Law & Liberty collected holiday reading picks from its editorial staff (here). Here is my favorite book from 2024. Thanks to Real Clear Books! Victor Davis Hanson, The End of Everything: American conservatives tend to focus on their nation’s own brief history, as if time began on July …
Year: 2024
Trump’s Department of Labor Needs a MAGA Leader
Labor unions are not pro-worker, and improving the status of America’s blue-collar middle class does not depend on fealty to union bosses. This essay first appeared in Civitas Outlook, the new online journal of the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas-Austin, on December 17, 2024 (here)…
The Conundrum of Woke Capitalism
Why did corporate America become more interested in making leftist political statements than earning profits for shareholders? And how can it be fixed? Commerce is, after all, a two-way street. This essay first appeared in Law & Liberty on December 4, 2024 (here). Thanks to Power Line, Real C…
Solving the Housing Crisis
An accomplished land use litigator displays his disdain for zoning, a century-old practice in use nationwide. What does he have against maintaining nice neighborhoods? Does desiring public safety, low density, and low taxes make one a “NIMBY”? This essay originally appeared in Law & Liber…
Should Trump Use DOJ Against His Enemies?
To restore the rule of law, Trump’s Department of Justice must investigate those who subverted our constitutional order. Accountability is not the same as revenge. If laws were broken, the wrongdoers must be held responsible. This essay was co-authored with TJ Harker, a former federal prose…
Montana’s Imperial Judiciary Kneecaps the Rule of Law
Our adversarial system of justice depends on robust advocacy, but in Montana zealous legal representation adverse to the state supreme court can lead to discipline–and election interference. An abridged version of this article first appeared in The Federalist on October 30, 2024 (here). Jud…
Reclaiming Civil Rights
This essay first appeared in Chronicles on October 18, 2024 (here). Thanks to Real Clear Policy (here) and Power Line! “Civil rights” is one of the most misunderstood terms in law and politics. For that reason, it is also prone to the greatest abuse. In modern parlance, “civil rights” is …
The ABA Retreats from Its Diversity Mandates—or Does It?
“Holistic” admissions, which eschew reliance on objective metrics such as grades and test scores, focusing instead on a subjective evaluation of an applicant’s potential based on his individual experiences, are an obvious artifice for granting racial preferences without leaving incriminatin…
The Fifth Circuit Shuts Down a Rampaging Activist Judge
There is so much bad news every day that we must savor the occasional victories. And last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit delivered a victory to the state of Texas in the form of a decision removing U.S. District Court Judge Janis Jack from a long-running case in the Souther…
Nullifying Modernity (and Common Sense)
S.B. 2775, and the nullification doctrine in general, are fringe concoctions that the Tennessee General Assembly should summarily reject. At the recent “summer study” hearing, the bill’s author, Jeff Cobble, showed where this path leads. A statue of President Andrew Jackson stan…