By Shannon Watts* As a mother of five, I was devastated by the mass murder of twenty children and six educators at Sandy Hook School nearly four years ago this week. So I started a Facebook page from my kitchen counter in Indiana, which connected me with moms from all over the country who agreed our country must do more to prevent gun violence. Today, Moms Demand Action has a chapter in every state and is the grassroots arm of Everytown for Gun Safety, the largest gun violence prevention …
Seeing Red: Tomatoes, Salmonella, Takings, & Torts
By Tommy Tobin* It’s an unfortunate reality that food can sometimes make people sick. In just one year, nearly 20,000 Americans were hospitalized due to Salmonella bacteria alone, and over 375 individuals died. In concert with other agencies, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plays a leading role in preventing foodborne illness. For scientists, pinpointing the exact cause of a foodborne illness is difficult. They race against time to find the source, down to the farm, plant, or …
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Solicitor General Don Verrilli: What We Stand For
I was fortunate to be a part of many great moments, in and out of the Supreme Court’s chambers, during my tenure as Solicitor General in the administration of President Obama. But of all the great moments, the one that means the most to me occurred at the end of a grueling three days of oral argument in the historic Health Care Case, when I spoke these words: The Medicaid expansion that we are talking about this afternoon and the provisions we talked about yesterday, we have been talking about …
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Let’s Work to End Homelessness, not Disguise It
By Nino Monea* If you take a stroll through Cambridge, Massachusetts, you probably wouldn’t pay much attention to the park benches. But if you did, might notice handrails jutting out in the middle of many of the benches. Though seemingly benign, this feature means that a person trying to stretch out cannot sleep on the bench. Not every bench in Cambridge is like that, and perhaps the design has no ill-intent. But many communities created bench designs that prevent a homeless person …
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“Economic Dragooning”: Limiting Trump’s Ability to Punish Sanctuary Cities
By Andrew Hanson* In his “Contract with the American Voter,” Donald Trump promised to “cancel all federal funding” to “sanctuary cities” on his first day in office. Can the federal government force states and cities to comply with its immigration enforcement agenda? It depends on how it tries to induce the state and local governments to act. While future grants of federal funding may potentially be conditioned to induce state action, it would be plainly unconstitutional for the federal …
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The Future of the Supreme Court
By Tejinder Singh* It is difficult to overstate the effect this election is likely to have on the composition of the Supreme Court. Prior to election day, the Democrats were favorites to win the White House and the Senate. Had they done so, the likely result would have been a five-Justice mostly-liberal majority that would have lasted for decades. The current vacancy likely (but not necessarily) would have been filled by Judge Garland during the lame-duck period; and Justices Ginsburg and …