Robert Alt, constitutional scholar and president and chief executive officer of The Buckeye Institute, explains why California’s position in National Pork Producers Council v. Ross is unconstitutional and contradicts America’s founding principles of balance among states. “As a constitutional matter, California has gone hog wild. A proper respect for both the authority of the other 49 states to manage their own business and the role of the federal government in regulating commerce between the states would require the Supreme Court to rule against California’s audacious extraterritorial overreach.”
 

In Crain’s Cleveland Business, The Buckeye Institute urges greater use of public-private partnerships to address Northeast Ohio’s infrastructure challenges, writing that P3s serve as a “successful model for improving and maintaining urban infrastructure cost-effectively” and “give private enterprise a greater role in financing and building roads and other large public projects.” The opinion piece is part of Crain’s Forum series, a monthly deep dive into intractable issues facing Northeast Ohio that intersect public policy and business.

“Ohio feels the negative side effects of obesity more acutely than most states. With one-third of its workforce fighting obesity, Ohio ranks 15th in the nation.” In an op-ed published by RealClearPolicy, The Buckeye Institute marks Obesity Care Week by highlighting a forthcoming research paper that “estimates that obesity has sidelined more than 32,000 workers — more than enough to construct and fully staff Intel’s new semiconductor plant in central Ohio. And those missing workers have deprived the state of nearly $20 million in tax revenue.”
 

Many regulations were suspended or relaxed as COVID-19 surged in the United States. So why are they coming back? Rea S. Hederman Jr., executive director of the Economic Research Center and vice president of policy at The Buckeye Institute, joins Caleb O. Brown, host of the Cato Daily Podcast, to explain.

“I am near the bottom of the earth—having made it to Antarctica at long last. The adventure of my lifetime begins as another banner year at Buckeye comes to a close. We have accomplished extraordinary goals together in 2022, and are ready for even more in 2023. I couldn’t be there to celebrate the signing into law of so many tremendous victories in person because I am embarking on a personal dream, inspired by the Sir Ernest Shackleton stories I read in my youth that captured my imagination and never gave it back.”

In The Wall Street Journal, Andrew M. Grossman, a senior legal fellow at The Buckeye Institute, and David B. Rivkin Jr., criticize pressure that New York state financial regulators are putting on insurers to “sever business relationships with gun promotion groups.” Grossman and Rivkin write, “It’s the classic threat of B-movie mobsters: Nice business you got there, it’d be a shame if something happened to it. Government shouldn’t operate like that, but it too often does, sometimes to evade the Constitution’s limits on its power.”

On RealClearPolicy, The Buckeye Institute and the Mercatus Center applaud the creation of a “regulatory sandbox” for financial technology in Ohio, writing, “Leaders in Ohio and elsewhere deserve commendation for their ambitious efforts to create a more welcoming system for entrepreneurship. Let’s hope that the new sandbox, and whatever comes next, make it easier for Ohio families to access innovative financial services while also making Ohio more open for business.”
 

In The Columbus Dispatch, The Buckeye Institute urges reform of the State School Board and the Ohio Department of Education, writing, “Ohio education reform, if it has any chance of success, must start at the top. That means overhauling the ineffective State Board of Education that haplessly oversees the bureaucratic State Department of Education. Legislation pending in the General Assembly seems poised to take several commonsense steps in the right direction. And it’s about time.”

In The Wall Street Journal, Andrew M. Grossman, a senior legal fellow at The Buckeye Institute, and David B. Rivkin Jr., look at the question of independent state legislatures, writing, “The Supreme Court considers on Wednesday whether the Constitution’s Elections Clause means what it says—that ‘the times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof.’”

Universal occupational licensing recognition could be a part of Speaker Bob Cupp’s already impressive legacy, The Buckeye Institute writes in The Lima News. “As Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, Lima’s Bob Cupp presided over the passage of a school funding plan that has all but secured his reputation as one of Ohio’s premier speakers. But before his term expires at the end of the 134th General Assembly, Speaker Cupp can further his formidable legislative legacy by ensuring the enactment of long-overdue occupational licensing reform.”