopher-frog-case
The case arose when the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), which administers the ESA on behalf of the Secretary of the Interior, designated a large parcel of land in Louisiana owned by Weyerhaeuser and a group of family landowners as critical habitat for the endangered dusky gopher frog, a small population of which lives today in Mississippi. The problem, however, was that the frog had not lived in Louisiana for decades and, worse still, the land in question, far from being critical habitat, was no habitat at all since it was unsuitable for sustaining the frog’s life cycles. On appeal, FWS did not dispute that critical habitat must be habitat; it argued instead that habitat includes areas that would require “some degree of modification” to support a sustainable population of a given species. In her dissent from the Fifth Circuit’s decision, Judge Priscilla Owen nicely summarized the immense practical implications of that view: “If the Endangered Species Act permitted the actions taken by the Government in this case, then vast portions of the United States would be designated as ‘critical habitat’ because it is theoretically possible, even if not probable, that land could be modified to sustain the introduction or reintroduction of an endangered species.”
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/double-win-dusky-gopher-frog-case
2019-02-26
Cato: Defending a Court’s Discretion To Allow Arguments for Conscientious Acquittal
Throughout the entire Anglo-American legal tradition, the independence of citizen juries has been understood to be an indispensable structural check on executive and legislative power. This independence has traditionally implied that jurors would both understand the consequences of a conviction, and that they would possess the power of conscientious acquittal, or “jury nullification”—that is, the inherent prerogative to decline to convict a defendant, even if factual guilt is shown beyond a reasonable doubt, when convicting would work a manifest injustice. Nevertheless, modern courts generally do not protect a defendant’s right to make such arguments directly to a jury, nor even to inform a jury about the consequences of conviction. A fascinating case now pending before the Second Circuit illustrates the tensions in modern case law on the subject, and raises the crucial question of whether district courts may, at the very least, permit such arguments in appropriate cases.
Yehudi Manzano, a 31-year-old man, made the regrettable decision to get involved in a romantic relationship with a 15-year-old girl. While their sexual relationship was impermissible under Connecticut age-of-consent laws, there was no indication that any instance of sex was coerced. On one occasion, Mr. Manzano took a video on his cell phone of the two of them having sex, which he then deleted. But the video was uploaded to the cloud, federal prosecutors ultimately became aware of the recording, and they charged Mr. Manzano with both production and distribution of child pornography, which respectively carry mandatory minimum sentences of fifteen and five years.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/defending-courts-discretion-allow-arguments-conscientious-acquittal
Yehudi Manzano, a 31-year-old man, made the regrettable decision to get involved in a romantic relationship with a 15-year-old girl. While their sexual relationship was impermissible under Connecticut age-of-consent laws, there was no indication that any instance of sex was coerced. On one occasion, Mr. Manzano took a video on his cell phone of the two of them having sex, which he then deleted. But the video was uploaded to the cloud, federal prosecutors ultimately became aware of the recording, and they charged Mr. Manzano with both production and distribution of child pornography, which respectively carry mandatory minimum sentences of fifteen and five years.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/defending-courts-discretion-allow-arguments-conscientious-acquittal
Cato: The Supreme Court Should Take Another Slice of Wedding Cake
Is cake-baking art, and if so, can someone be compelled to bake one in violation of his or her religious beliefs? More specifically, can a Christian baker refuse to design a wedding cake for a same-sex couple due to her sincere religious objections to same-sex marriage?
Wait, didn’t the Supreme Court already resolve these questions in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case earlier this year? Actually no; the Court declined to answer these and related important issues, instead ruling narrowly in the baker’s favor because the state civil rights commission displayed animus toward his religious beliefs. There was even unresolved disagreement over whether the baker refused to sell the couple a custom cake or any cake. In short, the Court’s decision was really a minor work, not a masterpiece.
