FedSoc Forums

Defenders of the Constitution designed impeachment to be a rare event, especially by making the requirement for removal a two-thirds vote of the Senate for treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, rather than “maladministration,” in their words. John Malcolm and John Yoo discuss the public hearings from the impeachment proceedings that began last month in the House of Representatives. How have the facts changed? What have been the procedures for the House investigation? Could the allegations plausibly meet the standards for high crimes and misdemeanors? How effective is the White House’s strategy of non-cooperation?

Featuring:
-- John G. Malcolm, Vice President, Institute for Constitutional Government, Director of the Meese Center for Legal & Judicial Studies and Senior Legal Fellow, The Heritage Foundation
-- Prof. John C. Yoo, Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley School of Law

In its very first case on copyright, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Marshall was faced with the question of whether its own reports are protected by copyright, and decided in the negative. This term, the Supreme Court is called upon to clarify the scope of that decision, which it has not further clarified since two cases heard in 1888. The question presented in Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org Inc. is whether the annotations to the Official Code of Georgia are "government edicts" and thus not within the scope of copyright, even though they lack the force of law. This case also raises implicit questions as to other quasi-governmental publications of which the copyright status is often surprisingly amorphous.
Featuring:
Mr. Sy Damle, Partner, Latham & Watkins LLP
Mr. Zvi Rosen, Visiting Scholar and Professorial Lecturer in Law, George Washington University School of Law

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Please join us to discuss the upcoming oral argument in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York, New York. Our experts will give a history of the case, discuss the salient facts, and offer predictions on how the Court will come out.

In 2017, Congress and the President used the Congressional Review Act to disapprove 14 agency rules issued at the end of the Obama administration. As we enter another presidential election year, the CRA may soon experience another resurgence. Our speakers will address recent CRA developments, including ongoing litigation and an OMB memo asserting CRA authority over agency guidance documents, as well as how the upcoming deadline for submitted rules for review by this Congress and President (rather than their successors) affects agency decision-making.

Featuring:
-- Amit Narang, Regulatory Policy Advocate, Public Citizen Inc.
-- Jonathan Wood, Senior Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation
-- Moderator: Paul J. Larkin Jr., Senior Legal Research Fellow, Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, Institute for Constitutional Government, The Heritage Foundation

Join us for a Courthouse Steps teleforum on the oral argument for County of Maui, Hawaii v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund. Glenn Roper will examine how the arguments played out, give an indication of where the Court may be going, and discuss how the Supreme Court decision in this case will affect regulated parties in the future.
Featuring:
Glenn E. Roper, Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation

Teleforum calls are open to all dues paying members of the Federalist Society. To become a member, sign up on our website. As a member, you should receive email announcements of upcoming Teleforum calls which contain the conference call phone number. If you are not receiving those email announcements, please contact us at 202-822-8138.

The discovery of the dread pirate Blackbeard’s flagship, Queen Anne’s Revenge, off the North Carolina coast, began an unlikely chain of events which leads to the Supreme Court reconsidering whether and under what circumstances Congress may abrogate state sovereign immunity from suits for infringement of federal intellectual property laws, in this case copyright infringement. In this teleforum we will explore the background of Allen v. Cooper, on which the Supreme Court heard oral argument on November 5, including the interplay of the 11th Amendment and the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act, the evolution and impact of the Supreme Court's rulings in the 1990s in Seminole Tribe and Florida Prepaid, and how the briefs present the issues before the Court.
Featuring:

Zvi Rosen, Visiting Scholar and Professorial Lecturer in Law, George Washington University School of Law
Prof. Josh Blackman, Associate Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston
Moderator: Kevin R. Amer, Deputy General Counsel, U.S. Copyright Office

Teleforum calls are open to all dues paying members of the Federalist Society. To become a member, sign up on our website. As a member, you should receive email announcements of upcoming Teleforum calls which contain the conference call phone number. If you are not receiving those email announcements, please contact us at 202-822-8138.

The Regulatory Transparency Project has created an entertaining and informative video on this case consider clicking above and checking it out!

This past August the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a significant administrative law opinion that has thus far drawn too little attention. The case involved guidance the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued in 2012 telling private and public employers—such as the State of Texas—that they could not run criminal background checks on potential employees without incurring potential disparate impact liability for disproportionately screening out statutorily protected groups. Most news articles discussing the case have focused on the immediate outcome, which is that the Fifth Circuit enjoined EEOC’s guidance, effectively preventing the agency from bringing any enforcement actions based on its theory of liability. But that’s not the big story here. Rather, it is how the Fifth Circuit’s decision did it that could reverberate far beyond the confines of this case. The court may have sounded the death knell for *all* EEOC guidance. When Congress created EEOC, it deliberately denied the agency the ability to issue rules. For the past half century, EEOC did not let this statutory constraint slow it down much. Denied the ability to pass rules, EEOC passed mere “guidance” instead. But because that guidance was backed up with (1) the threat of enforcement; and (2) employers’ knowledge that federal courts readily defer to EEOC’s interpretations of its governing statute, the guidance was as good as law. However, by enjoining the criminal background check guidance on the ground that EEOC has no substantive rulemaking power, the Fifth Circuit exposed the fact that EEOC has long been acting outside its congressional grant of authority. In other words, the reason the Fifth Circuit gave for prohibiting this particular EEOC guidance would apply to most—if not all—substantive guidance that the agency issues. This teleforum examines the Fifth Circuit’s decision in State of Texas v. EEOC and discusses what role (if any) EEOC guidance will play going forward.

Featuring:
-- Mark Chenoweth, Executive Director & General Counsel, New Civil Liberties Alliance
-- Moderator: Hon. Eileen J. O'Connor, Law Office of Eileen J. O'Connor, PLLC

In Kansas v. Glover, a state police officer pulled a Charles Glover Jr. over after running a registration check on the vehicle and finding that Charles Glover Jr had a revoked drivers license. The police officer assumed that Charles Glover was the person driving the vehicle, and proceeded to pull Glover over and then upon confirmation of Glover's identity, issued a citation. Glover is arguing that the fact that the registered owner of a vehicle has a revoked drivers license does not amount to a reasonable suspicion, and that therefore all evidence from the stop should be suppressed. Brian Fish joins us to discuss the oral argument and its implications.
Featuring:
Brian Fish, Special Assistant, United States Attorney, Baltimore, Maryland

Teleforum calls are open to all dues paying members of the Federalist Society. To become a member, sign up on our website. As a member, you should receive email announcements of upcoming Teleforum calls which contain the conference call phone number. If you are not receiving those email announcements, please contact us at 202-822-8138.

The Ninth Circuit recently split from seven other Circuits in deciding a First Amendment question of cardinal importance: should the church choose who will teach religion to children in church schools, or should the state? Our Lady of Guadalupe School is a small California Catholic parish school sued by a former teacher for age discrimination. The fifth-grade teacher taught religion, led prayer, planned liturgy, and performed other important religious functions. Following the Supreme Court’s unanimous 2012 decision in Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC (which concerned a fourth-grade teacher at a Lutheran school who also performed religious duties), the district court found that the teacher’s religious functions were enough to allow dismissal, since allowing the case to proceed would entangle the state in internal religious affairs and violate the school’s right to select its teachers of religion. But, breaking with seven other circuits, seven state supreme courts, and over the dissent of nine of its judges, the Ninth Circuit reversed. Eric Rassbach, counsel for Our Lady, will explain why the Supreme Court should take the case.

Featuring:
-- Eric Rassbach, Vice President and Senior Counsel, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty