Report: States Face $1 Trillion in Unfunded Liabilities
BY MATTHEW VADUM States are facing more than $1 trillion in unfunded future liabilities related to health and life insurance benefits for their retired employees, a growing shortfall that amounts to about $3,100 for every person in the United States, according to a new report by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC, which has come […]
POLITICS | Conservative Virginia Counties Float Seceding to West Virginia
BY MATTHEW VADUM A long-shot proposal for Virginia counties to secede and become part of neighboring West Virginia gained momentum after conservative leader and Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. endorsed it this week. The proposal by grassroots conservative activists, dubbed “Vexit,” calls for redrawing the border of Virginia, whose legislature recently flipped to Democrats, allowing some of […]
Pension Plan Members Argue Before Supreme Court About Right to Sue for Risky Investments
BY MATTHEW VADUM WASHINGTON—Defined benefit plan participants should be allowed to sue plan administrators for fiduciary breaches even when the retirement plan is overfunded and participants have not lost money, a lawyer for participants told the Supreme Court. A company retirement plan is said to be “overfunded” when its assets exceed its liabilities, allowing the surplus […]
Watchdog Group Tells 5 States of Millions of Extra Voter Registrations
BY MATTHEW VADUM At least 2.5 million extra voter registrations are on the voter rolls of 378 counties nationwide, according to the good-government group Judicial Watch. Democrats have long denied that voter fraud affects electoral outcomes and claims that those on the right want to crack down on voter fraud solely as a means of preventing […]
Year in Review: Courts Savage Trump’s Immigration Policies
BY MATTHEW VADUM President Donald Trump has enjoyed great success in placing his nominees on the federal bench in 2019, although the year seems more likely to be remembered as a time of strong judicial resistance to the president’s agenda, particularly with respect to immigration policy. In a speech on Nov. 15, U.S. Attorney General William Barr […]
Whether Superfund Law Bars Landowner Lawsuits Tested
BY MATTHEW VADUM WASHINGTON—Federal law bars Montana landowners from suing for damages to restore a polluted copper-smelting site to pristine, pre-smelting condition, which is beyond the current goal of the federal Superfund program that governs the remediation project, the Supreme Court heard Dec. 3. The litigation is important because any decision the high court renders could give landowners […]
