| Weekend Round-Up Mar 24th 2012, 04:30
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Weekend Round-Up
CFP: ASLH-sponsored Panel @ Israeli Legal History Assn Annual Conference
| CFP: ASLH-sponsored Panel @ Israeli Legal History Assn Annual Conference Mar 23rd 2012, 19:00 Via H-Law, we have the following CFP: Proposals are invited from members of the American Society for Legal History interested in joining an ASLH-sponsored panel at the Israeli Legal History Association's annual conference to be held 15 October 2012 in Jerusalem.  |
Friday LinkFest
| Friday LinkFest Mar 23rd 2012, 18:30  A veritable smorgasbord of interesting items:■ First up, The Feds are starting to roll out new ObamneyCare© regulations in the hopes of answering lingering questions about implementation of this train-wreck. Methinks they will generate more questions than answers. ■ FoIB Holly R sends us a pair of relevant stories. From The Atlantic, FoIB Avik Roy opines that ObamneyCare© proponents have it all wrong: the free market can provide the necessary answers to our health care financing and delivery woes. ■ She also tips us to the non-news that PresBo is still misrepresenting his own mother's health insurance "crisis;" apparently the man is incapable of differentiating between health insurance (which did, in fact, pay her mom's health care bills) and disability insurance. PresBo, lying? That's just crazy talk! ■ Bob D tips us to this little factoid: "Computer Access to Patient Test Results Does Not Decrease Cost or Curtail Test Ordering" So the digital age doesn't automatically cut costs? Hunh. ■ CareSource runs the Dayton (OH) Medicaid program; it's recently partnered up with Humana to "more effectively serve Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, particularly people who qualify for both programs." It's easy to see why Humana wants a piece of that action: they're a major player in the Cincinnati market, but not so much up the road here in Dayton. ■ And finally, loyal reader Patrick P points us to yet another Avik Roy piece, this one explaining the highly negative impact ObamneyCare© is already having on younger folks. That's a wrap - Have a GREAT weekend! Original content copyright © InsureBlog  |
Sharfstein wins the Lukas Book Prize
| Sharfstein wins the Lukas Book Prize Mar 23rd 2012, 18:19 Congratulations to legal historian Dan Sharfstein! Here's the news from Columbia University:
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On the LHB Facebook Page: Welcome Winston Bowman and Colin Wilder
 On the LHB Facebook Page: Welcome Winston Bowman and Colin Wilder Mar 23rd 2012, 15:38 I am pleased to announce the LegalHistory Blog's new Facebook administrators, Winston Bowman and Colin Wilder. Winston and Colin will behelping with the daily administration of the blog's Facebook page.  Winston Bowman is a fourth year PhD candidate in the HistoryDepartment at Brandeis where he studies American legal history. Winston's dissertation is a history offederal jurisdiction since the Civil War. He has a JD from Boston University and experience as a litigator. This semester Winston is teaching a course atBrandeis on "The Warren Court and Social Justice."  Colin Wilder is a legal historian of early modern Europe andis currently working on a book manuscript on "Property and the German Idea ofFreedom, 1648-1806." He recently received his PhD from the University ofChicago and is a Solmsen Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison'sInstitute for Research in the Humanities. Thanks and welcome to Colin and Winston!  |
Medicare Part D - What You Need to Know
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Law and Literature at John Jay: Sen, Anastaplo, Satire and More
Next week the John Jay College of Criminal Justice will be holding its Third Biennial Literature and Law Conference. The conference runs from a keynote on the evening of Thursday, March 29--Amartya Sen’s lecture, "Law and Ideas of Justice"–and continues throughout the day on Friday, March 30. Several session will be devoted to Sen’s work; another featured speaker is George Anastaplo, Loyola University of Chicago School of Law, whose lecture is "Justice and Community, Ancient and Modern.” A session will take up Anastaplo’s landmark civil liberties case; participants will include Roger Newman, Hugo Black’s biographer and the editor of the Yale Biographical Dictionary of American law, and Judge Jed Rakoff. Many legal historians would find papers of interest in the other sessions; I’ll note several devoted to satire, with speakers drawn from academia and from the media, including writers for The Onion and the Daily Show. The complete program is here.
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How much is the search for the tax-cut Santa responsible for many Republican fiscal policies?
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2012,
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Larry J. Sabato suggests that control of the US Senate could come down to eight races:
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Let’s assume that, at the dawn of the 113th Congress in 2013, all 67 sitting senators not up for reelection this year — 30 Democrats, 37 Republicans — return to serve next year (no departures for the Cabinet, the Court or the Great Beyond). Next, let’s also assume that the 16 races we currently favor Democrats to win go to the Blue column, and the nine races where Republicans are favored go to the Red column. (See our full chart below.) Note that we have long flipped Nebraska and North Dakota from Democratic control to Republican control; former Democratic Sen. Bob Kerrey’s return to Nebraska hasn’t moved us a bit. Note also, as we said above, we are assuming that Maine elects King, who in effect becomes an Independent Democrat akin to Connecticut’s Joe Lieberman or Vermont’s Bernie Sanders. Further, our analysis has Democrats holding seats that are actually or potentially competitive, such as Ohio, Michigan and Hawaii. Finally, we presume that Democrats don’t score surprising upsets in places like Arizona and Indiana.
With those assumptions in place, the Senate is tied exactly 46 to 46, with eight toss up races to decide whether Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) continues to lead the chamber, or whether Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) takes over.
The Commerce Power and National Security
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On Balkanization, Philip Bobbit argues that the Affordable Care Act could be appropriate as a national defense measure, based on Congress’s constitutional power to tax and spend for the common defense. Although he does not make a Commerce Power argument, it is also the case that the broadest uses of the Commerce Power upheld by the Supreme Court (Katzenbach v. McClung and Wickard v. Filburn) involved national defense matters.
Let’s start with Wickard. The very date of the case – 1942 – places it squarely within the World War II context (even though the case was argued twice before the Court). There is much more to it than the date, however. One thing that got farmer Filburn into trouble in the first place was his confusion over a speech given my Secretary of Agriculture Claude Wickard entitled: “Wheat Farmers and the Battle for Democracy.”
“Overshadowing everything is the world crisis," Wickard argued in the May 19, 1941 speech.
So the national security basis for an expanded Commerce Power was explicitly argued for by the Roosevelt Administration. What about civil rights? Dean Rusk, Secretary of State in the Kennedy Administration, wrote that civil rights had “a profound impact on the world’s view of the United States, and therefore on our foreign relations.” Rusk testified before the Senate Commerce Committee on this issue when the 1963 civil rights bill, which became the Civil Rights Act of 1964, was under consideration. The United States was engaged in a worldwide struggle for freedom, he argued. At the same time, decolonization led to the independence of former colonies, and the desire of nonwhite peoples to eradicate the idea of white racial superiority. In that context, “in waging this world struggle, we are seriously handicapped by racial or religious struggle in the United States....In their effort to enhance their influence among the nonwhite peoples and to alienate them from us, the Communists clearly regard racial discrimination in the United States as one of their most valuable assets.” The Civil Rights Act served other purposes, of course, but one critical federal purpose was in U.S. Cold War public diplomacy. After the Act was passed, the State Department and US Information Agency used it extensively to enhance the worldwide image of American democracy. (That story is here, and an earlier shorter version downloadable here.)
