Submit Your Questions for Professors Epstein and Yoo
Troy Senik ·
Mar 1, 2011 at 12:43pm
I will be back in the faculty lounge of the Ricochet University School of Law later this week to record
another installment of our new Law Talk podcast with Professors Richard Epstein and John Yoo. While we've got a plethora of topics on the table, I'm also hoping to save a little bit of time for your questions for the professors (I can't promise anything, however -- I'm not about to short-circuit another story about how Richard was accused of wanting to crush Lech Walesa).
We record early in the day on Thursday, so please get your questions in soon. Extra points if it's about Roman riparian law.
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Jan '11
Re: Submit Your Questions for Professors Epstein and Yoo
Over at The Volokh Conspiracy they had an interesting thread on jury nullification. Perhaps the Professors might opine on that subject.
Jul '10
Re: Submit Your Questions for Professors Epstein and Yoo
What are a judge's options when the Attorney General of the United States refuses to make a case in his court, as in the DOMA situation?
May '10
Re: Submit Your Questions for Professors Epstein and Yoo
Here's one: "For reasons that confound legal experts, the Justice Department has asked Florida Judge Roger Vinson to clarify his ruling, which some feel could lead to an adverse ruling for the federal government and even embolden states to put work on the health law on hold," reports Cox Media's Jamie Dupree.
"Some feel"? Discuss.
Jan '11
Re: Submit Your Questions for Professors Epstein and Yoo
Question from an earlier thread on the "individual mandate": Can you comment on the connection between the left's fondness for "positive rights"---those rights, which, unlike negative rights that require others to forbear actions that would harm one, require of others that they act for the sake of another (See e.g., "The Second Bill of Rights"; Obama's intention to "perfect" the Constitution)---and its apparent fondness for the "individual mandate" that would require citizens to commit an act of commerce? Surely in some cases, perhaps in many, the beneficiary of such behaviour will be, not the purchaser of insurance, but others---those who cannot afford to purchase insurance at all, and those whose pre-existing conditions would make the cost of genuine insurance prohibitively high. Is the issue here not merely a question of the (in)compatibility of the individual mandate with the Commerce Clause, but something even more fundamental: an attempt to get "positive rights" and their corresponding duties into the law, even if not into the constitution?
Edited on Mar 1, 2011 at 1:42pmFeb '11
Re: Submit Your Questions for Professors Epstein and Yoo
I'd like to take Professor Epstein up on riparian law.
Last week RAE burst into my property class to discuss Intel v. Hamidi. It's a shame he didn't stay for the whole class, because the next case we covered dealt with... riparian rights! The Oregon Supreme court authorized the transfer beachfront property from private owners with good title to the public at large large. Last year, the Supreme Court considered a similar issue in Stop the Beach Renourishment. Would Professor Epstein care to explain the current court's views on (what appear to me as) judicial takings? Specifically, does this kind of property transfer classify as a state action that can trigger a due process hearing?
Jan '11
Re: Submit Your Questions for Professors Epstein and Yoo
Do you agree with Robert Bork's position that substantive due process has become a warrant for mischievous lawmakers and justices to elevate their political positions and call them rights?
Re: Submit Your Questions for Professors Epstein and Yoo
1. When a Federal District Court declares a law unconstitutional in an opinion, is the executive branch automatically stayed from using/enforcing/implementing it, or does the District Judge have to issue a specific Order enjoining the government from taking further action on it?
I'm wondering of course about Obamacare, and why there is still talk of overturning it after a District Court has ruled it unconstitutional.
2. Assume there are no appeals to the Circuit Court, but one Federal District Court has ruled a law unconstitutional while another has ruled it constitutional (as with ObamaCare). Is the law enforceable by the executive branch, or is one Judge in one District empowered to stop enforcement?
Aug '10
Re: Submit Your Questions for Professors Epstein and Yoo
Considering the differences in riparian law from state to state in the US, how does the EPA get to act in such a sovereign fashion ? Their application of water quality standards that are nigh impossible to reach and sustain through the delivery systems threatens to bankrupt municipal water districts throughout the country. Does the states hold the keys to sovereignty over non-navigable waters and couldn't they therefore overrule the EPA on mandating unrealistic purity standards ?
This would do alot to ease the incredibly expensive mandates that are coming down from EPA. My town is being forced to spend hundreds of millions on the separation of storm water and sewage. Something that was occurring for years has now become unacceptable to people in Washington, yet the river is cleaner than it has been for years based on upstream clean water act regs. The new regs are overkill and severely strain our resources and credit ratings as bonds have to be issued to cover costs that won't pay off anywhere except in bad science land.
Jan '11
Re: Submit Your Questions for Professors Epstein and Yoo
Their recommendations on Constitutional primers. In plain, eighth-grade, American English.
Re: Submit Your Questions for Professors Epstein and Yoo
As it happens, I know something about Roman riparian law -- so my question is whether there is a relationship between the Roman legal principle --quod omnes tangit ab omnibus tractari debeat -- and American constitutionalism.
Oct '10
Re: Submit Your Questions for Professors Epstein and Yoo
Could the two of you discuss the Employee Free Choice Act? Is it constitutional? Would voluntary secret ballots (approved by card check) be allowed, even though the bill seems to say otherwise? Would secret ballots be possible at all, since it's easier to just approve the union by cardcheck then approve a secret ballot, to approve the union?
The bill seems like textbook fascism to me--and I do not use that word lightly.
Sep '10
Re: Submit Your Questions for Professors Epstein and Yoo
Supplementary question on the influence of Robert Bellarmine on the thought of Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence.
Jun '10
Re: Submit Your Questions for Professors Epstein and Yoo
I want to know if Roman riparian law extends to low-flow toilets in San Francisco. If so, given that environmentalism is a religion, would such legislation not be a violation of the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment?
May '10
Re: Submit Your Questions for Professors Epstein and Yoo
If someone chooses to remain on his couch and not participate in the home mortgage market, why is it constitutional for him to be penalized for this choice by having to pay more in income tax than an identical guy who did get a home mortgage (and therefore writes off the interest)?
Constitutionally, how is this situation different from penalizing someone for remaining on his couch and not participating in the health insurance market, as with Obamacare?
Jan '11
Re: Submit Your Questions for Professors Epstein and Yoo
Is the US Health Care system (in either its current or potentially future incarnation) viable without significant tort reform?
Oct '10
Re: Submit Your Questions for Professors Epstein and Yoo
"ius commune"
Jun '10
Re: Submit Your Questions for Professors Epstein and Yoo
The Constitution gives the Supreme Court original jurisdiction over a few things and, otherwise, allows Congress to limit its appellate jurisdiction; and lower federal courts are entirely creations of the Congress. Does this give Congress practical tools for curtailing wacky courts? Could it forbid the Supreme Court from reviewing appeals of constitutional challenges to, say, DoMA? If so, what would be the practical result if there were some patchwork of inconsistent lower court rulings about it?
Sep '10
Re: Submit Your Questions for Professors Epstein and Yoo
I repeat my original Harold Berman question at the risk of perpetual geekiness.
Re: Submit Your Questions for Professors Epstein and Yoo
Do we really need Net Neutrality? And if it is fully instituted who wins and who loses? How would the Supreme Court come down on this if it ends up there?
Jan '11
Re: Submit Your Questions for Professors Epstein and Yoo
Have they ever been a member of a jury? If so, did the other jurors know of your legal knowledge? Did it alter your opinion of justice in a court or did it merely confirm what you may have been taught about the dynamics between the defendant, lawyers, the case and the jury.
I mean you got hoodwinked into this podcast thing maybe you're not nimble enough to avoid jury duty either.