Dorf on Law

[ N.B.  The following essay is unrelated to my latest Verdict column , also published today. That column concerns the impact on abortion rights of a ballot measure in New York State to broaden the state's constitutional equal protection guarantee.] President Biden's proposed Supreme Court reform package has no chance of being enacted in the current Congress. Even before House Speaker Mike Johnson called the proposal "dead on arrival," it was clear that the Republican-controlled House would block it. To be sure, there is a very small chance it could be partially enacted before Biden leaves office. In the event that Democrats win the House and hold the Senate, and if they are willing to eliminate the filibuster for ordinary legislation (because there is no chance of Democrats securing 60 seats in the Senate), the new Congress could pass the package for President Biden to sign before he leaves office. That's because the 20th Amendment sets out a start date of Janu

Sixteen years and six days ago, I published a Dorf on Law column announcing that I had become a vegan.  Since that day, I have faithfully published my yearly veganniversary columns ( 2023 , 2022 , 2021 , 2020 plus followup , 2019 plus followup , 2018 , 2017 , 2016 , 2015 , 2014 , 2013 , 2012 , 2011 , 2010 , 2009 , and the original announcement in 2008 plus followup ).  What to say this year? I begin by giving myself permission to take a victory lap.  I will lay out the context of this quote below, but I cannot wait any longer to copy and paste these words from last year's veganniversary post: "Besides, do we really think that the right-wing culture warriors will leave lab-grown meat alone?"  Is it immodest to say: "Nailed it"?  If so, who cares?  Nailed it!!   Even better, one of the culture warriors spearheading the anti-lab-grown meat attack is none other than my own former governor and ( indirect ) boss, Meatball Ron DeSantis.  Some things are just soooo

On Thursday of this week (Aug. 1), I'll be participating in the Practicing Law Institute (PLI) Supreme Court Review full-day conference in New York City (and also streaming via the web and then later available on-demand). This is the 26th annual version, and I've been a panelist every year. I'll be on every one of the panels, sharing the spotlight with co-chairs Erwin Chemerinsky and Marty Schwartz as well as a star-studded group of law professors (e.g., Cristina Rodriguez and Burt Neuborne), Supreme Court litigators (e.g., former Acting Solicitor General Jeff Wall), a judge (Jed Rakoff of the SDNY), and a journalist (Joan Biskupic). The PLI SCOTUS Review is organized by topic areas. For each panel, one speaker has primary responsibility for introducing and discussing an important case (or, for the first panel, an overview of the Term), followed by commentary by the other panelists. I'm the primary presenter on three topics: the overruling of Chevron deference in the L

On the occasions when we at Dorf on Law post what we call classics (also known as reruns), we usually reach back into our archive by months or even years to find a column that has some sort of renewed relevance to the news of the day.  Today, I am turning the dial on the way-back machine only 22 days into the past; but given the time warp that seems to have enveloped the world this summer, a bit more than three weeks feels like an eternity. In any case, on U.S. Independence Day earlier this month, I published " About that Non-Debate, and Facing Reality ," which was my first response to the precipitating event that led President Biden to withdraw from the presidential race.  Reaching that finish line took an excruciatingly long time (from June 27th to July 21st), but we got there. I will suggest here, with absolutely no modesty, that my July 4th column is now interesting to read as an insta-classic.  Even if I am kidding myself, now that we know Biden is out and Harris is i

In a recent post on The Volokh Conspiracy , Professor Steven Calabresi proposes the creation of a federal commission with the power to invalidate college tuition increases beyond the cost of general inflation. In today's essay, I agree with some of the points that lead Professor Calabresi to offer this proposal, question more of them, and ultimately disagree with the recommendation. As a preliminary matter, it is refreshing to be able to engage with a usefully thought-provoking essay by Professor Calabresi. For nearly all of my academic career, I have regarded Calabresi as a principled conservative with whom I could and did often respectfully disagree. In recent months, however, he has authored a number of blog posts that suggested he had become, for lack of a better term, a Trumpist hack, even using the lingo of "witch hunt"  and engaging in absurd hyperbole with statements like "Justice Thomas . . . is actually the best justice ever to serve on the Supreme Court i

The most recent episode of the podcast Our Henhouse ( available here and wherever else you get your podcasts) features an interview with filmmaker Mark DeVries. Those of my readers who come here for the occasional vegan/animal-rights content will be familiar with DeVries from his film Speciesism: The Movie . That film includes interviews with important figures in the animal rights movement, including Peter Singer and the late great Sherry Colb. DeVries is now promoting his new film, Humans and Other Animals , which is currently screening and will be available for streaming in the near future. I look forward to seeing the film and very much hope that it is widely influential. In today's essay, I want to focus on something DeVries said early in the interview. Discussing the positive influence on his thinking of Steven Pinker, he and host Mariann Sullivan wondered why public intellectuals whose logic seems to lead to veganism do not change their behavior. Part of the answer is that t

The word "dizzying" does not even come close to describing the last twenty-six days in US politics.  With a nod to George Orwell, it seems apt to call this a doubleplusdizzying month.  Even before President Joe Biden withdrew his name from the 2024 election on Sunday, the previous eight days had seen the shooting at one of Donald Trump's political rallies, killing one person and injuring three others, including Trump himself.  The choice of J.D. Vance as the Republican VP nominee was thus essentially relegated to an oh-by-the-way story, because everyone was understandably focused on the suddenly salient threat of political violence. As a matter of pure political calculation, that shooting provided Trump with the world's most promising electoral opening.  To begin with the obvious, there was the automatic public reaction against the shooting, which should have redounded to Trump's benefit, at least on the margins.  By fortuitous coincidence ("fortuitous"