David Rivkin and Clara Jeffries discuss implications of Newtown shooting on gun control.
April 10, 2013
Fines levied by the SEC against a corporation for long-ago wrongdoing do not protect current investors.
By DAVID B. RIVKIN JR. And JOHN J. CARNEY
Two weeks ago, a unanimous Supreme Court rebuffed the Securities and Exchange Commission Gabelli v. SEC. The SEC maintained that its enforcement actions for fines under the Investment Advisers Act weren’t subject to the five-year statute of limitations. This wasn’t the first time the courts have pushed back a federal agency for overreaching. It won’t be the last.
But the SEC’s audacity prompts a broader policy question: What good is accomplished by imposing monetary penalties on corporations, as the agency attempted to do in Gabelli? The answer is that when such penalties are sought by the government, they probably do more harm than good.
March 16, 2013
Noel Canning v. NLRB: DC Circuit Court of Appeals Rules President Obama’s Recess Appointments were Invalid
On Friday, January 25, 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit, ruled that President Obama’s “recess appointments” of three National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) members was unconstitutional. At issue was whether the President illegally invoked the Recess Appointments clause of Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution when he filled three existing vacancies on the NLRB during pro forma sessions of Congress (President Obama had maintained that Congress was actually not in session). Attorneys for Noel Canning argued that, since the recess appointments were illegal, the NLRB lacked a quorum when it ruled that the company violated various provisions of the National Labor Relations Act, and, therefore, the NLRB ruling was invalid and unenforceable. A three-member panel consisting of Chief Judge David Santelle, and Circuit Judges Thomas Griffith and Karen Henderson concurred.
For additional analysis, read this alert.
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February 21, 2013
David Rivkin on Gun Control and the Second Amendment
The following is a transcript of David Rivkin’s appearance on the BBC Newshour radio broadcast on December 17, 2012. The show was a direct response to the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT.
Host: David Rivkin joined us from the Washington studio and on the line from San Francisco I also spoke to Clara Jeffrey who is coeditor of Mother Jones a left leaning investigations magazine, does she think that this is a turning point?
Clara Jeffery: I think it could be, I think this has outraged the country. It’s one of many mass shootings this year. The numbers keep getting worse and worse. We’ve had twice as many casualties as in any year past and I think it will behoove ordinary people to organize and responsible gun owners to step forward and say that they too support reasonable restrictions. We need to put the wind behind politicians to make the change.
February 18, 2013
The courts would no more allow government to undermine the Second Amendment than the First.
By David B. Rivkin Jr. and Andrew M. Grossman
Could there be a better illustration of the cultural divide over firearms than the White House photograph of our skeet-shooting president? Clay pigeons are launched into the air, but the president’s smoking shotgun is level with the ground. This is not a man who is comfortable around guns. And that goes a long way toward explaining his gun-control agenda.
Lack of informed presidential leadership aside, there is a gulf between those Americans who view guns as invaluable tools for self-defense, both against private wrongdoers and a potentially tyrannical government, and those who regard that concept as hopelessly archaic and even subversive. For them, hunting is the only possible legitimate use of firearms, and gun ownership should be restricted to weapons suited to that purpose.
February 12, 2013
Constitutional attorney David Rivkin discussed the legal implications of President Obama’s announcement on gun control on Fox and Friends on January 16, 2013.
“We did not know for sure, we clearly know one thing, he cannot do by executive order anything that Congress has not delegated. […] He cannot ban high capacity magazines by executive order. ” – Rivkin in response to Brian Kilmeade’s question on what to expect today.
January 16, 2013