Could these people possibly do a worse job of running California than the State Legislature?  I can't see how it would be possible.  Chances are they'd do better purely by accident.…

Here's why real conservatives should oppose the Ryan budget:

1. It maintains the federal leviathan working to control our lives. FACTS: The Ryan budget won't result in the single closure of any sizable federal agency and explicitly avoids layoffs of federal workers. As Roll Call newspaper put it, "Ryan's budget eliminates the deficit in 2023…

Crony Capitalists (CCs) never quit trying to entice federal officials into giving them special access or favors and shutting millions of the rest of us out of court, so they have no accountability to a local jury for negligence or shoddy service. They've enlisted scores of Members of Congress, many of them self-proclaimed backers of states' rights, in an effort to to override the Founding Fathers' clear guidance that Congress doesn't have authority over state tort law, specifically with…

Yesterday was the 102nd birthday of Ronald Reagan, the greatest President of my lifetime, to whom I owe personal and professional thanks for my marriage (to one of his White House secretaries) and my Washington career (beginning as a Reagan Administration political appointee). His personally autographed photo congratulating us on our marriage is one of our most cherished possessions.

Almost two years ago, I researched all of his speeches and writings available on the internet…

It wasn't difficult to see liberals standing on the Mall in Washington, bundled in warm clothing and loudly cheering President Obama's Inaugural Address, with the promise of larger and more activist central government deployed to implement a "progressive" agenda. But I saw another group smiling softly deep in the background. It was the Crony Capitalists, watching from warm, comfortable Fortune 100 boardrooms across America and on Wall Street, and their K Street lobbyists in …

Prof. Randy Barnett was one of the leading theorists among Tea Party activists and Republicans in the court battles against Obamacare. He was co-counsel for the complaint filed by the NFIB, which was eventually the basis for the Supreme Court ruling that Obamacare is an excessive use of federal power and an invalid exercise of the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause.

Prof. Barnett has also been a staunch opponent of federal tort…

On July 18, Wheaton College, one of most famous evangelical colleges in the U.S., joinedThe Catholic University of America in protesting the Obamacare HHS mandate by filing its own suit, with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty as the attorney of record. In a press release, the Becket Fund noted, "This alliance marks…

The Supreme Court's decision in the Obamacare case (Acrobat document) highlighted the limits of federal authority over states' and individual rights. Over and over again, Chief Justice Roberts wrote of the Constitution's enumerated powers for the federal government and of the need to protect states from an overreaching federal government. He defined states' rights in terms of the inherent "police power" which is reserved…

In my opinion, the single biggest problem with the Republican Party today is that its leaders claim to represent the cause of limited government, or "constitutional conservatism," but either don't know what that really means or hypocritically ignore its meaning to advance an "un-conservative" political agenda. The Obamacare decision by the Supreme Court revealed an incredible disconnect between the claims of top Beltway Republicans and their stands on the specific use of federal power to…

In the Obamacare decision on Thursday, the five conservative Supreme Court Justices rejected the unlimited scope of the Commerce Clause and the Necessary & Proper Clause envisioned by proponents of federal tort reform bills (especially caps on damages in medical malpractice lawsuits). Justice Roberts was especially deferential to federalism, employing the terms "state sovereignty" and "enumerated powers" often in his decision. Proponents of federal tort reform are among the big losers in…

Last week, scores of influential Catholic and Christian groups publicly backed the principles underlying the lawsuits filed on May 21 by Catholic dioceses and groups against the Obamacare drug and device mandates. The announcements should add considerable pressure on the Obama White House to rescind or amend HHS regulations ordering faith-based groups to engage in health care activities totally contrary to the congregations' religious doctrines.…

Robert Muise, Esq., is the co-founder of the American Freedom Law Center, a nonprofit litigation firm fighting for religious freedom in courtrooms nationwide. AFLC is one of the conservative religious liberty litigation firms that I refer to as the "Trial Lawyers For Religious Freedom," a group that includes the Alliance Defense Fund, the Becket Fund, and and the Thomas More Law Center, which Muise also…

House Republicans on the Energy & Commerce Committee have uncovered evidence of closed-door negotiations between major drugmakers and the Obama Administration in connection with the enactment of Obamacare, under which the former promised to back it with $80 billion in revenues in exchange for the Administration's promise to protect the industry in various ways, e.g., oppose the…

On Monday, 43 Catholic dioceses, organizations and universities sued the Obama administration, in 12 separate suits, to block the imposition of the Obamacare mandate to offer, in health insurance plans, drugs and devices which are forbidden by Catholic teachings, such as contraception and abortifacients. The plaintiffs include the University of Notre Dame (my law school alma mater), the Archdioceses of Washington and New York City, and a number of local affiliates of the national Catholic…

Two things, actually.

First, none of the three are proper subjects for the federal government under the Constitution. Neither domestic relations law governing marriage, nor health care, nor tort law are matters enumerated for the federal government.

Powerful groups on the liberal or conservative side ignore the limits of the Constitution in order to change that in each case. Gay marriage advocates want the federal judiciary or Congress to override state marriage…

I wrote almost two years ago that the right to a civil jury trial, protected in the Seventh Amendment, is the most ignored, unknown and endangered constitutional right in any of the amendments in the Bill of Rights. Not that I needed proof, but I saw it again over the weekend. The "Jeopardy" game show episode broadcast in the Washington, DC, area on…

A hyper-Political Correctness movement is running rampant on our public universities, with taxpayer-funded university bureaucrats and teachers trying to crush the First Amendment rights of students to openly express their faith and conservative political views. Students are reaching out to the top nonprofit pro-religious liberty litigators in America and exercise their God-given right to ask their neighbors and an independent judiciary to stop the universities.

For example, Vanderbilt…

It's an article of faith among those who propose federal limits on awards in medical malpractice lawsuits. They always proclaim that the Texas state law limiting such awards resulted in thousands of doctors moving to the state. Examples:

"This last year, 21,000 more physicians practicing medicine in Texas because they know they can do what they love and not be sued." …

Columnist Timothy Carney of the Washington Examiner, who has a strong following among conservatives, has followed the "K Street Republicans vs. Tea Party" for several years and wrote again about the conflict last week. And Carney identifies some of the practical points of conflict between the two groups: "The GOP establishment rallies industry donors…