Did the Fed Cause the Housing Bubble?

P.S. Huff

Is the Federal Reserve to blame for the housing bubble?

A recent Wall Street Journal symposium contains six perspectives.

Today at the Supreme Court, March 24, 2009

P.S. Huff

Knowles v. Mirzayance, Docket No. 07-1315.
    Held: Whether the state-court decision is reviewed under §2254(d)(1)'s standard or de novo, Mirzayance has failed to establish that his counsel's performance was ineffective.
    THOMAS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C.J., and STEVENS, KENNEDY, BREYER, and ALITO, JJ., joined, and in which SCALIA, SOUTER, and GINSBURG, JJ., joined as to all but Part II.

Boudreaux on Politicians

P.S. Huff

Don Boudreaux, writing at Cafe Hayek:

The single greatest instance of intellectual foolishness today is the continuing pretense that politicians are serious people worthy of serious consideration. They are scoundrels, each and every one, regardless of party (although some of them, it is true, are more scoundrelly than others).

This is, in fact, a bit of an overstatement. But not much of one.

English Pronunciation in Earlier Times

P.S. Huff

This is pretty neat—at least if, like me, you find the Great Vowel Shift intriguing.

The Shallowness of Legal Reporting

P.S. Huff

From Bloomberg.com, comes this headline: "U.S. Supreme Court Limits Federal Voting Rights Act." Of course, that interpretation of the decision is correct only if you presuppose that the Court ruled incorrectly. Take the opposite position, and the Court merely applied the law as written.

Notice, moreover, the rather awkward structure of the article. "The U.S. Supreme Court," we read in the first paragraph, "limited the Voting Rights Act, ruling that provisions aimed at maintaining black and Hispanic influence at the polling place don't apply in districts that are less than half minority."

To someone unfamiliar with voting-rights law, that snippet could be remarkably misleading. Literally speaking, just about everything in the Voting Rights Act could be described as a "provision[] aimed at maintaining black and Hispanic influence at the polling place." Only in the second paragraph do readers get any hint of what was actually at stake:

The justices, voting 5-4, struck down a North Carolina redistricting plan that sought to preserve minority voting power in a state legislative district that is 39 percent black. The high court said the Voting Rights Act's "anti-dilution" provisions apply only when minority groups can elect their preferred candidate without help from white voters.

Better, but still quite bad. On just what ground, readers are left to wonder, was the plan "struck down"?

Note, first of all, that it's not quite accurate to say that the U.S. Supreme Court struck it down. The plan had been challenged below for non-compliance with the N.C. Constitution's "Whole County Provision," art. II, §§ 3, 5, which requires the state legislature to respect county boundaries when drawing state House and Senate districts. State authorities turned to the Voting Rights Act as a defense, arguing that it required their action. But the Supreme Court of North Carolina, rejecting their reading of the Act, ordered the General Assembly to redraw the district. Today, the U.S. Supreme Court simply agreed with the state supreme court's reading of the Voting Rights Act.

Much of this at last comes out... at the very end of the article:

The case centered on a North Carolina redistricting plan that aimed to maintain the influence of black voters in the state's District 18. The district has elected a black representative to the state legislature's House in every vote since 1992, even though it is only 39 percent black.

Today's ruling upheld a North Carolina Supreme Court decision that said the plan violated a state constitutional provision barring the splitting of counties in forming legislative districts.

Well, better late than never, I suppose. Even this is imperfect, however: It can easily be read as suggesting that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the meaning of the North Carolina Constitution, which it of course did not.

Of course, the article contains absolutely no discussion of the actual text of the Voting Rights Act (which would presumably be of some relevance). Nor is there any discussion of precedent.

Perhaps that's too much to ask for. But if it is, then mainstream news sources should simply stop covering legal stories. If the public is learning anything, they're learning falsehoods.

Update: The Bloomberg story has been updated since this post was written. Though the new version is better, most of my criticisms still apply.

Today at the Supreme Court, March 9, 2009

P.S. Huff

Bartlett v. Strickland, Docket No. 07-689.
    Held: The judgment is affirmed.
       Justice Kennedy, joined by The Chief Justice and Justice Alito, concluded that §2 [of the Voting Rights Act of 1965] does not require state officials to draw election-district lines to allow a racial minority that would make up less than 50 percent of the voting-age population in the redrawn district to join with crossover voters to elect the minority's candidate of choice.
       Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Scalia, adhered to his view in Holder v. Hall, 512 U.S. 874 (opinion concurring in judgment), that the text of §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 does not authorize any vote dilution claim, regardless of the size of the minority population in a given district.
    KENNEDY, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered anopinion, in which ROBERTS, C.J., and ALITO, J., joined. THOMAS, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which SCALIA, J., joined. SOUTER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which STEVENS, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined. GINSBURG, J., and BREYER, J., filed dissenting opinions.

Vaden v. Discover Bank, Docket No. 07-773.
    Held: A federal court may "look through" a [9 U.S.C.] §4 petition to determine whether it is predicated on a controversy that "arises under" federal law; in keeping with the well-pleaded complaint rule as amplified in Holmes Group, however, a federal court may not entertain a §4 petition based on the contents of a counterclaim when the whole controversy between the parties does not qualify for federal-court adjudication.
    GINSBURG, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which SCALIA, KENNEDY, SOUTER, and THOMAS, JJ., joined. ROBERTS, C.J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which STEVENS, BREYER, and ALITO, JJ., joined.

Vermont v. Brillon, Docket No. 08-88.
    Held: The Vermont Supreme Court erred in ranking assigned counsel essentially as state actors in the criminal justice system. Assigned counsel, just as retained counsel, act on behalf of their clients, and delays sought by counsel are ordinarily attributable to the defendants they represent.
    GINSBURG, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C.J., and SCALIA, KENNEDY, SOUTER, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., joined. BREYER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which STEVENS, J., joined.

Kansas v. Colorado, Docket No. 105, Orig.
    Kansas has filed an exception to the Special Master's Fifth and Final Report in this action concerning the Arkansas River, contending that the Special Master erred in concluding that 28 U.S.C. §1821(b), which sets the witness attendance fee for a proceeding in "any court of the United States" at $40 per day, applies to cases within this Court's original jurisdiction. Exception overruled.
    ALITO, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. ROBERTS, C.J., filed a concurring opinion, in which SOUTER, J., joined.