Not long after taking office, President Joe Biden released an executive order to fight climate change and called for evaluating the impact of environmental policies on the poor. Yet in a separate executive order, Biden affirmed his support for the 1920 Jones Act, a maritime law that harms both the environment and disadvantaged communities. It […]
Florida lawmakers passed a new anti-rioting bill Thursday supported by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis despite the objections of civil rights groups, which argue the legislation can and will be abused to target and punish peaceful protesters. A read through H.B. 1 shows that it’s been designed so that supporters of the bill can insist that […]
The erratic and authoritarian ways governors across the country have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic have prompted state lawmakers to restrain the authority of the executive branch. This is good news for the separation of powers in state government and an opportunity for average folks to reclaim some autonomy. For people in many states, governors […]
Maryland lawmakers defied Republican Gov. Larry Hogan over the weekend and eliminated the state’s Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights (LEOBR). Since the ’70s, that law has made it harder to investigate and fire bad cops. When police unions pushed through such laws, which still exist in 15 other states, they argued that the legislation would […]
Dozens upon dozens of animated features have encouraged viewers to chase their dreams, but few have focused on setting realistic expectations. Pixar’s Soul breaks the mold by showing that happiness is more complicated than just pursuing the one thing you love the most. Aspiring jazz musician Joe (Jamie Foxx) finally catches his break as he approaches midlife, […]
A handful of Republican lawmakers in North Carolina want to force school officials to monitor kids for signs of any genderbending and to snitch on them to their parents. In some ways, Senate Bill 514, titled the Youth Health Protection Act, mimics a recently passed Arkansas bill. It forbids health professionals from providing treatments like […]
A Florida appeals court panel ruled Tuesday that a state law intended to protect victims of crime can also be invoked by police officers to keep their names from being released to the public when they use deadly force on the job. The ruling is part of a recent trend in which some police officers […]
Justice Clarence Thomas this morning suggested that the Supreme Court is on a collision course with online platforms like Twitter and search engines like Google about how much power companies have to decide who may speak. The context was a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court to order the dismissal of a lawsuit by the […]
Do you actually need to be a state-licensed surveyor in order to use drone technology to map out private property? A collision between drone-driven entrepreneurial innovation and occupational license gatekeeping in North Carolina has led to a lawsuit. Michael Jones launched a drone photography business in Goldsboro, North Carolina, in 2016, taking aerial photos of […]
Arkansas lawmakers passed a bill on Monday that would flatly prohibit medical professionals from providing any sort of gender transition treatments to minors. H.B. 1570, also known as the Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act, forbids the prescribing of puberty blockers to suppress hormones, bans genital reassignment surgeries, and bars any medical treatment that would […]
