On November 4, 2014, when the 51-year-old Ken Paxton was triumphantly elected Attorney General of Texas, defeating his Democrat opponent, the euphoniously named Sam Houston, by over 20 percentage points, the conservative movement in the Lone Star State had a new rising star. Paxton’s enemies were worried; the Tea Party favorite, an impressive University of Virginia law school graduate, seemed bound for the Governor’s mansion, a prospect that made the state’s centrist GOP Establishment aghast. Paxton’s political career had been nothing short of meteoric. First elected to public office in 2002 with the support of grass-roots activists and evangelicals, Paxton represented his suburban Dallas district in the Texas House of Representatives for a decade before winning a coveted promotion to the exclusive 31-member Texas Senate in 2012.
The internet has changed how we communicate, engage in commerce and live our lives. It not only provides a platform that can be used to promote free speech, but serves as a great equalizer when it comes to jobs and opportunity by dramatically reducing the barriers of entry for anyone with a new idea and broadband connection.
AUSTIN – Attorney General Paxton praised President Trump for signing into law a joint resolution passed by the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives that rescinds the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s “unconstitutional” Arbitration Rule.
HOUSTON (November 7, 2017) -- Two years ago, I sold one of the last American offshore drilling vessels to a foreign buyer. The Ocean Titan was an obsolete jack-up rig, an equipment platform for deepwater exploration and development. Over its forty-year lifespan, American shipbuilding had been ravaged by rivals abroad and burdensome regulations at home. Today, the industry falls grievously short of the hope expressed by the drafters of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920: “that the United States shall have a merchant marine of the best equipped and most suitable types of vessels.”
Readers of Law and Liberty may have noticed that I am a fan of Justice Antonin Scalia (for example, here and here). I am also an admirer of Robert H. Bork, whom my colleague John McGinnis has described as “the most important legal scholar on the right in the last 50 years.” Bork was a pioneer in both the field of antitrust law (with his influential 1978 book The Antitrust Paradox) and constitutional law, as the father of what we now call “originalism.” In his seminal 1971 article in the Indiana Law Journal, entitled “Neutral Principles and Some First Amendment Problems,”[1] and in his later best-selling books, The Tempting of America (1990) and Slouching Towards Gomorrah (1996), Bork eviscerated the “noninterpretive” theories of constitutional law that dominated the legal academy in the 1960s and 1970s.
More than 600,000 Texas veterans support U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold's Furthering Asbestos Claims Transparency (FACT) Act, a bill designed to promote fairness and honesty in asbestos litigation and to increase transparency in asbestos trusts.
HOUSTON – Attorneys double-dipping from asbestos trusts funds that rightfully belong to affected veterans is unacceptable, according to a past American Legion National commander and judge.
Most Americans have seen those TV ads touting “billions of dollars” set aside for victims of mesothelioma, the lethal cancer associated with asbestos exposure. Few realize that these funds are also at the center of a national controversy that disproportionately affects military veterans.
The unexpected retirement of Judge Janice Rogers Brown, 68, from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will trigger a well-deserved celebration of her extraordinary judicial career, both as a federal appellate judge (since 2005) and previously as a member of the California Supreme Court (1996 to 2005). It will be difficult for President Donald Trump to appoint a replacement that comes anywhere close to filling the shoes of the of the forceful, fearless, and independent Brown, whose nomination by President George W. Bush to the nation’s second most influential court in 2003 was delayed for two years by Democratic opposition.Despite a filibuster in the U.S. Senate, Brown was ultimately confirmed in 2005 by a 56 to 43 vote, when the so-called Gang of 14 reached an agreement to avoid Republicans’ invocation of the “nuclear option.” Hopefully, Brown will continue to serve on the D.C. Circuit as a judge with “senior status.”
When the North American Free Trade Agreement was enacted 23 years ago, an economic surge in Texas ensued thanks, in part, to a significant boost in trade with our neighbor to the south. Today, more than 380,000 Texas jobs hinge on free trade with Mexico. Agreements like NAFTA have strengthened our state's economy as a whole, too. More than a third of total goods, worth $92 billion, are exported from Texas to Mexico annually.
As citizens of the United States, we recognize the rights of foreign peoples to live and govern themselves as they see fit. Just as the American people would not tolerate another nation dictating to us how to run our country, we believe other people should be able to make their own laws free from outside interference.
The Texas Supreme Court has a unique structure, reflecting the state’s stubbornly independent-minded culture. Most state supreme courts have jurisdiction over civil and criminal cases and have seven (or fewer) members, who are appointed by the governor and face the voters — if at all — only for periodic “retention” elections. The Texas Supreme Court, in contrast, hears only civil appeals (criminal cases are decided by the co-equal Texas Court of Criminal Appeals) and has nine members, all of whom are subject to statewide partisan elections. The last feature is quite unusual; only seven states select judges in this manner. Despite this distinctive design, the Texas Supreme Court succeeds at steering a steady jurisprudential course in a cautious, low-key style.
DALLAS – MoneyOnMobile has appointed former Kay Bailey Hutchison as a member of its board of directors after her initiatives for women empowerment made her a standout senator.
The latest tract by Erwin Chemerinsky, liberal law professor and dean of the University of California at Irvine School of Law, is depressingly familiar. Like his Enhancing Government: Federalism for the 21st Century (2008), The Conservative Assault on the Constitution (2011), and The Case Against the Supreme Court (2014), his new book is a diatribe masquerading as legal scholarship. The usual villains—conservative Supreme Court justices, malevolent government officials, rapacious corporations, racist police officers—are pitted against the wrongly accused, helpless consumers, and oppressed victims of discrimination.
AUSTIN – Executives of the adult website Backpage.com sat down for a congressional hearing earlier this month in Washington, D.C. The site, which is the focus of an ongoing investigation, chose its Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination during the hearing.
Our organizations strongly urge you to oppose all campaign finance riders and other “poison pill” riders to any CR or omnibus bill to be considered in the remaining days of this Congress.
A coalition of more than 25 academics has submitted a letter to members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives expressing concern over pending patent reform. The group said its concerns were largely with changes proposed to litigation venue rules.
A recently proposed bill in the U.S. Senate may be the key to curbing the rampant patent lawsuit abuse in the plaintiff-friendly Eastern District of Texas jurisdiction.
