Ezra Klein Archive: Legal
'American politics increasingly resembles a kind of total war'
Ron Brownstein's column on the unusual role Republican governors are playing in Washington's conflicts is important to read. His conclusion is both chilling and obviously, undeniably, true: Whatever the governors’ motivations (one man’s posturing, after all, is another man’s principle),...
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Ezra Klein
| February 25, 2011; 4:34 PM ET |
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Legal
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The fight over the individual mandate is not about liberty
Whatever the legal argument about the individual mandate is about, it's not, as some of its detractors would have it, a question of liberty. Charles Fried, Ronald Reagan's former solicitor general, put this well at Wednesday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing....
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Ezra Klein
| February 2, 2011; 3:00 PM ET |
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Health Reform, Legal
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The 'weak link' in Vinson's decision
In Wonkbook today, I linked to a couple of legal analyses of Judge Roger Vinson's decision, including one by Ilya Somin that explained Vinson's reasoning this way. "Vinson concedes that the individual mandate is 'necessary' under existing Supreme Court precedent,...
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Ezra Klein
| February 1, 2011; 10:32 AM ET |
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Legal
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The travels of the Constitution
From Jill Lepore's excellent essay on the document: The secretary of the convention carried the original to New York to present it to Congress, which met, at the time, at City Hall. Without either endorsing or opposing it, Congress agreed...
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Ezra Klein
| January 18, 2011; 10:07 AM ET |
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Legal
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The Commerce Clause and your vest
It's always hard to say what one Supreme Court case means for another Supreme Court case. But as Warren Richey reports, the court -- to the dismay of Justices Scalia and Thomas, both of whom dissented -- just turned down...
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Ezra Klein
| January 11, 2011; 10:28 AM ET |
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Legal
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The Constitution and the filibuster
Over at the Atlantic, David Repass argues that the silent filibuster -- which is to say, the conversion of the Senate into a body that requires supermajority votes to conduct daily business -- is unconstitutional. You can also read law...
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Ezra Klein
| January 4, 2011; 1:52 PM ET |
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Legal, Senate
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