Looking back at the Americans with Disabilities Act, passed by Congress in 1990[1], one has to be struck by the extent to which the ADA’s lofty sentiments have been overwhelmed by its adverse results. If it’s true that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then the ADA is a veritabl…
Year: 2017
A Demagogic Bully
The Southern Poverty Law Center demonizes respectable political opponents as “hate groups”—and keeps its coffers bulging. H.L. Mencken described the secret of successful demagoguery as “keep[ing] the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgob…
Judicially Supervised Plunder
The unexpected retirement of Judge Janice Rogers Brown, 68, from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will trigger a well-deserved celebration of her extraordinary judicial career, both as a federal appellate judge (since 2005) and previously as a member of the California Supreme Court …
Selective Outrage
Is Sen. Kamala Harris the victim of partisan politics, or its savvy practitioner and beneficiary? As has been widely reported, freshman senator Kamala Harris got off to a bumpy start in the Washington spotlight, but she quickly regained her footing during the nationally televised Senate Intellige…
Kamala Harris Goes to Washington
California’s vaunted “next Obama” debuts to mixed reviews in the national spotlight. Prior to arriving in Washington earlier this year, Senator Kamala Harris was known, mostly just among her fellow Californians, as the two-term district attorney in San Francisco and two-term state attorney …
In Texas, a State Supreme Court Maintains Integrity, Despite Politics
Cautious and low-profile, it dodges election hazards to preserve the status quo. The Texas Supreme Court has a unique structure, reflecting the state’s stubbornly independent-minded culture. Most state supreme courts have jurisdiction over civil and criminal cases and have seven (or fewer) memb…
The Emersonian Jurisprudence of Oliver Wendell Holmes
Legal scholars are endlessly fascinated by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935). To some, he is “the great dissenter,” whose frequently quoted opinions were a harbinger of Legal Realism. Sympathetic biographers and playwrights have described him as the “Magnificent Yankee” and the “Ya…
Taming the Imperial Presidency
Going back to the tumultuous reign of Abraham Lincoln, political scientists have long been fascinated with the “Imperial Presidency,” and this interest was heightened further by the executive overreachthat characterized the administration of Barack Obama. Some scholars contend that the modern…
Fake Law by Fake Judges
Brazen judges openly legislating from the bench are confirming the widely-held public perception that activist courts are out of control. As a lawyer practicing for three decades in the plaintiff-friendly stronghold of California, within the jurisdiction of the notorious Ninth Circuit, I witnesse…
Darrow’s Dereliction
The reputation of Clarence Darrow (1857-1938) as one of the greatest of American lawyers rests largely on two courtroom performances: in the murder trial of Leopold and Loeb in Chicago in 1924, and the “Scopes Monkey Trial,” which took place in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925. Both were extensively…