When the Founders wrote the Constitution, they unambiguously gave Congress control over federal spending. But Planned Parenthood is now suing the federal government in denial of this fact—claiming the Constitution requires the federal government to give money to organizations that are abortion providers. Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the Constitution plainly states: “No…
Should a landlord be required to rent an apartment to the first “qualified” person to appear on his or her doorstep? The city of Seattle seems to think so. Its imposition of this obligation, however, is being challenged by the free market-oriented Pacific Legal Foundation, a watchdog organization that litigates nationwide for limited government, property…
In a major victory for free speech, the city of Atlanta has awarded former Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran with $1.2 million after violating his First Amendment rights. Cochran was a highly decorated firefighter who served as the U.S. fire administrator after President Barack Obama hand-picked him for the job. In 2010, he agreed to return…
To Sen. Mike Lee, the battle over whether women should have to register for a draft that does not exist is more consequential than it sounds. Though the U.S. has had an all-volunteer force since 1973, some Republicans are using this year’s defense policy bill to try to require women to sign up for the…
The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (the top military court) has slammed another Army trial prosecutor for egregious misconduct in an Army court-martial. This is the second case in as many years that this court has castigated an Army prosecutor for misconduct. In 2015, the court found serious problems with the way another…
Republican Sens. John McCain, Lisa Murkowski, and Susan Collins joined Democrats to keep Obamacare, at least for now. The “skinny repeal” bill managed to get only 49 votes, with every Democrat and the three Republicans voting against the scaled-down version of the repeal and replace bill. Just before 2 a.m. Friday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch…
It seems that many gun control activists want to take your guns so badly that they’re willing to take your voice, too. And increasingly, the war for the Second Amendment involves battles waged on a First Amendment front. Just ask the National Rifle Association, which last week needed the Supreme Court to vindicate its right…
This week, the nation’s highest court made two decisions that could profoundly affect the future of educational freedom in the United States. On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer that the state of Missouri violated the Constitution when it excluded Trinity Lutheran’s preschool, because of its religious…
The Republican National Committee has passed a resolution calling for Congress to approve the First Amendment Defense Act. The legislation and resolution are in response to the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Critics of the ruling say the Supreme Court failed to allow for religious liberty protections…
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled 5-2 last month that the state’s no-excuse, by-mail voting law is constitutional. But to do that, the state’s highest court had to ignore and overturn over 150 years of precedent holding that the Pennsylvania Constitution requires in-person voting. In 2019, Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, signed the voting law,…
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction,” President-to-be Ronald Reagan warned in an address to the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce in March 1961. That’s because, now as then, slavery not liberty, and serfdom not freedom, is humanity’s default setting. Those of us in Britain have seen the fulfillment of Reagan’s prophecy. We…
In a rare unanimous ruling on Monday, the Supreme Court secured a major victory for free speech. In the opinion in Shurtleff v. Boston, authored by retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, the court ruled that the city of Boston violated the Constitution when it prohibited a group from flying a Christian flag on a flagpole it…
Lawyers for former President Donald Trump gave a significantly shorter presentation Friday in his defense than the Democrats’ House impeachment managers did the previous two days in acting as prosecutors. Day Four of Trump’s second Senate impeachment trial began around noon and Trump’s legal team yielded the balance of its 16 hours of allotted time…
The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled recently in favor of philosophy professor Nicholas Meriwether’s First Amendment rights at Shawnee State University—and rightly so. The appellate court also reversed a lower court’s dismissal of his lawsuit against university officials. Shawnee officials had punished Meriwether because he refused to accede to a biologically male student’s…
The leftist media cabal constantly imagines itself as the grand embodiment of democracy and freedom of speech, even as it seeks to put Republicans in jail and hopes to censor them from speaking on social media. It doesn’t live up to its First Amendment boasting. For example, there’s “CNN International” host Christiane Amanpour, whose leftist…
Last week, in Murthy v. Missouri, the U.S. Supreme Court hammered home the distressing conclusion that, under the court’s doctrines, the First Amendment is, for all practical purposes, unenforceable against large-scale government censorship. The decision is a strong contender to be the worst speech decision in the court’s history. (I must confess a personal interest in…
On the last day of its 2017-18 term, the Supreme Court’s decision in Janus v. AFSCME on Wednesday strengthened the First Amendment right to free speech and showed how the court should analyze whether to overrule one of its previous decisions. In the labor context, a “bargaining unit” is a group of employees with clear…
First Amendment freedoms are sacrosanct—especially the right to gather together and worship God. But over Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, Minneapolis/St. Paul anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protesters and their supporters perversely invoked the First Amendment to justify desecrating a house of worship and interfering with others’ First Amendment rights. While congregants of Cities Church—a…
Editor's note: With the case of Jack Phillips and Masterpiece Cakeshop going before the Supreme Court on Tuesday, we thought we'd highlight some of the responses The Daily Signal has received, including to the latest video profile on the story produced by Kelsey Harkness, Lauren Evans, and Michael Goodwin. Be sure to write us at [email protected].—Ken…
In the words of Supreme Court Justice William Brennan Jr., America serves as a “marketplace of ideas.” A state-funded college campus, of all places, should epitomize this function. But restrictive policies on campuses across the country are silencing certain viewpoints and limiting speech on campus. Take Kellogg Community College in Battle Creek, Michigan. This college…