Cultivated Compendium is my personal website with the occasional link to my reporting and to important, cutting-edge or interesting legal news.
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November 12th, 2014
NPR reports that a federal judge has overturned South Carolina's ban on same-sex marriage today. Richard Gergel, a federal judge in South Carolina, overturned an amendment to the South Carolina Constitution. Continue Reading
November 12th, 2014
During law school I did research about various efforts to put patients in charge of their own care, whether their issue is addiction, a disability or mental health. So I was very interested to read a piece that Newsworks' Laura Benshoff published about a pilot program in a Philadelphia suburb to put Medicaid patients with mental health issues in charge of decisions about their care: "It gives patients the option to redirect that money... Continue Reading
November 12th, 2014
Here's a piece I wrote for the Connecticut Law Tribune regarding a former president of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation who, despite being a strong advocate for American Indian rights, is now serving a federal prison sentence for embezzling from the tribe:
Michael Thomas had a reputation as a "tireless and effective advocate" for the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, and he rose to president of the tribal council, a... Continue Reading
November 11th, 2014
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled that requests for records must be designated to a government agency's designated open-records officer, the Associated Press reports: "The decision overturned ruling by a divided Commonwealth Court that said state and local agencies should presume that any written request for records is a Right-to-Know request."
Here's the decision: http://law.justia.com/cases/pennsylvania/supreme-... Continue Reading
November 11th, 2014
Major telecom companies were "stunned" by President Obama's proposal to regulate the Internet like it's a utility, The Guardian's Dominic Rushe reports. Regulating the Internet as a utility under Title II of the Telecommunications Act has been favored by net neutrality advocates when the Federal Communications Commission's prior strategy to ensure Internet service providers don't play favorites was struck down in... Continue Reading
November 10th, 2014
Entrepreneur Jay Bregman wants to add regulatory engineers at a new startup to help companies use drones without running afoul of products liability and privacy law, C|NET's Steve Shankland reports: "His as-yet-unnamed startup plans to bake those rules into drone control software so drone makers and operators can fly the robotic devices without fear." Bregman said that the Federal Aviation Administration just doesn't have the... Continue Reading
November 10th, 2014
After years of delay, the Federal Aviation Administration is close to releasing a ruling to allow smaller drones operated by commercial enterprises like media companies to fly in American airspace, National Defense Magazine's Yasmin Tadjeh reports. Jim Williams, manager of the FAA’s UAS integration office, said "we hope that it will be published before the end of this year." Under the 2012 FAA Modernization and Reform Act,... Continue Reading
November 9th, 2014
U.S. District Judge Robert Chambers struck down West Virginia's ban on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional, the West Virginia MetroNews reports: "'The right to marry is a fundamental right, giving every individual the opportunity to exercise choice in this important relationship. As such, the government must not interfere in that choice unless it demonstrates compelling state interests and carefully tailors its restrictions to... Continue Reading
November 7th, 2014
The Indiana Supreme Court upheld a law that bans conditioning employment on paying union fees, Bloomberg's Sophia Pearson reports. The law made it a misdemeanor to require a worker to pay fees to get or keep a job. Continue Reading
November 7th, 2014
Detroit will emerge from insolvency proceedings after U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes approved its Chapter 9 bankruptcy today as fair and feasible, the Detroit Free Press reports. The plan will give the city the authority to cut 74 percent, or $7 billion, in unsecured debt and reinvest $1.4 billion over 10 years in public services and blight removal. Pensioners will have 4.5 percent cuts to their checks and the elimination of cost-of-... Continue Reading
November 7th, 2014
The U.S. Supreme Court has taken up another existential challenge to Obamacare. The plaintiffs in King v. Burwell allege that the Affordable Care Act doesn't allow the federal government to provide tax credits and subsidies to low-income and moderate-income consumers shopping for insurance on the federally-run insurance exchange, The Huffington Post's Jeffrey Young reports. The Obama administration argues that Congress intended to... Continue Reading
November 6th, 2014
Earlier today I posted about how Missouri's ban on same-sex marriage was struck down by a state-court judge, and I was feeling a complacent sense of happiness that social change was proceeding apace. Well, no more. The Sixth Circuit ruled today in favor of same-sex marriage bans in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. The decision reverses the district court judges who struck down the various states' bans as unconstitutional. As a... Continue Reading
November 6th, 2014
St. Louis Circuit Judge Rex Burlison ruled yesterday that denying same-sex couples the right to marry in Missouri denies them equal protection and due process under the law and is unconstitutional, the Post-Dispatch's Doug Moore reports. Moore struck down the ban in the state constitution because of the equal protection and due process clauses of the 14th Amendment of the federal Constitution.
The Missouri Attorney General will appeal... Continue Reading
November 5th, 2014
Voters in Oregon and Colorado rejected measures that would have required labeling of genetically modified food, Reuters' Carey Gillam reports. The vote was much closer in Oregon than in Colorado. Instead, the fight will shift to the federal level, Gillam reports: "Labeling proponents are pursuing a federal mandate for labeling of GMO foods, while labeling opponents are backing a proposed law that would nullify any mandatory labeling... Continue Reading
November 5th, 2014
Jason Millman, writing in the Washington Post's Wonkblog, says that the Republican victory in several gubernatorial races means that Medicaid expansion under Obamacare may not happen in several states: "Fifteen of the 23 states that hadn't yet expanded Medicaid held gubernatorial elections last night, and it looks like only Alaska will elect a candidate who campaigned for the Medicaid expansion." There might even be a real... Continue Reading
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