by Brian Wolfman Despite the view among some consumers that the airlines are gouging consumers with fees, a recent study shows that fees are a very small part of the overall cost of flying. That may change. This article by Jim Martin explains that the airlines are introducing new fees. Here are some excerpts: Among […]
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We've posted many times about the D.C. Circuit's Noel Canning decision, which held that three putative recess appointments made by President Obama to the National Labor Relations Board were not proper recess appointments. Therefore, the court ruled, the appointments were invalid because they did not go through the Constitution's normal appointments process — presidential nomination and […]
The Center for Effective Government (formerly OMB Watch) has created Sequestration Central, a website devoted to providing comprehensive and up-to-date information on the federal government budget sequestration that went into effect today.
by Brian Wolfman The Big Spring suit filed in federal district court in D.C. challenges various provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall St. reform law, including the legality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, on separation-of-powers grounds. That suit includes a challenge to Richard Cordray's appointment as CFPB director as an impermissible (non-)recess appointment. We last posted […]
by Brian Wolfman Last month, we posted about a likely settlement between federal regulators and 13 major mortgage servicers — including some of the world's biggerst banks — that would make direct cash distributions to homeowners who lost their homes or went underwater during the financial crisis, in whole or in part because of improper […]
This has been a revealing week for President Obama's two appointees to the Supreme Court, who are becoming two of the strongest voices on the Court. On Monday, Justice Sotomayor made national headlines with her opinion regarding a denial of cert. (beginning at page 13 of this Order List) — though agreeing on procedural grounds […]
We posted recently on the revolving door between industry and congressional staffs. Now, we've been provided more detail with this joint review by Remapping Debate and the Center for Responsive Politics. The review looked at the chiefs of staff and legislative directors of the new members of the 113th Congress to detemine who previously worked […]
The Fourth Circuit has held, in Noohi v. Toll Brothers, that an arbitration clause in a contract between home buyers and a real estate development company is unenforceable because the clause lacked mutuality of consideration under governing Maryland law. (The clause lacked mutuality because it forced the home buyers but not the development company to […]
That's the name of this article by Caroline Flynn. Here's the abstract: The First Amendment prohibits the government from leveraging its employment relationship with a public employee in order to silence the employee’s speech. But the Supreme Court dramatically curtailed this right in Garcetti v. Ceballos by installing a categorical bar: if the public employee […]
In an 6-3 decision authored by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme Court held today in Amgen v. Connecticut Retirement Plans that plaintiffs in a federal securities-fraud class action need not prove that the defendant's allegedly fraudulent statements were material to obtain class certification. Justice Ginsburg's opinion contains this nice synopsis: The issue presented concerns the […]