But the Court’s punt, to mix metaphors, didn’t kick the can very far down the road. While the Washington Supreme Court is going through the motions of reconsidering the Arlene’s Flowers case in light of Masterpiece, an Oregon case involving another baker has reached the Supreme Court’s doorstep. Melissa and Aaron Klein are practicing Christians who owned and operated a bakery where they made and sold custom wedding cakes. An administrative law judge fined them $135,000 (!) for refusing to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, putting them out of business. Even though the Kleins had gladly served the couple in the past, and merely objected to helping celebrate this particular ceremony, Oregon state appellate court upheld the fine.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/supreme-court-should-take-another-slice-wedding-cake
Wait, didn’t the Supreme Court already resolve these questions in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case earlier this year? Actually no; the Court declined to answer these and related important issues, instead ruling narrowly in the baker’s favor because the state civil rights commission displayed animus toward his religious beliefs. There was even unresolved disagreement over whether the baker refused to sell the couple a custom cake or any cake. In short, the Court’s decision was really a minor work, not a masterpiece.
But the Court’s punt, to mix metaphors, didn’t kick the can very far down the road. While the Washington Supreme Court is going through the motions of reconsidering the Arlene’s Flowers case in light of Masterpiece, an Oregon case involving another baker has reached the Supreme Court’s doorstep. Melissa and Aaron Klein are practicing Christians who owned and operated a bakery where they made and sold custom wedding cakes. An administrative law judge fined them $135,000 (!) for refusing to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, putting them out of business. Even though the Kleins had gladly served the couple in the past, and merely objected to helping celebrate this particular ceremony, Oregon state appellate court upheld the fine.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/supreme-court-should-take-another-slice-wedding-cake
2019-02-25
Cato: The First Amendment Protects Boozy Talk
A restriction of free speech by any other name is still unconstitutional. No matter how much the Missouri government wants to regulate alcohol it may not do so by restricting the freedom of speech. Cato joins the ACLU and the Freedom Center of Missouri on an amicus brief supporting a challenge to a Missouri law prohibiting alcohol producers from advertising alcohol prices unless the prices are displayed inside a retailer—and they may not advertise who their retail partners are unless they list more than one. This both limits and compels speech.
The government argues that advertising is “commercial speech” and therefore not afforded the same protections under the First Amendment as every other type of speech. The “commercial speech” doctrine traces back to Valentine v. Chrestensen, an infamous case from the 1940s in which the Court arbitrarily decided commercial advertising wasn’t constitutionally protected. The Court has slowly been hacking away at this arbitrary rule, eventually creating an intermediate protection for commercial speech in under the Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission (1980), where courts must balance four factors before deciding whether to nullify a restriction on commercial speech.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/first-amendment-protects-boozy-talk
The government argues that advertising is “commercial speech” and therefore not afforded the same protections under the First Amendment as every other type of speech. The “commercial speech” doctrine traces back to Valentine v. Chrestensen, an infamous case from the 1940s in which the Court arbitrarily decided commercial advertising wasn’t constitutionally protected. The Court has slowly been hacking away at this arbitrary rule, eventually creating an intermediate protection for commercial speech in under the Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission (1980), where courts must balance four factors before deciding whether to nullify a restriction on commercial speech.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/first-amendment-protects-boozy-talk
Cato: A Taking by Any Other Name Still Smells Rotten
The state of Indiana wanted to expand beach property available to the public along the shoreline of Lake Michigan. Much to its irritation, the beach property was already owed by many other people, as natural extensions of their homes. Indiana could have used its power of eminent domain to pay for this property. Instead, the state attempted to take the beach property without just compensation by abusing the common-law doctrine of “public trust.”
In Gunderson v. Indiana, Cato now joins the National Association of Reversionary Property Owners and two other organizations on an amicus brief supporting the property owners’ request that the Supreme Court review this practice.
The “public trust” mechanism for Indiana’s machinations was once used by kings to control public waterways. In ye olden days, kings would assume authority over waterways abutting private property to ensure that navigation and fishing could continue at a relatively uniform pace. The Indiana bureaucracy and courts reformulated the rule to extend the “trust” upwards from any actual water to the “high water mark” on the sand. This meant that even if a house had a private section of beach behind it, if the water had at some time risen upward, the property was now forfeit to the government.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/taking-any-other-name-still-smells-rotten
In Gunderson v. Indiana, Cato now joins the National Association of Reversionary Property Owners and two other organizations on an amicus brief supporting the property owners’ request that the Supreme Court review this practice.