I will leave to Bobbit the argument that the Affordable Care Act furthers U.S. national security. If there is a national security basis for the ACA, there is also a well-established history of the use of broad Commerce Powers to further U.S. national security.
Cross-posted on Balkanization.
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| Claude Wickard |
“Overshadowing everything is the world crisis," Wickard argued in the May 19, 1941 speech.
The times through which we are passing will decide what kind of a future the United States will have. We are determining whether we intend to remain a great democracy, and perhapsa great world power.Wickard argued that federal control over wheat was crucial, so that the federal government would have a predictable supply. The U.S. needed to send wheat to England, a wheat-importing country, that was increasingly isolated by the Germans. Wickard called on farmers to do their patriotic duty and comply with federal law because that would enable the U.S. government to use wheat supplies to help England fight the Nazis. The speech had confused Filburn about his wheat quota, so it was part of the record before the Court. This aspect of Wickard is important to the history of federalism. It helps us to see the post-1937 expansion of federal power not as a defensive reaction to the Court-packing crisis and the politics of the late ‘30s, but instead in the context of the importance of federal control over the economy during war. A stronger role for the states wilted in the face of war-related national security. (I’ll add a link to the speech as soon as I have a chance.)
We must plan our lives and everything we do in the light of the world situation. What farmers plant and when they plant it is directly affected by the titanic struggle going on overseas.
So the national security basis for an expanded Commerce Power was explicitly argued for by the Roosevelt Administration. What about civil rights? Dean Rusk, Secretary of State in the Kennedy Administration, wrote that civil rights had “a profound impact on the world’s view of the United States, and therefore on our foreign relations.” Rusk testified before the Senate Commerce Committee on this issue when the 1963 civil rights bill, which became the Civil Rights Act of 1964, was under consideration. The United States was engaged in a worldwide struggle for freedom, he argued. At the same time, decolonization led to the independence of former colonies, and the desire of nonwhite peoples to eradicate the idea of white racial superiority. In that context, “in waging this world struggle, we are seriously handicapped by racial or religious struggle in the United States....In their effort to enhance their influence among the nonwhite peoples and to alienate them from us, the Communists clearly regard racial discrimination in the United States as one of their most valuable assets.” The Civil Rights Act served other purposes, of course, but one critical federal purpose was in U.S. Cold War public diplomacy. After the Act was passed, the State Department and US Information Agency used it extensively to enhance the worldwide image of American democracy. (That story is here, and an earlier shorter version downloadable here.)
I will leave to Bobbit the argument that the Affordable Care Act furthers U.S. national security. If there is a national security basis for the ACA, there is also a well-established history of the use of broad Commerce Powers to further U.S. national security.
Cross-posted on Balkanization.
H-Law Seeks a Web Editor
Charles Zelden, H-Law's Acting Lead Moderator, has posted the following announcement:
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H-Law’s webpage is out of date and needs a major overhaul. In the past, Chris Waldrep, H-Law lead moderator, was in charge of maintaining and revising H-Law’s webpage. Unfortunately, for reasons already known to the list, Chris can no longer provide this service. The H-Law editorial board is taking this opportunity to formalize the editing of the webpage with the addition of a webpage editor.
Knowledge of HTML is not required but is preferred. Experience working with web-editing programs such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver, as well as FTP transfer programs (to download and upload the webpage from H-Net’s servers), is necessary however.
Content for the webpage will be the joint responsibility of the list moderators and the webpage editor.
The webpage editor will become a full member of the H-Law editorial board, as well as a voting member of H-Staff, the governing body for H-Net, upon certification by H-Net.
Graduate students are encouraged to apply.
Interested applicants should send a letter of interest and a CV to zelden@nova.edu. Review of applications will begin in April. The position will remain open until filled.
How Not to Criticize Originalism
Saul Cornell's posts on Originalism during his guest stint at Faculty Lounge are so over the top that perhaps they make this point on their own. But in case it needs to be said: it's not effective to paint other scholars as cartoonish with posts that are themselves cartoonish. Cornell has made important scholarly contributions in the past. He threatens his own future readership with blogging that brings more heat than light to the question of the role of history in constitutional interpretation. We don't like it when conservatives mischaracterize scholarship for the purpose of constructing an argument. And we don't like it when liberals do that, too.
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Stupid Agent Tricks: Annuity and Jail
First, let me be clear that the (unfortunate) victim of this story, (former) insurance agent Glenn Neasham, is not stupid. From all accounts, his conduct was appropriate and aboveboard; he appears to be the victim of a vindictive and over-zealous prosecutor.
The "stupid" folks here are my fellow agents, who could give lemmings a run for their money (straight off a cliff). Stephen Forman, an agent himself, sums it up nicely:
"Should I not be optimistic that our fellow producers wish to band together and help Glenn Neasham? At first blush, you'd think so. But my experience in this industry leads me to believe the cavalry may not be coming ... I was only too happy to sign the pledge at America Needs Agents ... just over 1,100 have signed the pledge out of 228,000 health agents"
[ed: I just learned about the pledge and signed it; the current total is 1,136]
He goes on to list other, similar efforts, all doomed to failure because agents just can't be bothered to actually step up.
Now, you may be thinking: Henry, surely these are anomalies - agents care about their livelihoods, after all.
I wish.
Let me share my own experience in a similar situation. About 10 years ago, a major carrier decided to change their commission structure from a percentage of premiums to a flat per member fee. Fair enough. But they went a step further, making this change retroactive, in clear violation of the agent's agreement.
About two dozen of us met at a local restaurant to compare notes and plan strategy. One colleague brought along an attorney friend who specialized in arbitration. We agreed that we would proceed, in accordance with the agent's agreement.
One of the hats I wear is Continuing Education instructor, primarily for folks who work in the health side of the business. In that capacity, I had a fairly large contact list of agents all around the state, folks who would be directly impacted by this. I offered up my list, and we sent out a mass mailing to about 300 or so fellow agents, asking them to join us in our fight.
We got back maybe a handful of replies. In fact, by the time we eventually settled with the carrier, there were exactly 8 of us (out of the original 24 plus the additional 300 from the mailing) left standing.
Mind you, joining us would have required zero financial contribution, nor did we ask for any time or effort. Just some words of support.
Cue the sounds of crickets chirping.
So it comes as no surprise to me that Mr Neasham is left to twist alone in the wind, nor that out of hundreds of thousands of agents, less than one half of one percent can even be bothered to click a link and supply an email address.
So who's worse, the prosecutor or us?
The "stupid" folks here are my fellow agents, who could give lemmings a run for their money (straight off a cliff). Stephen Forman, an agent himself, sums it up nicely:
"Should I not be optimistic that our fellow producers wish to band together and help Glenn Neasham? At first blush, you'd think so. But my experience in this industry leads me to believe the cavalry may not be coming ... I was only too happy to sign the pledge at America Needs Agents ... just over 1,100 have signed the pledge out of 228,000 health agents"
[ed: I just learned about the pledge and signed it; the current total is 1,136]
He goes on to list other, similar efforts, all doomed to failure because agents just can't be bothered to actually step up.
Now, you may be thinking: Henry, surely these are anomalies - agents care about their livelihoods, after all.
I wish.
