Author Archives CIR

Obamacare Round Two: Court to Hear Subsidies Challenge

The Supreme Court announced that it will hear King v. Burwell, a case challenging the Obama Administration’s claim that it may subsidize the cost of individual healthcare policies even in states that have not created state healthcare exchanges.  King is one of two cases in which CIR filed an amicus brief

This Fall’s Big Political Spending by Unions — Paid with Dues

This fall’s campaign provided further evidence of the ongoing harm to the free speech rights of CIR client Rebecca Friedrichs, her fellow plaintiffs, and thousands of other public employees.  The unions spent big on behalf of Democratic party candidates and causes — nothing unusual about that. What is news is the

Friedrichs Gets Early Hearing

The Ninth Circuit issued an order referring Friedrichs’s Urgent Motion for Summary Affirmance to that court’s motions panel in either November or December.  This means her case could possibly come before the Supreme Court in the current term, which ends next June, 2015.

The new order was a change from the

Carvin Files “Corker” of Reply Brief in Obamacare Challenge

Lead Counsel Michael Carvin filed a reply brief in King v. Burwell, one of two cases challenging the Obama Administration’s interpretation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”).  Carvin’s brief urged the Court to promptly review a decision by the Fourth Circuit in which that court held that the

Union Dues Case Snakes Through Ninth Circuit

Lead Counsel Michael Carvin filed two urgent motions in Friedrichs v. CTA intended to speed the case through the Ninth Circuit as quickly as possible.  As Carvin’s team has made clear from the outset of the case, Mrs. Friedrichs and her co-plaintiffs cannot prevail before the lower federal courts because

CIR Goes After Obama “Operation Choke Point”

CIR filed an amicus curiae brief in Community Financial Services Association of America v. FDIC, a suit brought by a group of payday lenders challenging “Operation Choke Point,” a broad investigation of banks and payment processors that do business with businesses deemed “undesirable” by Obama regulators, such as gun dealers,

Challenge to Guam One-Race Plebiscite Moves Forward

A three judge panel heard oral argument in Guam resident Dave Davis’s challenge to that island’s race exclusive plebiscite.  Davis had tried to register to vote in the plebiscite to consider Guam’s future relationship with the US, but was denied because he cannot trace his ancestry to a Chamorro, the

Sixth Circuit grants Amish hair cutters new trial

Today the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its decision in Miller v. United States, in which CIR client Kathryn Miller and other Amish appealed their convictions under the federal hate crimes law for forcibly shaving the beards and cutting the hair of other Amish.  The federal hate crimes law criminalizes violent