The “public trust” mechanism for Indiana’s machinations was once used by kings to control public waterways. In ye olden days, kings would assume authority over waterways abutting private property to ensure that navigation and fishing could continue at a relatively uniform pace. The Indiana bureaucracy and courts reformulated the rule to extend the “trust” upwards from any actual water to the “high water mark” on the sand. This meant that even if a house had a private section of beach behind it, if the water had at some time risen upward, the property was now forfeit to the government.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/taking-any-other-name-still-smells-rotten
2019-02-24
Cato: Your Constitution Is in the Mail
Return Mail, Inc. is a small technological company that developed a and patented a system for processing returned mail after a failed delivery attempt, using optical scanners, computer databases, and other mechanisms. When it sought to enforce its patent against the United States Post Service (USPS), it knew that in the wake of the 2011 America Invents Act (AIA), the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) could change its mind and conclude that the patent was granted in error and should have no further force. It also knew, however—or so it thought—that once the government made a decision regarding a patent, the government would be expected to speak with one voice. Instead, two different governmental agencies came to different conclusions and attempted to argue amongst themselves over Return Mail’s rights.
Article II of the Constitution vests the executive power in the president alone because the president is uniquely accountable to the entire American public. Yet the USPS, although part of the government, operates independently of direct presidential control and is able to take legal positions that conflict with presidential directives and priorities. The Supreme Court has permitted the creation of such agencies, but it has never sanctioned these agencies to directly contradict presidential decisions and to seek the resolution of such disputes in the judiciary branch.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/constitution-mail
Article II of the Constitution vests the executive power in the president alone because the president is uniquely accountable to the entire American public. Yet the USPS, although part of the government, operates independently of direct presidential control and is able to take legal positions that conflict with presidential directives and priorities. The Supreme Court has permitted the creation of such agencies, but it has never sanctioned these agencies to directly contradict presidential decisions and to seek the resolution of such disputes in the judiciary branch.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/constitution-mail
Cato: Hacking the Appointments Clause
The naming of Matthew Whitaker as acting head of the Department of Justice, following the forced resignation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, has kicked off a mini-debate between legal scholars over the propriety of his appointment. On Thursday, Neal Katyal and George Conway argued in The New York Times that Whitaker’s elevation ran afoul of the Constitution’s Appointments Clause, which requires that the president appoint “principal officers” of the United States, such as the Attorney General, only with the “advice and consent” of the Senate. John Yoo, a conservative legal scholar who served at DOJ under the Bush Administration, told Axios he agreed, and that the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, which purports to authorize the appointment of unconfirmed interim officers to fill vacancies, was unconstitutional as applied to such “principal” offices. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas expressed a similar view in an opinion just last year. On the other side, we have Steve Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas, who notes that the Supreme Court blessed temporary appointments without confirmation back in 1898, in United States v. Eaton.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/hacking-appointments-clause
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/hacking-appointments-clause
2019-02-23
Cato: Ruling Striking Down Obamacare Comes Six Years Late and a Dollar Short
Late Friday afternoon, a federal judge in Fort Worth ruled that, because the individual mandate could no longer be upheld as a tax (because Congress in 2017 eliminated the monetary assessment for noncompliance), it was unconstitutional – and that it couldn’t be severed from the rest of the Affordable Care Act, so all of Obamacare is invalid. Fantastic, right? This is what I and many others have been working for since the law was signed in March 2010 and, while it took a while, we finally reached to the mountaintop – a second bite at the apple to undo John Roberts’s betrayal, right?
Well, not quite. Much as Judge Reed O’Connor’s ruling seemed to parallel the ruling by Judge Roger Vinson nearly eight years ago, in the litigation that culminated NFIB v. Sebelius in 2012 – Josh Blackman even evoked that early decision in a clever allusion to Groundhog Day – this time around there are different statutory facts being evaluated and so a different legal posture.
Mind you, it’s absolutely correct that a “shared responsibility payment” that is $0 can no longer be justified as a tax, even under Chief Justice Roberts’s twistification. That is, a bare command to buy insurance is unconstitutional because it goes beyond federal power under the Commerce Clause and Necessary and Proper Clause (so ruled a majority of the Supreme Court, including Roberts).
