Apparently, at least one New York state legislator can’t comprehend that simple phrase in the First Amendment. I come to that conclusion because the legislator has introduced a bill that would require removal of statements made online that are “inaccurate, irrelevant, inadequate or excessive.” The bill goes on to say that “inaccurate, irrelevant, inadequate or excessive shall mean content, which after a significant lapse of time from its first publication, is no longer material to current public debate or discourse….”
So if someone were to decide that a statement I made on this blog is “no longer material to current public debate or discourse,” then I would have to remove it? Read my lips: under the First Amendment, no one gets to censor speech because they think it’s not “material.” It’s that simple. And oh by the way, the fact that it’s written on the internet, instead of being spoken in the public square, is irrelevant. If the content of a sign is speech protected by the First Amendment, there’s no way that written statements on the internet are not just as fully protected.
0 Comments
Have you heard the advertisement for the AC and plumbing contractor who says he makes sure the people he hires are friendly by testing how his dog reacts to them? When I heard that I said to myself, there’s a discrimination claim waiting to happen.
I was reminded of that today when I read a post on Overlawyered about a new law in Seattle that requires residential landlords to rent to the first applicant who meets the landlord’s pre-published criteria. In other words, no fair choosing one prospective tenant over another based on the landlord’s subjective judgment. Of course basing that choice on the applicant’s race, national origin, gender, or marital or family status is already prohibited, but this law takes it one step further. Can the landlord choose one applicant over another just because one applicant is obnoxious? Not under this law (well, you could include “no obnoxious people” in your criteria, but that’s too subjective to be enforceable). So how long will it be before the AC and plumbing contractor is accused of discrimination, or has his discretion in choosing his employees taken away by a law similar to the one for landlords in Seattle? The term “mandatory saving floor” caught my eye in the abstract for a paper titled “Getting Americans to Save: In Defense of (Reformed) Tax Incentives.” I didn’t have time to read the paper, but I’m curious what the author, a tax professor at a major law school, meant by that. Is he proposing mandatory retirement account contributions for all wage earners? That’s an idea that’s been around for a while, but I think there are serious questions about its viability. Anyway, isn’t that essentially what the social security tax was meant to be?
To help you get ready for tax day, the IRS is touting its annual edition of Publication 17, Your Federal Income Tax. It’s described as a comprehensive tax guide that features details on taking advantage of a wide range of tax-saving opportunities, and a rundown on tax changes for 2016.
My take on it is that for most people, Publication 17 contains a lot of irrelevant information, but it is a good starting point to familiarize yourself with changes that might affect you. Remember, tax day is not on April 15 this year. That’s the outcome of the case reported on in a recent item on AZCentral, but that’s boring, so the reporter had to bring in all the extraneous facts. If you want the straight (boring) legal analysis, read the memorandum decision of the Arizona Court of Appeals.
It doesn’t matter how sympathetic the claim might be. You can’t claim by adverse possession property in Arizona that’s owned by the state or a city. I have in past newsletters addressed both the subject of adverse possession generally, and the difficulty of claiming adverse possession against the government. A California legislator is proposing that California adopt its own 40% estate tax if the federal estate tax is repealed.
Why am I not surprised? Via TaxProf Blog. I have written from time to time about “sin taxes,” which are actually a particular application of what’s more generally known as a pigovian tax. At least one commentator thinks that, contrary to the presumed intent of pigovian taxes to correct negative externalities, actual proponents of pigovian taxes (in this case, Philadelphia’s soda tax) are really just looking for new sources of tax revenue. The commentator reaches that conclusion because the tax proponents seem surprised when the tax actually corrects the negative externality (in this case, by lowering consumption of soda).
I wrote back in January about the City of New York’s hilarious response when asked for comment on the closure of a business because of onerous city regulations. This item by Coyote reminded me of that one, mostly because I’m sure that the bureaucrats just can’t understand why he can’t spend as much time as it takes to respond to their surveys.
Some time ago I wrote about a situation in St. Louis that involved that city trying to prohibit a sign that was critical of the city’s land use policies. Now there’s a similar situation, this time in Walton County, Florida. Once again, it’s an interesting combination of property law and sign regulation. And once again, I don’t see how the government (in this case, the county) can win. It looks to me like the county is trying to both take property without paying for it, and regulate signs based on the content of the messages on the signs. Those are both things that the courts have repeatedly said the government can’t do under the first and fifth amendments to the Constitution.
|
AuthorThe contents of this blog, this web site, and any writings by me that are linked here, are all my personal commentary. None of it is intended to be legal advice for your situation. Archives
November 2023
Categories
All
|