My law school years (1977-80) at the University of Texas were, in hindsight, close to idyllic. I loved my first-year professors, tuition at UT was dirt cheap, Austin was a wonderful place to live, and I reveled in the “college town” ambience, which was new to me. (Prior to arriving at UT, I had never attended a college football game. During my first year—when the Longhorns went undefeated in the regular season and Earl Campbell won the Heisman Trophy–I had season tickets on the 50-yard line at UT’s gigantic Memorial Stadium, for a pittance that even a broke law student could afford.) The post-game victory spectacle—honking horns on the Drag and the Tower lit up in orange—formed indelible memories.
February 13th was the 2nd anniversary of Justice Antonin Scalia’s death. Few can doubt the lasting impact the judge had on the judiciary and the country. His death left a choice for the American electorate they seldom have—the choice of a justice nominated by the departing President Barack Obama with the promise of candidate Donald Trump to nominate justices like Scalia. In perhaps their greatest tribute to the judge, the country chose as President the man who promised judges like Scalia who recognize “…the need for a democratic society not to expect the Constitution to make all its important decisions.”
SHERMAN - Trial lawyer Clyde Siebman of East Texas-based Siebman, Burg, Phillips & Smith recently joined an invitation-only group of 100 judges, attorneys and academics to address issues impacting patent law.
The Supreme Court will hear oral argument today [February 26] in one of the term’s most important—and highly publicized—cases, Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31. As many readers are aware, the case involves the constitutionality of “agency shop” arrangements in public sector collective bargaining agreements, which compel non-member employees to make payments in lieu of union dues as a condition of their employment. Agency shop clauses are commonly used in public-sector labor contracts, enabling powerful unions representing teachers and other government employees to collect large sums of money from workers who never consented to such exactions (and who, for that matter, never voted in favor of union representation).
As someone who writes frequently on the topic of judicial activism, I am often asked, “What is the solution?” This is a vital question. Put another way—as I did in a previous essay at American Greatness—“Can Activist Judges Be Controlled?”
The short answer is: With great difficulty, yes. But if it’s a quick and easy answer you want, forget it. The current crisis took decades to develop. It won’t be resolved with a sweeping gesture.
In recent years my law school alma mater has hosted an annual “celebration of diversity” event, which I recently attended out of curiosity. I thought that my law school class of long ago was quite diverse, with students from all over Texas, who had attended a variety of colleges and universities located throughout the country, representing a wide range of backgrounds—socio-economic, age, marital status, political orientation, and otherwise.
AUSTIN – On Jan. 29, Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that his office will continue fighting to honor the dignity of the unborn after a U.S. District Court issued a temporary restraining order blocking implementation of Texas’ new law on the humane disposition of fetal remains.
AUSTIN – On Jan. 23, Attorney General Ken Paxton praised President Donald Trump’s nomination of Deputy Solicitor General J. Campbell Barker to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
HOUSTON – The 14th Court of Appeals reversed and remanded a ruling from the 212th District Court of Galveston County in an appeal involving whether a Canadian woman was properly served.
AUSTIN – Attorney General Ken Paxton said the powerful oral arguments his office presented Jan. 8 before the U.S. Supreme Court should result in a favorable decision for Texas in its years-long dispute with New Mexico over water rights to the Rio Grande River.
AUSTIN – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and officials from 19 other states filed a brief with the Supreme Court of the United States supporting a bakery owner who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, according to a friend-of-the-court brief filed in September.
I have been silent about Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, not because I lack interest in the case, but because it has already generated extensive commentary here and throughout the commentariat. Court watchers, like fortune tellers reading tea leaves, speculate how the justices will line up, with Justice Anthony Kennedy likely casting the swing vote in favor or against the Colorado baker, Jack Phillips, who declined for religious reasons to create a gay wedding cake.
CHARLESTON — West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey's office is seeking to protect Mountain State farmers and consumers by challenging a Massachusetts law that attempts to impose unlawful agricultural regulations on other states.
AUSTIN – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been part of coalitions three times this year that filed friend of the court briefs in federal courts in support of President Donald Trump's executive order, or proclamation, enforcing a travel plan on some nations.
When did some judges become comedians, albeit mediocre ones who have to laugh at their own jokes?
You can almost hear these jurists chuckling at their assumed cleverness when you read their opinions and come across another witless witticism, often a lame pun on a litigant's name or marketing slogans.
Here's a recent example: FedEx moved to dismiss a patent infringement case against it on the grounds that the Eastern District of Texas is not a convenient forum for it. Does the judge approve the motion based on the obvious merits and recent high court decisions? No, he snarkily denies it and tries to conceal the wrong thinking with a limp joke on the company's slogan.
For years, patent assertion entities have filed patent lawsuits against retailers in federal court in Texas. The Supreme Court’s recent decision in TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC may give retailers the ability to insist they defend such lawsuits on their home turf.
I have been thinking about Robert Bork recently, prompted in part by the 30th anniversary of his rejection by the Senate on November 23, 1987. Next month will mark the fifth anniversary of his passing on December 19, 2012. Bork was profoundly influential in conservative legal circles when I graduated from law school in 1980 and started paying closer attention to constitutional theory. I was impressed with both Bork’s scholarly writings and his more polemical articles in publications such as National Review. A 1982 essay he wrote in NR, entitled “The Struggle Over the Role of the Court,” reprinted in his 2008 anthology A Time to Speak, remains timely—even prescient. Ramesh Ponnuru has called Bork’s 1990 book, The Tempting of America, written in the wake of his confirmation defeat, “the most important popular statement of judicial conservatism yet produced.”
AUSTIN – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and a coalition of 22 states are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to protect the practice of lawmaker-led prayer at public meetings.
I recently attended a panel discussion at my alma mater, the University of Texas in Austin. The topic was “Free Speech on College Campuses: Where to Draw the Line?” The event, held during Free Speech Week, was co-sponsored by UT’s Division of Diversity and Community Engagement (DDCE), the Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis (IUPRA), and The Opportunity Forum, all funded in whole or in part by the state of Texas. IUPRA’s mission “is to use applied policy research to advocate for the equality of access, opportunity, and choice for African Americans and other populations of color.”
AUSTIN – Leading a coalition of 10 states, on Oct. 24 Attorney General Ken Paxton filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit supporting the Trump administration’s motion for a stay of a ruling blocking the latest travel ban.