Let me share my own experience in a similar situation. About 10 years ago, a major carrier decided to change their commission structure from a percentage of premiums to a flat per member fee. Fair enough. But they went a step further, making this change retroactive, in clear violation of the agent's agreement.
About two dozen of us met at a local restaurant to compare notes and plan strategy. One colleague brought along an attorney friend who specialized in arbitration. We agreed that we would proceed, in accordance with the agent's agreement.
One of the hats I wear is Continuing Education instructor, primarily for folks who work in the health side of the business. In that capacity, I had a fairly large contact list of agents all around the state, folks who would be directly impacted by this. I offered up my list, and we sent out a mass mailing to about 300 or so fellow agents, asking them to join us in our fight.
We got back maybe a handful of replies. In fact, by the time we eventually settled with the carrier, there were exactly 8 of us (out of the original 24 plus the additional 300 from the mailing) left standing.
Mind you, joining us would have required zero financial contribution, nor did we ask for any time or effort. Just some words of support.
Cue the sounds of crickets chirping.
So it comes as no surprise to me that Mr Neasham is left to twist alone in the wind, nor that out of hundreds of thousands of agents, less than one half of one percent can even be bothered to click a link and supply an email address.
So who's worse, the prosecutor or us?
Colucci on McMahon on Nixon's Court
NIXON’S COURT: HIS CHALLENGE TO JUDICIAL LIBERALISM AND ITS POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES, by Kevin J. McMahon (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011) is reviewed by Frank J. Colucci, Department of History and Political Science, Purdue University Calumet on the Law and Politics Book Review. Colucci begins:
Read the rest here.
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In Nixon’s Court, presidential scholar Kevin J. McMahon offers a persuasive revisionist account of the judicial legacy of Richard Nixon. Critics argue that Nixon waged a jurisprudential “counter-revolution” against the Warren Court that eventually “failed” (Dworkin 1972; Blasi 1983). Using archival records, McMahon argues that the judicial nominations and legal actions Nixon undertook during his first term were driven by “politics far more than ideology” (p.6).
Rather than total revolt against the Warren Court, McMahon posits, Nixon engaged in a limited, opportunistic strategy. He publicly opposed judicial decisions in a few politically potent areas –busing for school desegregation and crime – and put political symbolism over ideology when selecting Supreme Court nominees. Nixon did this seeking to expand his Republican base with two components of the New Deal Democratic coalition: southerners and working-class, often Catholic voters in the urban North. But even in the areas of school desegregation and crime he made little attempt to overturn Warren-era precedents or to refuse to enforce Supreme Court’s decisions. He even benefitted from public perception and backlash against the Court. Based on his re-election in 1972 and later decisions concerning crime and busing, McMahon concludes, “on the issues Nixon most cared about” he essentially got what he wanted (p.252).
McMahon situates Nixon’s approach to the courts within the context of his narrow victory in 1968 and the re-election battle he expected in 1972. Facing Democrat Hubert H. Humphrey and the independent candidacy of Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace, Nixon needed to construct an electoral majority by adding disaffected Democrats without losing his GOP base.
Read the rest here.
Green, The Bible, the School, and the Constitution
Labels:
1st Amendment,
Education,
Religion,
Scholarship -- Books
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The Bible, the School, and the Constitution: The Clash that Shaped Modern Church-State Doctrine, by Steven K. Green, the Frank H. Paulus Professor of Law and director of the Center for Religion, Law and Democracy at Willamette University, has just been published by Oxford University Press. Here's the book description:
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And the endorsements:Few constitutional issues have been as contentious in modern times as those concerning school prayer and the public funding of religious schools. But as Steven K. Green reveals in The Bible, the School, and the Constitution, this debate actually reached its apogee just after the Civil War, between 1863 and 1876. Green shows that controversy over Bible reading in public schools, commonly called "the School Question," captured national attention to an unprecedented degree.
Public education during the nineteenth century faced many competing pressures, including a widespread belief that schooling required a moral if not religious basis, a belief among many Protestants that Catholic immigration presented a threat to Protestant culture and to republican values, the need to accommodate increasing religious pluralism in the schools, and evolving understandings of constitutional principles. The School Question provided Americans with the opportunity to address and articulate these pressures, and to engage in a grand-and sometimes not so grand-public debate over the meaning of separation of church and state. Green demonstrates that the modern Supreme Court's decisions on school funding and Bible reading did not create new legal doctrines or abolish dominant practices, but built on legal concepts and educational trends that had been developing since the early nineteenth century. He also shows that while public reaction to a growing Catholic presence was a leading factor in this development, it was but one element in the rise of the legal doctrines the high court would embrace in the mid-twentieth century.
Rarely in the nation's history have people from such various walks of life-Protestants and Catholics, skeptics and theocrats, nativists and immigrants, educators and politicians-been able to participate in a national discussion over the meaning of a constitutional principle. The debates of this period laid the foundation for constitutional arguments that still rage today.
"This is a long overdue history of the origins of secular public education. Green's carefully researched discussion of the relationship between separation of church and state and public education is a powerful answer to scholars and jurists who have made ideologically-based and historically shaky arguments in favor of state supported religious exercise in the public schools. Green's work reminds us of the importance of Jefferson's notion of a 'wall of separation' between the state and religion."
---Paul Finkelman, President William McKinley Professor of Law and Public Policy, Albany Law School
"Steven K. Green has rapidly emerged as the leading historian of nineteenth-century church-state relations in America. Here he shows, in bold and brilliant colors, how the soaring debates over religion and education in the aftermath of the Civil War still shape our law and culture today, for better and worse. Deeply researched, smoothly written, and highly original, this book is a must-read for anyone who values religious liberty."
---John Witte, Jr., Director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, Emory University
"The Bible, the School, and the Constitution is an essential reinterpretation of the 'School Question' and its implications for church-state jurisprudence in American history. Repudiating recent accounts that attribute the emergence of 'secular' norms to anti-Catholic animus, Steven K. Green identifies a far more diverse set of motivations that converged to restrict religious practices in public schools along with public funding for religiously affiliated schools. In the process, Green implicitly defends these norms as constitutionally sound solutions for a diverse society."
--Tisa Wenger, author of We Have a Religion: The 1920s Pueblo Indian Dance Controversy and American Religious Freedom
Medicare Patients Have Trouble Finding Docs
Medicare patients are having trouble finding doctors willing to treat them. Every time the government cut's doctor reimbursements for Medicare patients, the doctor has to decide if they can afford to continue treating Medicare patients.If you are on Medicare and need treatment you may run in to Dr. No . . .
If you just turned 65 you may be in for a surprise. Some doctors, including your family doctor, may not be taking any new Medicare patients . . . including you.
This Madison clinics decision to refuse new Medicare patients may be a trend.
Wertsch, a big guy with a droopy mustache who founded the clinic in 1977 with his wife and another graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's family practice program, says he and the other 10 doctors who now manage and own the practice can no longer afford to provide that care to additional people on Medicare, who already make up a quarter of the clinic's caseload and up to 70 percent of the rosters of its older doctors, like him.