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/ruling-striking-down-obamacare-comes-six-years-late-dollar-short
Well, not quite. Much as Judge Reed O’Connor’s ruling seemed to parallel the ruling by Judge Roger Vinson nearly eight years ago, in the litigation that culminated NFIB v. Sebelius in 2012 – Josh Blackman even evoked that early decision in a clever allusion to Groundhog Day – this time around there are different statutory facts being evaluated and so a different legal posture.
Mind you, it’s absolutely correct that a “shared responsibility payment” that is $0 can no longer be justified as a tax, even under Chief Justice Roberts’s twistification. That is, a bare command to buy insurance is unconstitutional because it goes beyond federal power under the Commerce Clause and Necessary and Proper Clause (so ruled a majority of the Supreme Court, including Roberts).
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/ruling-striking-down-obamacare-comes-six-years-late-dollar-short
Cato: “You Didn’t Build That”
Ronald Reagan’s legacy-defining tax cuts passed through Congress in 1981 and 1986 with broad Democratic support. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 on the other hand, failed to garner a single Democratic vote before President Trump signed it into law. In the latter case, the lack of concomitant spending cuts might allow one to frame this opposition as an act of fiscal prudence on the part of the Democrats. But the counterfactual - that if the legislation had also included a scaling back of Medicare benefits and a partial Social Security privatization then the Democrats would have leaped on board - strains credulity.
More likely, Democratic opposition is motivated, at least in part, by an increasingly ideological commitment to a European style social welfare state. Many Western European governments collect 40% or more of their GDP in taxes, while the United States collects just over half of that figure. In urging us to emulate the European model, the progressive left wing of the Democratic party not only downplays the perverse economic effects of higher taxes, they have taken to morally justifying progressive taxation as the “fair share” owed to society by those who have been successful in the private sector, on account of the government-provided goods and services which undoubtedly necessary to that success.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/you-didnt-build
More likely, Democratic opposition is motivated, at least in part, by an increasingly ideological commitment to a European style social welfare state. Many Western European governments collect 40% or more of their GDP in taxes, while the United States collects just over half of that figure. In urging us to emulate the European model, the progressive left wing of the Democratic party not only downplays the perverse economic effects of higher taxes, they have taken to morally justifying progressive taxation as the “fair share” owed to society by those who have been successful in the private sector, on account of the government-provided goods and services which undoubtedly necessary to that success.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/you-didnt-build
2019-02-22
Cato: Farm Bill Socialism in Senate
Republicans have criticized the socialism of Democrats such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but they should reflect on their own party’s socialist vote in the Senate yesterday. The upper chamber voted 87-13 for the bloated monstrosity known as the farm bill, which funds farm subsidies and food stamps. Republicans in the Senate voted in favor 38-13.
It is not hyperbole to call the farm bill “socialism.” It will spend $867 billion over the next decade, thus pushing up government debt and taxes. It includes large-scale wealth redistribution in the form of food stamps. At its core is central planning, which is obvious when you consider that the bill is 807 pages of legalese laying out excruciating details on crop prices, acres, yields, and other micromanagement. Furthermore, the bill lines the pockets of wealthy elites (landowners), which is a central feature of socialism in practice around the world.
The bill does not represent incremental reform toward smaller government. It is an extension and expansion of big government programs.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/farm-bill-socialism-senate
It is not hyperbole to call the farm bill “socialism.” It will spend $867 billion over the next decade, thus pushing up government debt and taxes. It includes large-scale wealth redistribution in the form of food stamps. At its core is central planning, which is obvious when you consider that the bill is 807 pages of legalese laying out excruciating details on crop prices, acres, yields, and other micromanagement. Furthermore, the bill lines the pockets of wealthy elites (landowners), which is a central feature of socialism in practice around the world.
The bill does not represent incremental reform toward smaller government. It is an extension and expansion of big government programs.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/farm-bill-socialism-senate
Cato: The Trump Administration’s Latest Trade Move
The latest attack on international institutions by the Trump administration distinguishes itself by being quite obscure: It’s about postage. It also may have more of a basis than most of the administration’s complaints about trade.
