Legal Issues

A long-time federal prosecutor once told me that as long as elections put people into positions where they can make decisions about how much the government will spend, who will receive the money, and how the government will exercise its power, elections will be important enough to tempt some individuals to steal… Read more

OVERVIEW The 2000 presidential election sparked a fire­storm of debate relating to election reform in the United States. Since then, academics, the media, and elected officials have proffered opinions and implemented policies related to this important political issue. Topics that have been addressed in recent years range from modernizing voting… Read more

National security letters (NSLs) "continue to be important tools in the FBI's national security investigations," according to a major audit of NSL use released yesterday.[1] The audit, commissioned by Congress and undertaken by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Justice,… Read more

Barring the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) from receiving federal funds through the Defund ACORN Act is perfectly constitutional. It certainly is not a bill of attainder, as some recent reports have claimed.[1] The House of Representatives voted on September 17, 2009, to specifically prohibit ACORN from receiving… Read more

Citizens by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has the right to concentrate your affections. The name of AMERICAN, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. … Read more

Revised and updated July 7, 2009 The phrase "secret settlement" has a shady ring to it, even though it denotes nothing more than a contract between two or more parties that is not released to the public--just like nearly all contracts. But the trial bar understands the value… Read more

On January 9, 2008, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, a case challenging the constitutionality of an Indiana law that requires most individuals who vote in person to present a govern­ment-issued photo identification.[1] Indiana's… Read more

Trimming back the federal criminal code by elimi­nating offenses that should be investigated and prose­cuted by the states has long been a goal of policy experts and good-government advocates.[1] This exer­cise in federalism is worthwhile both for its consti­tutional merits and for its effect on government… Read more

"Our massive strategy was to use the Fairness Doctrine to challenge and harass right-wing broadcasters and hope the challenges would be so costly to them that they would be inhibited and decide it was too expensive to continue." --Bill Ruder, Democratic campaign consultant and Assistant Secretary of Commerce, Kennedy Administration[1] "The… Read more

Driving the debate over reauthorization of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is public concern about the importation of unsafe products from China. In response to this concern, the Senate Commerce Committee has drafted legislation (the forthcoming substitute for the CPSC Reform Act, S. 2045) that is larded… Read more

Abstract: The Rome Statute and the International Criminal Court (ICC) are fundamentally incompatible with the political and constitutional principles of the United States. For example, the rights to trial by jury, a speedy trial, and the presumption of innocence… Read more

It is important to give credit where credit is due: Capturing Afghan Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar is a good thing. As the Taliban’s top military commander and influential leader, he no doubt knows a great deal about plans, programs, finances, and capabilities of the … Read more

If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply… Read more

President Barack Obama has received nothing but bad news since he announced his plans to move Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his al-Qaeda accomplices to the United States for civilian trials. After New York officials rebuffed Obama’s plan to hold terror trials there,… Read more

An excerpt from The Heritage Guide to the Constitution A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be… Read more

Abstract: Barbara Boxer and John Kerry are pushing their climate-change legislation in the Senate. Like the Waxman-Markey bill, passed by the House last year, Boxer-Kerry is a cap-and-trade bill. Why is that bad? Because severely restricting greenhouse gas emission places an enormous burden on American families--higher gasoline prices,… Read more

The Senate health care bill includes a well-known "employer mandate" provision that would require employers to either offer a "qualified" health plan and pay 60 percent of the premium or pay an annual tax penalty of $750 per full-time employee. What is less well-known is that the provision would also… Read more

The Senate is considering two bills that are meant to help small and modular nuclear reactor development. Unfortunately, the Nuclear Energy Research Initiative Improvement Act (S. 2052) and the Nuclear Power 2021 Act (S. 2812) would have the opposite impact. Together (or individually), these bills would smother the private-sector initiative… Read more

Executive Summary Abstract: The Surface… Read more

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