Medicare pays only a quarter to a third of every dollar the clinic charges, Wertsch says, often half of what private insurance carriers pay. When you figure that overhead for the clinic — which includes stuff like electricity, staff salaries, and a whopping $700,000 or so for the clinic's electronic records system — adds up to around 80 cents on the dollar, accepting Medicare is a losing proposition, he says. "I love taking care of Medicare patients," says Wertsch, 68. "But every time we treat them we have to dig into our wallets. What kind of business model is that?"
Read more: http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/health_med_fit/madison-clinic-s-decision-to-stop-taking-new-medicare-patients/article_70520894-72c8-11e1-a7d0-0019bb2963f4.html#ixzz1pn2FyZ4y
We see and hear about this more often. Doctors lose money treating Medicare patients and have to make it up somewhere else.
That somewhere else is in the form of seeing fewer Medicare patients and more private insurance patients where the reimbursement for services rendered is considerably higher.
Most doctors accept Medicare asssignment but some are not taking on new Medicare patients. This can be even more challenging if you have a Medicare Advantage plan. Less than half the doctors in Georgia take ANY Medicare Assignment plan and even when you do find a doc willing to take Advantage plans they may not take yours.
Ask your doctor if they are taking new Medicare patients before making any decisions.
Levinson to Lead ICH Summer Workshop
Our friends at the Institute for Constitutional History have announced an Interdisciplinary Summer Workshop for Junior Faculty, to be held July 8-14, 2012, at Stanford, California, entitled “Assessing the US Constitution: Twenty-first-Century Responses to Eighteenth-Century Assumptions.” The workshop will be led by Sanford Levinson, the W. St. John Garwood Jr. Centennial Chair in Law, University of Texas Law School, and Professor of Government, University of Texas at Austin. It is jointly sponsored by the Institute for Constitutional History and the Stanford Constitutional Law Center. For further information, please contact Maeva Marcus, the Director of the Institute for Constitutional History, at (202) 994-6562 or MMarcus@nyhistory.org
Professor Levinson explains:
Workshop Leader
Sanford Levinson is the W. St. John Garwood Jr. Centennial Chair in Law, University of Texas Law School, and Professor of Government, University of Texas at Austin. Among other books, he has written: Constitutional Faith (Princeton U. Press, 1988, 2nd ed. 2011), and Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (and How We the People Can Correct It) (Oxford U. Press, 2006, pb. ed. 2008). He is also the co-editor of a widely used casebook, Processes of Constitutional Decision Making (5th ed. 2006). He has written over 350 articles in law reviews as well as more general venues. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001.
Stipends and Support: Participants will receive accommodation at the Munger Graduate Residence on the campus of Stanford Law School and a modest stipend for meals. Participants will also receive a travel reimbursement up to $250. Workshop participants are expected to attend all sessions and engage in all program activities.
Eligibility and Application Procedure: The summer workshop is designed for university instructors who now teach or plan to teach courses in constitutional studies, including constitutional history, constitutional law, and related subjects. Instructors who would like to devote a unit of a survey course to constitutional history are also welcome to apply. All university-level instructors are encouraged to apply, including adjuncts and part-time faculty members, and post-doctoral fellows from any academic discipline associated with constitutional studies (history, political science, law, anthropology, sociology, literary criticism, etc.).
To apply, please submit the following materials: a detailed résumé or curriculum vitae with contact information; syllabi from any undergraduate course(s) in constitutional studies you currently teach; a 500- word statement describing your interest in both constitutional studies and this workshop; and a letter of recommendation from your department chair or other professional reference (sent separately by e-mail or post). The application statement should address your professional background, any special perspectives or experiences you might bring to the workshop, and how the workshop will enhance your teaching in constitutional studies.
The deadline for applications is May 1, 2012. Applications should be sent via electronic mail to MMarcus@nyhistory.org. Successful applicants will be notified soon thereafter.
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Professor Levinson explains:
It is an obvious truth that the drafters of the 1787 Constitution had a number of basic assumptions about the workings of what they called a “Republican Form of Government” and that the institutions established in Philadelphia reflected these assumptions. To be sure, some of them, such as equal voting power in the Senate or the basis of representation in the House (i.e., the 3/5 rule), were the result of compromises, in which the losers (like James Madison with regard to the Senate) viewed the result as a “lesser evil” (to the greater evil of no Constitution at all) rather than a positive good. Still, almost all of the institutions were defended by proponents of the Constitution, the most prominent, of course, being the collective Publius. To a remarkable degree, America in 2012 continues to be governed through the structures established in 1787.Readings will be taken from Professor Levinson’s book, Framed: America’s 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance (Oxford University Press, 2012); The Federalist; The Founders’ Constitution; Akhil Reed Amar, America’s Constitution: A Biography; and John Dinan, The American State Constitutional Tradition.
The purpose of the seminar is quite simple: To look at the justifications offered, particularly at the Philadelphia Convention and ensuing ratification debates (including, of course, The Federalist) and to assess the degree to which we find them persuasive over two centuries later. The seminar is not about “constitutional interpretation” as that topic is usually defined. That is, we will not be looking at the parts of the Constitution that have been significantly litigated and, therefore, “interpreted,” over the years, such as the assignment of powers to Congress in Article One, Section Eight. Rather, we will be looking at examples of what in my forthcoming book I call “the Constitution of Settlement” (in contrast to the endlessly-litigated “Constitution of Conversation”)—bicameralism, the particular organization of power in the Senate, the presidential veto ,and the process of constitutional amendment, among others.
Workshop Leader
Sanford Levinson is the W. St. John Garwood Jr. Centennial Chair in Law, University of Texas Law School, and Professor of Government, University of Texas at Austin. Among other books, he has written: Constitutional Faith (Princeton U. Press, 1988, 2nd ed. 2011), and Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (and How We the People Can Correct It) (Oxford U. Press, 2006, pb. ed. 2008). He is also the co-editor of a widely used casebook, Processes of Constitutional Decision Making (5th ed. 2006). He has written over 350 articles in law reviews as well as more general venues. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001.
Stipends and Support: Participants will receive accommodation at the Munger Graduate Residence on the campus of Stanford Law School and a modest stipend for meals. Participants will also receive a travel reimbursement up to $250. Workshop participants are expected to attend all sessions and engage in all program activities.
Eligibility and Application Procedure: The summer workshop is designed for university instructors who now teach or plan to teach courses in constitutional studies, including constitutional history, constitutional law, and related subjects. Instructors who would like to devote a unit of a survey course to constitutional history are also welcome to apply. All university-level instructors are encouraged to apply, including adjuncts and part-time faculty members, and post-doctoral fellows from any academic discipline associated with constitutional studies (history, political science, law, anthropology, sociology, literary criticism, etc.).
To apply, please submit the following materials: a detailed résumé or curriculum vitae with contact information; syllabi from any undergraduate course(s) in constitutional studies you currently teach; a 500- word statement describing your interest in both constitutional studies and this workshop; and a letter of recommendation from your department chair or other professional reference (sent separately by e-mail or post). The application statement should address your professional background, any special perspectives or experiences you might bring to the workshop, and how the workshop will enhance your teaching in constitutional studies.
The deadline for applications is May 1, 2012. Applications should be sent via electronic mail to MMarcus@nyhistory.org. Successful applicants will be notified soon thereafter.
Why's the beef?
Um, Henry, shouldn't that be "where's the beef?"Not so fast.
