Presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, to establish his bona fides with conservatives, has released a list of eleven potential Supreme Court nominees. He added, with typical understatement: “If Hillary Clinton, for some reason, wins, your country will never be the same because she’s going to put disasters in the […]
Author: Patrick Quinlan
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has long been praised by Republicans as the model of judicial restraint, a proponent of strict adherence to the literal wording of the United States Constitution. Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan argues that Justice Scalia “did more to advance originalism and judicial restraint […]
Last Friday marked Earth Day, an annual celebration of environmentalism. The headline event of Earth Day 2016 was having 175 countries sign the Paris Agreement, which represents a global commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But the Paris Agreement is aspirational – or, as some have said, largely symbolic and […]
I stopped blogging after the Florida Bar’s Standing Committee on Advertising found that a statement of opinion posted on a law firm’s website, such as “tort reform benefits insurers,” violated Florida Bar Rule 4-7.13, since it was not “objectively verifiable.” My firm promptly filed a federal lawsuit to challenge this […]
Justices Barbara Pariente, Fred Lewis, and Peggy Quince were all appointed to the Florida Supreme Court in the late 1990s. According to timeframes established in the Florida Constitution, each of them has stood for merit retention in 2000 and 2006, and each of them will do so again in 2012. […]
This November, our Florida ballot will include eleven – count ‘em, eleven – proposed amendments to the Florida Constitution. Each one is on the ballot because it was sponsored by the State House or State Senate. I recommend voting “no” to each of the eleven amendments for both procedural and […]
In 2010, Florida State Representative Scott Plakon, R-Longwood, sponsored Amendment 9, a proposed state constitutional amendment aimed at stopping the federal health care law (aka “Obamacare”) from being implemented in Florida. The Florida Legislature passed a joint resolution containing the text of the proposed amendment, as well as a ballot […]
I wrote last week about Republican voter suppression efforts, and the unfortunate decision of a judge in Pennsylvania not to block that state’s voter ID law, which could disenfranchise up to 750,000 mostly minority voters. A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia […]
Much of the time, the two political parties seem virtually indistinguishable. But, every once in a while, something happens that draws a stark contrast between the Democratic and Republican views of the world. Such a moment came during the GOP presidential debate last night, when Rep. Ron Paul was asked […]
There is certainly no shortage of tort reform crusaders who have, in their private lives, sought the assistance of trial lawyers to bring exactly the type of lawsuits that they decry in public: then-Gov. George W. Bush filing suit over a minor fender-bender involving one of his daughters in which […]