The administration is concerned about the Universal Postal Union (UPU), a specialized agency of the UN. The UPU was established by the Berne Treaty of 1874 and became a UN agency in 1948. The administration has taken issue with the “terminal dues” rates issued by the UPU, under which, the administration argues, the United States has been subsidizing the shipping costs of foreign suppliers in certain countries, including China, when they send goods to the United States. The basic story is as follows (some good background is here).
When companies or individuals ship goods abroad, they use their domestic postal service to send the item. When that item arrives in the foreign country, the postal service of the shipping country makes a payment to the postal service of the destination country in the form of “terminal dues.” These “terminal dues” are set by the UPU and are designed to cover the destination country’s portion of the transportation costs – basically an agreed upon reimbursement rate to transport the item to the recipient.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/trump-administration-trade-move
The administration is concerned about the Universal Postal Union (UPU), a specialized agency of the UN. The UPU was established by the Berne Treaty of 1874 and became a UN agency in 1948. The administration has taken issue with the “terminal dues” rates issued by the UPU, under which, the administration argues, the United States has been subsidizing the shipping costs of foreign suppliers in certain countries, including China, when they send goods to the United States. The basic story is as follows (some good background is here).
When companies or individuals ship goods abroad, they use their domestic postal service to send the item. When that item arrives in the foreign country, the postal service of the shipping country makes a payment to the postal service of the destination country in the form of “terminal dues.” These “terminal dues” are set by the UPU and are designed to cover the destination country’s portion of the transportation costs – basically an agreed upon reimbursement rate to transport the item to the recipient.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/trump-administration-trade-move
2019-02-21
Cato: Are the Per-Country Limits Necessary to Promote “Diversity”?
The most popular piece of legislation in the House of Representatives—with 329 cosponsors—would phase out and eliminate the per-country limits for employment-based green cards, while doubling the limits for family-based immigrants. These per-country limits discriminate against nationals of countries with high demand for green cards. For employment-based immigrants, immigrants from India receiving green cards in 2018 waited a decade, Chinese immigrants waited 3 years, while everyone else waited less than a year.
It is fundamentally unfair to make equally qualified employees of U.S. businesses wait ten times as long based on their birthplace. Rather than selecting employees solely on who has the best resume, employers now also have to consider who has the right home country. Moreover, the wait times distort the market and keep immigrants with more experience and higher wage offers from receiving green cards. My analysis earlier this year showed that the per-country limits artificially suppress the average wage offer for most employer-sponsored immigrants by $11,592.
In August, however, Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Francis Cissna who runs the legal immigration bureaucracy for the Trump administration appeared to criticize the change for undermining the “diversity” of immigrants. “It would indeed ameliorate the situation of Indian nationals,” he said. “But it would also have other effects on the diversity or flow more generally – and national representation amongst the employment-based immigration pool.”
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/are-country-limits-necessary-promote-diversity
It is fundamentally unfair to make equally qualified employees of U.S. businesses wait ten times as long based on their birthplace. Rather than selecting employees solely on who has the best resume, employers now also have to consider who has the right home country. Moreover, the wait times distort the market and keep immigrants with more experience and higher wage offers from receiving green cards. My analysis earlier this year showed that the per-country limits artificially suppress the average wage offer for most employer-sponsored immigrants by $11,592.
In August, however, Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Francis Cissna who runs the legal immigration bureaucracy for the Trump administration appeared to criticize the change for undermining the “diversity” of immigrants. “It would indeed ameliorate the situation of Indian nationals,” he said. “But it would also have other effects on the diversity or flow more generally – and national representation amongst the employment-based immigration pool.”
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/are-country-limits-necessary-promote-diversity
Cato: Judge Thapar Can Handle the Truth about the Fourth Amendment and Due Process
Before President Trump nominated now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh to fill Justice Anthony Kennedy’s Supreme Court seat, I wrote a piece about Judge Amul Thapar, a top contender for the seat who may yet find his way onto the Court. Thapar is on the Cincinnati-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and is a judge who has displayed a deep understanding of our founding principles. He’s also a clear writer with a fondness for movie references. Two of his recent opinions illustrate his commitment to individual liberty and due process through a nuanced, contextualized view of the Constitution.