On the one hand:
"The study found that cutting the amount of red meat in peoples’ diets ... could prevent almost one in 10 early deaths in men and one in 13 in women."
On the other, those that survive may be happier:
"Women who reduce lamb and beef in their diets are more likely to suffer depression ... When we looked at women consuming less than the recommended amount of red meat ... we found that they were twice as likely to have a diagnosed depressive or anxiety disorder"
Make mine rare, please.
query: what does it mean to show a jr lien as an exception on a Title Policy
Normally a junior lien or subordinate lien would be shown on the ALTA loan policy in a special section dedicated to subordinate liens, however, if you need to show it as an exception, just add it to exceptions in Schedule B.
The title insurance underwriter should be able to assist you in the proper creation of the policy.
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The title insurance underwriter should be able to assist you in the proper creation of the policy.
Wood Reviews White's Law in American History
Labels:
Scholarship -- Books
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The eminent historian, Gordon Wood (Brown--history, emeritus), has published a review of Ted White's new book, Law in American History, Volume 1, in The New Republic. The review, entitled "The Dream of Law," is available online to subscribers. Woods' review begins with high praise for White. He is "one of America’s most eminent legal historians," having "written fifteen books, many of which have won awards and honors." Such a "wide-ranging body of legal scholarship," Woods writes, "has amply prepared White for what promises to be his magnum opus, a multi-volume work called Law in American History." Woods then proceeds to take issue with several features of White's first volume. Woods criticizes, among other things, White's preoccupation with historical "contingency" and "issues of race, class, and gender." Woods dismisses the series of hypotheticals posed in White's work as "counterfactual history with vengeance." And he questions White's failure to consider legal issues in the colonial period that, in Wood's estimation, are too important to ignore. Moreover, Woods describes White's affirmation of readers' "different perspectives [on history], neither wrong or right," as "sad." Wood's review reflects profound differences of opinion among historians about what should count as history and about how historians should approach their craft. For that reason, it is well worth a read.
Solidifying the Base
Labels:
Mitt Romney,
Tea Party
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Many parts of the "Tea Party" establishment (certain large organizations and big "Tea Party" players) have been very critical of Mitt Romney so far. That may be about to change, as the Washington Times reports:
Even inveterate Romney foe Erick Erickson has now declared that Romney will be the nominee.
Many grassroots Republicans apparently like Romney (a core 15%-20% has stayed with him throughout the whole primary, a bigger base of support than any other candidate has been able to muster consistently). However, many voices purporting to represent the grassroots had discounted Romney and criticized him as a traitor to conservatism (even if many "conservative" purists embraced him in 2008). After Romney's win in Illinois, we may see some of those voices lowering the volume or redirecting their wrath at Obama.
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The organization that ignited the tea party as a national mass movement gave Mitt Romney perhaps his biggest victory yet, deciding to drop its opposition to his candidacy, a top executive in the group told The Washington Times.FreedomWorks had originally protested against Romney, so for it to move to a position of neutrality---or even tepid support---is a big change.
FreedomWorks, which organized the Sept. 12, 2009, mass demonstration on the Mall, says that while it will not give an explicit endorsement, the time has come for Republicans to unite around the former Massachusetts governor and focus on defeating President Obama.
“It is a statistical fact that the numbers favor Mitt Romney,” FreedomWorks Vice President Russ Walker told The Times on Tuesday. “We are dedicated to defeating Obama and electing a conservative Senate that will help Romney repeal Obamacare and address the nation’s economic and spending challenges.”
Even inveterate Romney foe Erick Erickson has now declared that Romney will be the nominee.
Many grassroots Republicans apparently like Romney (a core 15%-20% has stayed with him throughout the whole primary, a bigger base of support than any other candidate has been able to muster consistently). However, many voices purporting to represent the grassroots had discounted Romney and criticized him as a traitor to conservatism (even if many "conservative" purists embraced him in 2008). After Romney's win in Illinois, we may see some of those voices lowering the volume or redirecting their wrath at Obama.
Cavalcade of Risk #153: Elite Eight edition
Jason Shafrin presents this week's collection of interesting risk-related bloggetry. Take a chance and stop on by.
NB: I'd like to apologize to all participants whose emails were bounced. I inadvertently mistyped the email addy (leaving off the crucial "v" in "cavrisk") and didn't catch that. Mea culpa!
NB: I'd like to apologize to all participants whose emails were bounced. I inadvertently mistyped the email addy (leaving off the crucial "v" in "cavrisk") and didn't catch that. Mea culpa!
Ted White Q&A: Law in American History in the Scholarly Market
Labels:
Historians,
Scholarship -- Books
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Q: Although Law in American History, Volume I, makes unique contributions, you also cover some ground that has been covered by other works, particularly Lawrence Friedman's A History of American Law and Kermit Hall's The Magic Mirror. How would you describe the differences in approach between those volumes and yours? Did you (or the publisher) anticipate your volumes as "competitors" to those of Friedman and Hall?
The principal analytical move that I decided to make in this volume was to try to capture the complex reciprocal relationship between law and its historical context by centering my narrative first on themes that helped to centrally define American culture at periods in its history, and then to examine the way in which law interacted with those themes. I felt that by "taking history first and fitting law around it," so to speak, I would be able to emphasize that the defining characteristics of American law and legal institutions at any point in their history need to be historicized, and at the same time the central role of law in contributing to the major themes of American history needs to be understood.
And here is a related question.
Q: In general, you seem to have chosen to write on topics that have previously been covered a fair amount by other scholars--the Marshall Court, Earl Warren, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, sociological jurisprudence, legal realism, process theory, critical legal studies, and even Alger Hiss and baseball. Many historians seek to make a contribution by writing on something that hasn't been covered much in the literature. Was your choice to take up relatively familiar topics a conscious one?
A: That question is a fair way of describing my scholarly orientation. Although my work has sometimes resulted in my writing on quite obscure topics (western lands cases decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in the early nineteenth century or the internal deliberative protocols employed by the Supreme Court of the United States for much of its early history), I have generally been interested in trying to take a fresh look at topics that have been regularly studied because they have successively been deemed important (I am neither the first person nor the last to write on Earl Warren, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, the Marshall Court, or Alger Hiss). That has certainly been the case in this volume. Every one of my chapters takes up topics that numerous American historians have addressed, and some of them involve topics (American independence from the British Empire, the framing of the Constitution, slavery) that would be taken up in any survey of American history, including legal history. I am of the view that the continuing perceived importance of certain topics, or the lives of certain figures, means that they are attractive subjects for continuous scholarly reconsideration, and that such reconsideration is a way in which we try to make sense of our current experience.
Hibbitts reviews Hawke, Elite Competition and Written Law in Ancient Greece
Labels:
Ancient law,
Scholarship -- Books
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Here's an excerpt from the review:
Why did the Greeks start writing laws in the mid-seventh century BCE? Offering answers to this old chestnut of a question has become something of a cottage industry in the past few years . . . . Now comes Jason Hawke, an assistant professor in the History Department of Roanoake College, with his own take.Specifically, Hawke
argu[es] that law-writing was actually a device used by elites to manage changing circumstances of competition among themselves in conditions where intra-elite social consensus founded on traditional values was coming apart under the influence of expanding population, commerce, and increasing social strife. Law-writing was not aimed primarily downward against the demos. Nor was it aimed upward against the elite. Instead it was part of lateral reordering of elite power relationships aimed at ensuring (however unsuccessfully, perhaps) that power was not overly concentrated in the hands of a few elite families or individuals.Read more from Hibbitts (University of Pittsburgh School of Law) here.
