NCLA lawsuits have forced the Department of Transportation to abandon an abusive administrative enforcement action against a small family-owned business for the third time this year. These cases provide a roadmap for others to follow when DOT drags them into illegitimate administrative proceedings. All three NCLA cases challenged in federal court the constitutionality of DOT’s…

Justices Sotomayor and Thomas agree. Professors Neal Katyal and Philip Hamburger agree. And the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) agree. The United States Supreme Court should reconsider its qualified immunity jurisprudence. And that is precisely what the NCLA has asked the Supreme Court to do in its petition for certiorari…

A new kind of administrative threat has emerged: use of the federal judiciary’s internal administrative machinery to bypass the Constitution’s impeachment process and sideline a disfavored judge. That’s what is happening in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Its administrative Judicial Council has prohibited Judge Pauline Newman from hearing any new cases—for…

“[i]f nothing more were required, in exercising a legislative trust, than a general conveyance of authority—without laying down any precise rules by which the authority conveyed should be carried into effect—it would follow that the whole power of legislation might be transferred by the legislature from itself, and proclamations might become substitutes for law.”— James…

“We do it this way on all other campuses. If we cannot do it this way, we’ll leave Amherst.” That was the ultimatum served to me by a representative of MASSPIRG (Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group) fourteen and a half years ago. At the time, I was a member of the five-student strong Amherst College…

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’” Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’” “But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument,’” Alice objected. “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question…