Daily Reads for May 17, 2022

Governing: Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson's plan to address safety and other issues.

(Mayor Cavalier) Johnson repeatedly stressed that public safety was the top issue facing the city, but he knew he was inheriting other challenges. The city’s annual pension payment is on track to balloon from $71 million to $145 million next year. A pension task force warned last fall that the spike could lead to layoffs for a quarter of city workers. One voter told Johnson that, as mayor, he’d have to choose between “a whole pile of no good.”

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Former state senator pleads guilty to charges of failure to pay employment taxes.

Kevin Shibilski, 60, of Merrill, appeared in front of federal district court Judge William Conley and pleaded guilty to failing to truthfully account for and pay the Internal Revenue Service the federal income taxes withheld and the FICA taxes owed on behalf of his employees at two of his businesses — Pure Extractions and Wisconsin Logistics Solutions.

Vox: Supreme Court decision in favor of Ted Cruz makes it easier to bribe officials.

The Court’s decision in FEC v. Ted Cruz for Senate is a boon to wealthy candidates. It strikes down an anti-bribery law that limited the amount of money candidates could raise after an election in order to repay loans they made to their own campaign. ...

The idea is that, if already-elected officials can solicit donations to repay what is effectively their own personal debt, lobbyists and others seeking to influence lawmakers can put money directly into the elected official’s pocket — and campaign donations that personally enrich a lawmaker are particularly likely to lead to corrupt bargains. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) manufactured a case to try to overturn that $250,000 limit, and now, the Court has sided with him.

Above the Law: Opinion on the law profs who think Alito is right in his draft upending Roe.

Yale Law School’s Akhil Reed Amar took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to gently explain why Samuel Alito’s leaked Dobbs draft is entirely reasonable and legal. And you can believe him too because, as the Wall Street Journal editors gleefully note in the article’s sub-heading, Professor Amar is a “pro-choice Democrat.” . . .

Is it really a side effect of living the cloistered academic life? Seeing the world as a collection of abstract positions to be mentally cabined off of each other? I dunno. All I know is the same crop of law professors show up every time there’s a turning point in America’s constitutional order to say, “move along, nothing to see here.”

It might be that these law professors aren’t really liberal to begin with. Or it might be that their liberalism only extends to the issues they’ve decided matter to them.

Forbes: Georgia voters appeal decision keeping Marjorie Taylor Greene on the ballot.

​ABC7 Chicago: Florida governor signs law criminalizing protests in front of residences.