Kevin D. Williamson says that the middle class will have to give up more:
Read More >>
Politicians in both parties (and many of my colleagues at this magazine) speak constantly of defending the interests of the middle class, but it is precisely the middle class that will have to see higher taxes or lower benefits or both if the country is to remain solvent. We could tax the rich at 100 percent and still fail to balance the budget, and the Bush tax cuts for the $200,000-and-up set are dwarfed by the Bush tax cuts for the middle class. Meanwhile, more than two-thirds of federal transfer payments go to the non-poor, mainly to the middle class. It is the middle class, not the wealthy, that enjoys relatively light taxation.The country might also take a big step toward solvency if the middle class saw its economic prospects improve. And it's worth noting that a considerable portion of "federal transfer payments" are Social Security payments, and that many middle class people have paid into Social Security their whole lives in order to have access to these payments.
Paul Ryan's new budget has come out. A common attack on this budget seems to be that it estimates that non-health, non-Social Security spending will be down to 3.75% of GDP by 2050. Since defense spending alone has not been under 3% of GDP since World War II, that 3.75% number may be hard to hit.
Derek Thompson says that Obama's and Ryan's budgets are answering two separate questions:
Read More >>
Derek Thompson says that Obama's and Ryan's budgets are answering two separate questions:
Ryan's budget answers the question: What's the best way to reduce the deficit by cutting government health care spending without doing something too unpopular? Obama's budget answers the question: What's the best way to pay for the social programs we have and the job investments we need?Thompson's approach here is interesting---and the questions are provocative. However, perhaps the best way to pay for current social programs would be to turn around the economy by reinvigorating the employment prospects for the non-rich. Obama's policies have been perhaps less than successful in accomplishing that goal.
Romney romps to a big win in Illinois. He looks likely to net over 30 delegates on Santorum (43-8). Romney has nearly 50% of the delegates needed to win the nomination.
Read More >>
Wow....two big cheers in one day!!!! What's going on? Is sanity breaking out everywhere?
“In the past three years HUD and FHA have been busy tracking and taking action against FHA lenders that violated underwriting guidelines but with those cases beginning to ease up regulators are expected to turn to RESPA and affiliated business arrangements,” the article says.
Read more in Reverse Mortgage Daily.
Read More >>
Read more in Reverse Mortgage Daily.
query: I have subdivided the property i have a Line of Credit against. what now
You need to get approval from your lender before you sell any portion of that property. What you need is called a PARTIAL RELEASE. This will remove the mortgage lien from the part you sell.
Read More >>
Denial River
What is it with people completely ignoring reality? In this case, it's the folks at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Last time we checked, they'd just realized that ObamneyCare© is going to cost over $1.7 trillion to implement, or roughly double what they'd previously projected.Their current delusion is that ObamneyCare© won't lead to the mass extinction of the group health insurance market, despite widespread evidence that it will:
"Forecasters at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) ... are refusing to predict that [ObamneyCare©] will lead to a sharp drop in enrollment in employer-sponsored health plans ... will require most employers over a certain size to offer health coverage ... will permit the employers to get out of offering coverage by paying a penalty for each employee"
Hmmm, let's see: Tens of thousands of dollars and major administrative headaches to comply with constantly changing plan design rules, or a few thou in fines.
The technical term here is: easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy.
can you hear me shouting and cheering...finally some logic!!!!!
The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, Division of Financial Institutions said it has received inquiries concerning the practice of some title insurance companies and title insurance agents providing title searches without charging for those services if the transaction fails to close, and asking if such offerings are akin to illegal inducements.
Responding to the
Legal History in the News: The Importance of Wickard
Labels:
Constitutional studies,
Federalism,
Politics,
Regulation
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Today's New York Times has a great piece about the importance of Wickard v. Filburn (1942) for current legal challenges to the Obama administration's health care reform legislation. Here's a taste:
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If the Obama administration persuades the Supreme Court to uphold its health care overhaul law, it will be in large part thanks to a 70-year-old precedent involving an Ohio farmer named Roscoe C. Filburn.Read on here.
Mr. Filburn sued to overturn a 1938 federal law that told him how much wheat he could grow on his family farm and made him pay a penalty for every extra bushel.
The 1942 decision against him, Wickard v. Filburn, is the basis for the Supreme Court’s modern understanding of the scope of federal power. It is the contested ground on which the health care case has been fought in the lower courts and in the parties’ briefs. And it is likely to be crucial to the votes of Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Antonin Scalia, who are widely seen as open to persuasion by either side.
“Wickard has become so foundational for generations of lawyers that any plausible understanding of the commerce power must come to terms with it,” said Bradley W. Joondeph, a law professor at Santa Clara University.
Both supporters and opponents of the health care law say the decision helps their side, and for three days starting next Monday, it will be at the center of the arguments before the Supreme Court about the law’s constitutionality.
Introducing: American Doctors 4 Truth
Last year's disingenuous take on Rep Paul Ryan's stance on Medicare has given birth to a new and formidable force:
Click here for more info on D4T.
Click here for more info on D4T.
Unintended Consequences (Part XXIV)
Our government’s attempts to control all aspects of our lives have numerous unintended consequences. In healthcare, one of these is directly related to the government’s staunch refusal to fix the Medicare Fee Schedule (which in turn affects other reimbursement arrangements) and to develop payments for medical treatments that actually cover the cost of the care being delivered: inadequately staffed medical offices.
The latest news is that the government is going to enact another "doc fix" to the fee schedule. The "fix" is that there will once again not be a cut (it will be moved to next year), but there will once again not be an increase, either; the fee schedule will remain fixed where it has been for over a decade.
The history of the doc fix is covered very well by Anthony Wilson and Hanna Dubansky. In their post “The Sustainable Growth Rate Formula: Then, Now … and Forever?” Anthony and Hanna provide a helpful timeline of the Doc Fix's many versions, from 2003 under President Bush, through this year under President Obama. It's very helpful background towards understanding the Sustainable Growth Rate formula (SGR), which drives so much of this.
Due to the continuing instability of payments since February 2003, physicians have been unable to financially plan for their business needs. When a business is faced with a continuing money crunch it has two choices: increase income or decrease costs. As medicine has a fixed payment (revenue) as determined by the SGR, physicians cannot increase revenue by increasing prices because the government has determined the cost of the procedure. Thus, they are left with one avenue: cut costs. In any business, payroll accounts for up to 30% of overhead and is one of the (if not the) largest costs. Now, a physician has a choice: does he cut his own salary or does he reduce his staff? 99.99% of the time, the physician will reduce staff. It is happening to more and more of my colleagues: physicians are letting go of managers and taking over the management of the offices to “save money”. Additionally, they are freezing or reducing wages for the remaining employees.
Now it does not take a business maven to predict what will happen. When a service industry that makes money based on the volume of people served begins to make drastic cuts in its personnel, how will that affect the quality of the business? The business will need to continue to see the same number of customers to maintain its current revenue level, but with fewer employees. And what is the number one complaint about doctor’s office? Long wait times:
* Industry average for a specialist is over three months.
