Forced speech requirement masquerades as anti-deception law. California wants to require pro-life pregnancy centers to inform its clients about free abortion services provided by the state. In National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA) v. Becerra, the Supreme Court will decide whether that violates the First Amendment's free speech protections. George Leef writes:
A case that I think the Court should look to for guidance is West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnett, the 1943 case in which the Court rebuked the state for its punishing Jehovah's Witness children for declining to salute the flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Justice Jackson wisely wrote in his majority opinion, "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein."
That is exactly what California officials want to do. Jehovah's Witnesses were a politically powerless group to be forced into our spirit of nationalism during World War II and today pro-life advocates are (in California at least) a politically powerless group to be beaten down with a similar forced recitation running contrary to their beliefs. […]
Perhaps, as they contemplate their decision in NIFLA, the justices will think about the damage that a precedent in favor of allowing government to force private parties to convey messages they disagree with would do.
Suppose that a "red" state with a strongly anti-union majority were to pass a law mandating that in all its communications, any union representing workers in the state must include a message (in bold type and colorful ink), informing workers about their rights under the state Right to Work law and where they can get help if they want to drop out of the union. That would also be constitutional if the Court upholds this California statute.
[George Leef, "Can Government Force You To Speak Contrary To Your Beliefs?" Forbes, March 25]
Indeed, some census questions serve no good purpose. And some do, writes Mike Gonzalez on the controversy over the Commerce Department's decision to include a question on citizenship status on the 2020 census:
The Commerce Department, which has authority to determine what questions will be included in the census, was acting in response to a December request by the Justice Department. Justice cited multiple federal court decisions holding that, in voter-dilution cases (involving, for example, gerrymandering and other methods that can effectively disenfranchise minority voters), citizen voting-age population is the proper metric for determining whether a racial group can constitute a majority. Veterans of the Justice Department confirm that this data is vital to efforts to enforce the Voting Rights Act. […]
The question on citizenship is a symbolic reminder that distinctions between citizens and non-citizens are more important in a civic-minded constitutional republic such as ours than distinctions on such immutable
traits as race and ethnicity. Restoring this question, however, won't do much to fix the identity politics that Thomas rightly complained about, and which is fraying the national fabric.
To strike a blow against identity politics, the administration needs to go much further and discontinue asking questions on "pan-ethnicities" confected by the federal bureaucracy itself, such as "Hispanic," "Asian" or "Pacific Islander." To that end, it should rescind the Office of Management and Budget's 1977 Policy Directive standardizing these groups, along with its 1997 revision.
[Mike Gonzalez, "Stop Hyperventilating — Census Citizenship Question Makes Good Sense," The Heritage Foundation, March 30]
It's a myth that e-commerce is cutting into state tax revenues. Chris Edwards with some data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis:
E-commerce sales have grown to nine percent of retail sales, but sales tax revenues have nonetheless roughly kept pace with economic growth.
Since 1990, sales tax revenues have dipped only slightly from 3.1 percent to 3.0 percent of GDP.
Meanwhile, state-local income tax revenues have fluctuated with the economy, but have trended upward. They have risen from 1.8 percent of GDP in 1990 to 2.1 percent today.
Overall, state-local tax revenues (including property and other taxes) have edged up since 1990 from 8.7 percent of GDP to 8.8 percent.
[Chris Edwards, "Trump and Amazon: States Don't Need More Sales Taxes," Cato Institute, March 29]
North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un visited Beijing this week. What might they have talked about? Oriana Skylar Mastro writes:
China and its leaders are not amateurs when it comes to dealing with the North Korean regime. While Kim's willingness to leave Pyongyang to go to China's capital goes a long way to demonstrate his desire for improved relations, Beijing likely has some demands of its own. Xi probably chastised Kim for his provocative behavior and warned him not to engage in any more nuclear or missile tests under any circumstances. China may even push for domestic political and economic changes within North Korea, or more access and influence with the regime, especially in the context of negotiations with the United States. In other words, if Xi is going to help Kim, China can't merely be notified of Kim's decisions, it has to be able to drive them.
Additionally, China needs to make sure that Kim is prepared to negotiate in good faith. If this is merely a stalling tactic until Kim completes his nuclear deterrent, there are concerns that this could be the last straw for the Trump administration, making war on the peninsula all but imminent. This is an outcome that Beijing is hoping to avoid if possible.
At the very least, Beijing just won itself a seat at the table. While North Korea and the United States will be vying for the upper hand, the ultimate winner will be Beijing. China is in the best position among all three to drive events in its favor – to ensure that there is no war and no collapse. Perhaps most importantly, China's involvement can ensure that the United States continues to focus on the Korea nuclear issue, thus failing to compete with Beijing for regional power, and perhaps even global influence.
[Oriana Skylar Mastro, "Why Xi Jinping Wants to Broker the Trump-Kim Deal," The American Enterprise Institute, March 29]
The history that Justice Stevens ignores. Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens took to the pages of the New York Times this week to argue for a constitutional amendment repealing the Second Amendment so that more rigorous gun control legislation can be enacted. The Second Amendment is an obstacle to such legislation, he writes, because in District of Columbia v. Heller the Supreme Court wrongly overturned the 200-year-old understanding of the Second Amendment as "not placing any limit on either federal or state authority to enact gun control legislation."
Damon Root writes:
One problem with Stevens' position is that he is dead wrong about the legal history. His preferred reading of the Second Amendment has never been "uniformly understood."
For example, consider how the Second Amendment was treated in St. George Tucker's 1803 View of the Constitution of the United States, which was the first extended analysis and commentary published about the Constitution. For generations of law students, lawyers, and judges, Tucker's View served as a go-to con-law textbook.
Tucker was a veteran of the Revolutionary War, a colleague of James Madison, and a professor of law at the College of William and Mary. He observed the debates over the ratification of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as they happened. And he had no doubt that the Second Amendment secured an individual right of the "nonmilitary" type. "This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty," Tucker wrote of the Second Amendment. "The right of self-defense is the first law of nature." In other words, the Heller majority's view of the Second Amendment is as old and venerable as the amendment itself.
[Damon Root, "Justice John Paul Stevens Is Wrong About the Second Amendment, Again" Reason, March 27]
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