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"Restoring science to tackle the climate crisis: not good"

Was prepared to disagree with you on this one (I'm a fan of science driving policy), but I became interested in your Obama extortion angle, if you wouldn't mind covering that more in-depth in an upcoming newsletter.

"Including illegal immigrants in the census: not good"

This one may become self-solving as well.

Relevant Constitutional text (Article I, Section 2): "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons."

The Constitutional language uses "Free Persons" and not "citizens". ("Citizen" is used elsewhere in the text, indicating that the drafters could distinguish between "Free Person" and "Citizen".) Furthermore, the federal law that established *unlawful* immigration didn't exist until the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882[1], which presents problems for Originalists seeking to restrict the Census count to citizens, nevermind lawful immigrants (such as permanent residents).

(Also, I don't think that slaves were 3/5ths a citizen, even if they were counted as partial "people" for the purposes of the Census, which also weakens the citizens-only case for Originalists and Textualists.)

I suspect that this one - like your Bostock example - won't be resolved until SCOTUS rules on it.

"Revocation of certain Executive Orders concerning Federal Regulation: not good"

Hard to get worked up over this, given that this is a tradition for incoming administrations of the opposite political party.

Want something to stick around past a transition in power? Do the harder work of passing legislation. Maybe this pendulum swinging will provide an incentive for more legislation and fewer executive orders, which would be a great thing.

[1] https://www.history.com/news/the-birth-of-illegal-immigration

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Jan 21, 2021Liked by Steve Berman, David Thornton

Informative and politically unbiased. Great read.

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