* Long wait times in the office; appointments are set in 15 minute increments, but it takes closer to 25 minutes for a physician to complete an appointment.
* Finally, long wait times on the phone trying to talk to someone about your medical condition, your bill, or if your test results are ready.
Simply put, very few physicians' offices in America have adequate staff to deal with the demands. Add to that low pay, long hours, and (often) arrogant doctors and it is amazing that any medical office has staff at all.
So, the unintended consequence of not having a fee schedule that accurately reflects the cost of medicine today is a medical system that is unable to meet its core purpose - medical care - in an efficient manner. Physicians have decided that administration is the area to cut, leaving only medical personnel to man the fort.
But, Kelley, you may ask, why do I need that manager or billing office or scheduler if I only want to find out if I have strep throat or mono? Because the actual medical treatment done by the physician is only one small piece of the overall appointment life-cycle:
* People to make the appointment, check you in and verify your insurance
* Billing folks to make sure you’re up to date on any payments due and process your claim after the appointment
* Medical personnel to get you to the proper room and make sure all the coding is correct for your insurance claim
* A practice manager to make sure all the government regulations are met (OSHA, HIPAA, and HITCECH to name a few), and that the staff is appropriately trained
As in any system, if one of those components is removed, then the entire system will not work as efficiently. If the cog that ensures that the entire system works correctly is removed, then the system will eventually grind to a halt.
Most American’s believe that the money crunch to physicians will incentivize them to work harder for the fewer dollars. The opposite is true: physicians will not increase the number of patients that they see to make more money, they will simply cut overhead, which in this case is personnel, to ensure that their salary stays the same. The loser in all this is not the doctor, it is the American public.
Read More >>
The latest news is that the government is going to enact another "doc fix" to the fee schedule. The "fix" is that there will once again not be a cut (it will be moved to next year), but there will once again not be an increase, either; the fee schedule will remain fixed where it has been for over a decade.
The history of the doc fix is covered very well by Anthony Wilson and Hanna Dubansky. In their post “The Sustainable Growth Rate Formula: Then, Now … and Forever?” Anthony and Hanna provide a helpful timeline of the Doc Fix's many versions, from 2003 under President Bush, through this year under President Obama. It's very helpful background towards understanding the Sustainable Growth Rate formula (SGR), which drives so much of this.
Due to the continuing instability of payments since February 2003, physicians have been unable to financially plan for their business needs. When a business is faced with a continuing money crunch it has two choices: increase income or decrease costs. As medicine has a fixed payment (revenue) as determined by the SGR, physicians cannot increase revenue by increasing prices because the government has determined the cost of the procedure. Thus, they are left with one avenue: cut costs. In any business, payroll accounts for up to 30% of overhead and is one of the (if not the) largest costs. Now, a physician has a choice: does he cut his own salary or does he reduce his staff? 99.99% of the time, the physician will reduce staff. It is happening to more and more of my colleagues: physicians are letting go of managers and taking over the management of the offices to “save money”. Additionally, they are freezing or reducing wages for the remaining employees.
Now it does not take a business maven to predict what will happen. When a service industry that makes money based on the volume of people served begins to make drastic cuts in its personnel, how will that affect the quality of the business? The business will need to continue to see the same number of customers to maintain its current revenue level, but with fewer employees. And what is the number one complaint about doctor’s office? Long wait times:
* Industry average for a specialist is over three months.
* Long wait times in the office; appointments are set in 15 minute increments, but it takes closer to 25 minutes for a physician to complete an appointment.
* Finally, long wait times on the phone trying to talk to someone about your medical condition, your bill, or if your test results are ready.
Simply put, very few physicians' offices in America have adequate staff to deal with the demands. Add to that low pay, long hours, and (often) arrogant doctors and it is amazing that any medical office has staff at all.
So, the unintended consequence of not having a fee schedule that accurately reflects the cost of medicine today is a medical system that is unable to meet its core purpose - medical care - in an efficient manner. Physicians have decided that administration is the area to cut, leaving only medical personnel to man the fort.
But, Kelley, you may ask, why do I need that manager or billing office or scheduler if I only want to find out if I have strep throat or mono? Because the actual medical treatment done by the physician is only one small piece of the overall appointment life-cycle:
* People to make the appointment, check you in and verify your insurance
* Billing folks to make sure you’re up to date on any payments due and process your claim after the appointment
* Medical personnel to get you to the proper room and make sure all the coding is correct for your insurance claim
* A practice manager to make sure all the government regulations are met (OSHA, HIPAA, and HITCECH to name a few), and that the staff is appropriately trained
As in any system, if one of those components is removed, then the entire system will not work as efficiently. If the cog that ensures that the entire system works correctly is removed, then the system will eventually grind to a halt.
Most American’s believe that the money crunch to physicians will incentivize them to work harder for the fewer dollars. The opposite is true: physicians will not increase the number of patients that they see to make more money, they will simply cut overhead, which in this case is personnel, to ensure that their salary stays the same. The loser in all this is not the doctor, it is the American public.
Bach, "Mobilization and Poverty Law"
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| image credit |
New from Wendy Bach (University of Tennessee College of Law): "Mobilization and Poverty Law: Searching for Participatory Democracy Amongst the Ashes of the War on Poverty." Here's the abstract:
In 1964, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, the federal government launched Community Action, a program that was to be designed and implemented with the maximum feasible participation of the poor. Today in governance theory, we are told once again that participation by affected communities in the mechanisms of governance have the ability to deepen democracy – to yield better policy and to engage new voices in the mechanisms of democracy. Enclosed for your review is Mobilization and Poverty Law: Searching for Participatory Democracy Amongst the Ashes of The War on Poverty, an article that turns to history to explore a question central to both governance theory and community lawyering: Do the participatory democracy mechanisms of new governance theory have the ability, or can they be wielded by advocates and poor communities, to render poverty more responsive to community needs? To answer this question, Mobilization and Poverty Law provides a detailed chronicle of the creation and implementation of Community Action and maximum feasible participation and highlights the extraordinary story of its implementation in Durham, North Carolina. The article offers a definition against which to measure whether participation was “robust” and concludes that three factors were crucial in realizing robust participation: 1. the existence of the statutory participatory mandate; 2. the flexibility wielded by administrators in implementing the mandate; and 3. the choice by the agency to fund autonomous, community-controlled groups as a mechanism to realize robust participation. The article ends with two primary conclusions, one directed at new governance and the second directed at those invested in community lawyering. For new governance, the history suggests that participatory structures, as currently constituted, are likely to lead to little more than tokenism. For advocates committed to support the efforts of communities to build and wield political power, however, the article offers a more hopeful suggestion. Embracing what Scott Cummings has termed “constrained legalism,” the article suggests that advocates might take a page from history and, like our predecessors, seek to create, out of the tokenistic nods to participatory governance in current policy, programs and structures that might yield both robust participation and poverty policy that, in the eyes of poor communities, actually meets their needs.Hat tip: Poverty Law
Is Dick Lugar going to be the Bob Bennett of 2012? Bennett was a popular Republican senator from Utah who was deemed too moderate for his Republican constituents, who replaced him with Tim Lee as the Republican nominee for Senate in 2010 (and who went on to win in November). Now, Lugar seems to be slipping in the polls against his Republican upstart challenger, Indiana state Treasurer Richard Mourdock. A while ago, Lugar held a double-digit lead over Mourdock; his lead is now down to 6 points (45-39).
