Friday

 

Mr. Heldman Goes to One First Street

I wanted to post something earlier today about how long it's taking for an opinion to be issued in Raich v. Ashcroft. That's the case Randy Barnett argued before the Supreme Court on whether or not Congress's Commerce Clause power extends to overruling state laws permitting medical marijuana. Probably the most interesting aspect of this case is that the Justices who are most in favor of placing a meaningful limit on the Commerce Clause are also the most anti-drug Justices. Many people, including myself, are quite curious to see how this will be resolved. But I wasn't going to blog about this, because it's a just a rehash of old material.

But now I have something new to add on a vaguely related topic: There's soon to another blogger
(other than the SCOTUSblog crew, who I know had at least one cert. petition granted recently), Sam Heldman, appearing before the Supreme Court. And he's appearing on something even more interesting than core issues of limited federal power and the drug war: When lawyer's fees for cases removed to Federal Court and then remanded because the removal was improper should be shifted to the moving party. This is good news, because I find Heldman's political views far more reasonable than Prof. Barnett's, who is a crazed liberterian (NB: I use crazed as a modifier to liberterian in a respectful manner).

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