Scott Lemieux

As was widely expected, the Supreme Court announced today that Pleasant Grove, Utah’s unwillingness to display a monument erected by the Summum did not violate the religious group’s free speech rights. Alito, writing for the Court, argued that “the placement of a permanent monument in a public park is best viewed as a form of […]

I turned to the New York Times yesterday and saw that, remarkably, they had decided to publish yet another op-ed from Will Saletan arguing that conflicts over abortion can be ended if people would just agree that Will Saletan is completely right about everything. The “practicality” of this solution, I must admit, continues to escape […]

Social Security is, as we all know, a very popular and very successful program. For a variety of reasons, centrist pundits in general and the Washington Post in particular have a huge fetish about undermining it in various ways. Recently, CeCi Connolly — yes, the same one whose gruesomely bad campaign reporting helped to put […]

Although Krugman is of course right to blame a “fanatical, irrational minority” for the current crisis in California, it can’t be emphasized enough that what really matters is the incredibly stupid institutional rules that empower this minority: namely, the idiotic super-majority for tax increases and an initiative system that both created that supermajority requirement and […]

For those of us who oppose the filibuster, Publius puts forward an interesting twist: There is one exception though – one context where I would continue supporting the right to filibuster. And that’s judicial nominations. I actually first read this idea from Kaus, but I think the logic is pretty sound. Article III judges serve […]

A panel of judges has ordered California to significantly cut its prison population due to egregious overcrowding. In some part, this is the wages of the initiative process, with “tough on crime” measures like “three strikes and you’re out” requiring the state to increase its prison population without providing commensurate resources. But it isn’t just […]

Sandy Levinson makes the argument in favor of judicial term limits. Before I get to some potential objections, I think a couple points should be emphasized. First, it’s abundantly clear that life tenure is in no way a requirement of liberal democracy — as Levinson notes, the United States is an extreme outlier among constitutional […]

Dahlia Lithwick makes the case for a liberal of the Brennan/Marshall variety (although I think the best analogy to Scalia would be William O. Douglas.) Unfortunately, I think she’s also convincing when she says that “[m]y own guess is that moderate, centrist Barack Obama is unlikely to name any such creature to the high court.” […]

Kay Steiger notes the major implications of this important article about the effects of Clinton‘s welfare reform in the current economy (Mark Schmitt also weighed in at length on Monday). The key is the fact that “[t]he program’s structure — fixed federal financing, despite caseload size — may discourage states from helping more people because […]

In addition to what Dylan says, since my name has come up twice in passages quoted by Jon Chait I should say that my argument about abortion and “common ground” isn’t exactly the one that Kay seems to attribute to me. To clarify, I’m not saying that concessions will further conflict over abortion by “showing […]