Short Circuit

When it comes to the law, it’s the responsibility of the government. After all, that’s why we have a government, right? Well, it seems the government is responsible for enforcing the law . . . until it would rather not. This week we have a pair of cases where different governments have wriggled out of their enforcement responsibilities in an effort to avoid a lawsuit. And in each case it worked. First, Erica Smith Ewing of IJ tells us of a rarity in the federal courts of appeals: A Contracts Clause lawsuit that was successful—at least, it was successful in stating a Contracts Clause claim. Later on, however, the city of New York “remembered” that it didn’t actually enforce the law in question—a pandemic-era rent-collection abatement—which lead to the plaintiff landlords losing their standing. There’s a silver lining for them—but it’s very much a lining. Then we’re off to the Tenth Circuit where IJ’s Paul Sherman explains Utah’s online age verification law and how the state designed it to only be enforced by p