Morgan v. Fairfield County concerned a “knock and talk,” where county policy involved forming a police perimeter around a suspect’s house while one officer attempts to talk to the residents. One of the perimeter officers behind the house saw marijuana plants on a balcony, pursuant to which the police eventually secured a search warrant. The majority found that the county’s “knock and talk” policy directed the officers to conduct a warrantless search – that forming the perimeter involved invading the “curtilage” of someone’s house – and so the county could be held liable for a Fourth Amendment violation (though the officers had qualified immunity because they were just following standard policy).
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/judge-thapar-can-handle-truth-about-fourth-amendment-due-process
Morgan v. Fairfield County concerned a “knock and talk,” where county policy involved forming a police perimeter around a suspect’s house while one officer attempts to talk to the residents. One of the perimeter officers behind the house saw marijuana plants on a balcony, pursuant to which the police eventually secured a search warrant. The majority found that the county’s “knock and talk” policy directed the officers to conduct a warrantless search – that forming the perimeter involved invading the “curtilage” of someone’s house – and so the county could be held liable for a Fourth Amendment violation (though the officers had qualified immunity because they were just following standard policy).
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/judge-thapar-can-handle-truth-about-fourth-amendment-due-process
2019-02-20
Cato: Three Basic Principles for Immigration Reform
I have previously described in detail the reforms that America’s immigration system needs. In this post, I want to highlight what I think the general principles behind those reforms should be. Three basic principles should guide immigration reform: openness, equal treatment, and flexibility. Reform should make America more open to immigrants, should treat all immigrants equally as individuals, and should be flexible enough to respond automatically to changes in the economy or society.
1) Openness to new immigrants. Reform should make it easier to immigrate legally, not more difficult. This pillar protects the rights of Americans to associate, contract, and trade with people born in other countries. These people might be their family members, friends, employees, or employers, but ultimately, restrictions on immigration are restriction on the liberty of Americans. Reform should recognize the presumptive right—overcome only for very good reasons—of Americans to freely interact with foreigners on U.S. soil.
Of course, the freedom to associate across borders also benefits Americans—even those who don’t participate directly with the immigration system—by expanding the pool of employees, consumers, investors, and entrepreneurs who produce goods and provide services that improve the quality of life of all Americans. The social capital that immigrants bring with them makes America a stronger, safer country. Immigrants marry, have children, and participate in religious groups at higher rates than the U.S.-born population, and it is precisely for these reasons that they have much lower rates of criminality.
As a practical matter, there are many ways to move toward a more open immigration system. My list of reforms gives specific examples. But here is a general blueprint: grant indefinite work visas to anyone with a job in the United States, confer legal permanent residency on anyone who works for 5 years, and remove the quotas on green cards for immediate family members—adult children and siblings of U.S. citizens as well as spouses and minor children of legal permanent residents.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/three-basic-principles-immigration-reform
1) Openness to new immigrants. Reform should make it easier to immigrate legally, not more difficult. This pillar protects the rights of Americans to associate, contract, and trade with people born in other countries. These people might be their family members, friends, employees, or employers, but ultimately, restrictions on immigration are restriction on the liberty of Americans. Reform should recognize the presumptive right—overcome only for very good reasons—of Americans to freely interact with foreigners on U.S. soil.
Of course, the freedom to associate across borders also benefits Americans—even those who don’t participate directly with the immigration system—by expanding the pool of employees, consumers, investors, and entrepreneurs who produce goods and provide services that improve the quality of life of all Americans. The social capital that immigrants bring with them makes America a stronger, safer country. Immigrants marry, have children, and participate in religious groups at higher rates than the U.S.-born population, and it is precisely for these reasons that they have much lower rates of criminality.
As a practical matter, there are many ways to move toward a more open immigration system. My list of reforms gives specific examples. But here is a general blueprint: grant indefinite work visas to anyone with a job in the United States, confer legal permanent residency on anyone who works for 5 years, and remove the quotas on green cards for immediate family members—adult children and siblings of U.S. citizens as well as spouses and minor children of legal permanent residents.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/three-basic-principles-immigration-reform
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