This is huge. I don’t quite know what the fallout from this will be, but it’s a rare event for Mass. voters to elect a Rublican and the race wasn’t really even that close. Consider too that the seat in question was Ted Kennedy’s. Perhaps the bloom is off the rose.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
So, now I can update this from my smartphone. The jury is still out on whether this will have a positive affect on either post quality or quantity, but one can dream.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments in the case of Doe No. 1, et al., v. Reed, et al. In what is something of a rare position for me, I come into this hoping that the Court will affirm the Ninth Circuit’s decision. While I am often not a particular fan of the Ninth Circuit, and while I tend to agree with Mr. Volokh’s opinion that the Ninth Circuit made the right decision for not entirely the right reasons, in this particular case I can see legitimate rationale behind the decision. The Ninth Circuit seems to believe that the anonymity of petition signers is at least potentially mandated by the First Amendment in certain circumstances but in the case of the WA State petition the state has sufficiently compelling reasons to limit the supposed First Amendment right to anonymity.
My own interpretation mirrors Mr. Volokh’s; I do not believe that there is any situation in which the First Amendment protects the anonymity of petition signers. It is my hope that the Supreme Court with affirm the Ninth Circuit’s decision with clarification on the reasoning. Even if there is no clarification of reasoning, however, a simple affirmation would still be a defensible position in my mind.