Posts by abarrett

A small independent website designer in Colorado is getting national attention. Why? The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case next week about whether the government can force her to say something that goes against her personal beliefs. It’s one of the biggest free speech cases this Supreme Court term. And you may not have…

Commonplace in the market for medical services, certificate-of-need  laws prohibit medical providers from practicing or expanding unless they can demonstrate not only “need” for their proposed services but also survive a bureaucratic gauntlet that can take years, cost thousands of dollars, and allow competitors — existing and potential — to challenge the application. The result…

Public accommodations laws help ensure a free and open economy. Traditionally, these laws have been applied to, well, public accommodations, such as hotels, or “what the old common law promised to any member of the public wanting a meal at the inn, that accepting the usual terms of service, they will not be turned away…

Government employs a veritable army of teachers, professors, graduate students, undergraduate work-study students, as well as coaches, teachers’ aides, tutors, and administrators. To what degree can government, as an employer, punish the people it hires for their own personal expression? That’s a live question. The First Amendment protects citizens from the government. The government doesn’t…

Public accommodations laws “help ensure a free and open economy.” Traditionally, public accommodations laws have been applied to, well, public accommodations, such as hotels, or “what the old common law promised to any member of the public wanting a meal at the inn, that accepting the usual terms of service, they will not be turned…