Read More >>
David Frum suggests that there may be economic reasons why "moderates" within the GOP have seemingly lost power over the past few decades.
Read More >>
Gary Rubinstein levies some criticisms of Teach-For-America founder Wendy Kopp's defense of TFA.
Read More >>
Monday Afternoon (Not So) Funny
HHS Secretary Shecantbeserious offers this gem:
"Group health insurers will join with individual health insurers to fund a temporary individual health insurance reinsurance program ... officials developed the risk-management final rule and the analysis to implement provisions in [ObamneyCare©]."
Well, aside from the fact that the end-game is the elimination of health insurers, the use of the term "risk management" is quite rich, considering Ms Shecantbeserious has addedconvenience items birth control to the list of mandated benefits.
Self-awareness is apparently not a job requirement for Madame Secretary.
"Group health insurers will join with individual health insurers to fund a temporary individual health insurance reinsurance program ... officials developed the risk-management final rule and the analysis to implement provisions in [ObamneyCare©]."
Well, aside from the fact that the end-game is the elimination of health insurers, the use of the term "risk management" is quite rich, considering Ms Shecantbeserious has added
Self-awareness is apparently not a job requirement for Madame Secretary.
Snyder and Barrett on Rehnquist's Lost Letter
Brad Snyder, University of Wisconsin Law School, and John Q. Barrett, St. John's University School of Law, have posted Rehnquist's Missing Letter: A Former Law Clerk's 1955 Thoughts on Justice Jackson and Brown, which will appear in the Boston College Law Review 53 (2012). Here is the abstract:
Read More >>
"I think that Plessy v. Ferguson was right and should be reaffirmed." That's what Supreme Court law clerk William H. Rehnquist wrote privately in December 1952 to his boss, Justice Robert H. Jackson. When the memorandum was made public in 1971 and Rehnquist's Supreme Court confirmation hung in the balance, he claimed that the memorandum reflected Jackson's views, not Rehnquist's. Rehnquist was confirmed, but his explanation triggered charges that he had lied and smeared the memory of one of the Court's most revered justices. This Essay analyzes a newly discovered document, a letter Rehnquist wrote to Justice Felix Frankfurter in 1955, criticizing Jackson, that reveals what Rehnquist thought about Jackson shortly after Brown and the Justice's death. The 1955 letter was not known during Rehnquist's 1971 or 1986 confirmation hearings. It is also currently missing and may have been stolen from Frankfurter's Papers at the Library of Congress. This Essay argues that Rehnquist's 1955 letter represents his disappointment with Brown and the beginning of his outspoken criticism of the Warren Court. The letter, this Essay contends, says less about how Rehnquist felt about Jackson and more about Rehnquist's disappointment over his Justice's role in the most important Supreme Court decision of the twentieth century.Update: Adam Liptak's column in the New York Times on the Snyder-Barrett find is here.
1,000 Words for Mid-March
Courtesy of our friend Holly R, the real reason the President isn't talking about ObamneyCare©:
Keller to Lecture on the Obama Administration
ObamneyCare© Doubling Down on Campus
Dropping all pretense at rational thought, Secretary Shecantbeserious and her boss have decreed that, henceforth, university students will be supplied "free" convenience items birth control:
"[Shecantbeserious] said student health plans will be treated like employees’ plans, meaning they will have to ... provide contraception without charging a copay."
First, it should be noted that, contrary to popular belief,convenience items birth control is not a "women's health issue." In fact, it is not a "health issue" at all. So it makes little sense to mandate that student health plans, mediocre as they are to begin with, should pay for it. The irony, of course, is that these plans don't actually pay very well (if at all) for real health care.
Second, the "consciousness clause" opt-out (for religious institutions) is again paid short shrift:
"Religious universities will treat their student plans the same as their employees’ plans ... they will not have to directly offer contraception in their plans, but students and workers will be able to get birth control from their insurance companies without a copay."
This is stupid on two levels:
Yes, it means that these schools won't be directly fundingconvenience items birth control, but their students who (unfortunately) sign up for these plans are paying for it for themselves and their fellow students.
[By the way: anyone else notice the schizophrenic nature of ObamneyCare© here? These students, most or all presumably aged 26 and younger, are eligible to stay on Mom and Dad's insurance, but they're also supposed to buy the so-called student health plan? How does that even make sense?]
Third, there's this little gem:
"Religious schools that self-insure ... do not have to provide [convenience items] to their students. How the mandate will work for the employees of self-insured religious institutions is still being decided."
Well, perhaps we can help out here. FoIB Nate Ogden is a Third Party Administrator, and he has some thoughts on how self-funded plans will have to deal with this new mandate:
"In their latest effort to protect women from the unaffordable $9 a month for birth control, the Obama administration is proposing the TPA of a self funded plan provide birth control for free.
Here's the problem with that:
I charge $10-$25 Per Employee Per Month (PEPM) which works out to $120-$300 per year. My profit margins currently run around 10%, meaning I have $12-$30 per year per member after paying expenses like rent, salaries, paper, postage, etc. Obama and his HHS now wants me to cover up to $3000+ per year in contraceptive benefits per female employee/student. Obviously I can’t pay a $3000 bill with $30 of revenue so I would need to terminate clients.
Is this keeping the coverage you have?"
Regular readers know that that promise went under the bus a long time ago.
"[Shecantbeserious] said student health plans will be treated like employees’ plans, meaning they will have to ... provide contraception without charging a copay."
First, it should be noted that, contrary to popular belief,
Second, the "consciousness clause" opt-out (for religious institutions) is again paid short shrift:
"Religious universities will treat their student plans the same as their employees’ plans ... they will not have to directly offer contraception in their plans, but students and workers will be able to get birth control from their insurance companies without a copay."
This is stupid on two levels:
Yes, it means that these schools won't be directly funding
[By the way: anyone else notice the schizophrenic nature of ObamneyCare© here? These students, most or all presumably aged 26 and younger, are eligible to stay on Mom and Dad's insurance, but they're also supposed to buy the so-called student health plan? How does that even make sense?]
Third, there's this little gem:
"Religious schools that self-insure ... do not have to provide [convenience items] to their students. How the mandate will work for the employees of self-insured religious institutions is still being decided."
Well, perhaps we can help out here. FoIB Nate Ogden is a Third Party Administrator, and he has some thoughts on how self-funded plans will have to deal with this new mandate:
"In their latest effort to protect women from the unaffordable $9 a month for birth control, the Obama administration is proposing the TPA of a self funded plan provide birth control for free.
Here's the problem with that:
I charge $10-$25 Per Employee Per Month (PEPM) which works out to $120-$300 per year. My profit margins currently run around 10%, meaning I have $12-$30 per year per member after paying expenses like rent, salaries, paper, postage, etc. Obama and his HHS now wants me to cover up to $3000+ per year in contraceptive benefits per female employee/student. Obviously I can’t pay a $3000 bill with $30 of revenue so I would need to terminate clients.
Is this keeping the coverage you have?"
Regular readers know that that promise went under the bus a long time ago.
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