The Study Corner

330 – Maine’s Tuition Assistance

When parents saw what their children were being taught during the COVID-19 school shutdowns, school choice has been a topic of interest lately. If government schools were going to substitute political theory for reading, writing, and arithmetic, parents wanted another choice. Most people cannot afford private schools, and others cannot dedicate the time to home schooling. Since the people pay for these government schools through their taxes, shouldn’t they be able to use that money for better options?

Paul Engel

August Free Book Giveaway

This August, I’m giving away a signed copy of my book The Constitution Study to one lucky person. Signup for one of my mailing list and you’ll be entered for the drawing.

Paul Engel

328 – Turning a Lemon into Lemonade

A high-school coach was denied his freedom of religion and speech based on a more than 50 year old lemon of a court opinion. In the case Lemon v. Kurtzman, the Supreme Court claimed that your right to freely speak and exercise your religion must yield to the government’s “interest” in avoiding violating the establishment clause. But the “Lemon Test” puts the government’s interest above your rights protected by the Constitution. In this years case Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the court took this Lemon and turned it into lemonade.

Paul Engel

PRESS RELEASE: Tennessee Governor to Commemorate Constitution Week

NASHVILLE, TN (The Constitution Study) – On the 22nd of July, 2022, Governor Lee of the State of Tennessee proclaimed the week of September 17-23, 2022 as Constitution Week.

Paul Engel

327 – Showdown at the EPA Corral

Did you ever imagine that a question about air pollution could end up changing the way governments work? That may be exactly what happened with the Supreme Court’s opinion in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency. What started as a question of whether or not the EPA’s plan to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions from the electric grid was constitutional turned into a statement about the limits of discretion granted to executive agencies.

Paul Engel

326 – NYSRPA v. Bruen

Can a state arbitrarily decide whether or not you get to exercise a right protected by the Constitution of the United States? That is the question in the case New York State Rifle and Pistol Association (NYSRPA) v. Bruen, Superintendent of the New York State Police. New York State is a “may issue” state, meaning that you did not get your carry license even if you met all of the legal requirements, you had to show you had a “good cause” to carry a firearm in public. But self-defense was not considered “good cause” by the New York courts. You had to show you had a special need for self-defense, greater than the general public. Does that sound like infringement on your right to keep and bear arms to you?

Paul Engel

325 – Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health

After almost 50 years, a landmark decision of the Supreme Court has been overturned. Will it be remembered with other decisions like Dred Scott or Plessy v. Ferguson? Only time will tell. After all of the furor when a draft of the opinion was leaked, we finally get a chance to review that actual opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health in its final form.