Democracy and Power 105: The Politician Seeks Power The desire to rule is the mother of heresies. —St. John Chrysostom

On February 12, 2014 FreedomWorks and Rand Paul, under the legal counsel of Ken Cuccinelli, filed suit against Barack Obama & The NSA, claiming injury due to the warrantless collection of metadata of the cellphone records of Rand Paul and FreedomWorks members and employees. The case, 14-CV-262, was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

Update: On July 16, the Senate failed to get the necessary two-thirds majority to bring Murray's bill to a vote, rendering the legislation dead, at least for now.

When the Clean Water Act was first conceived, the EPA could only restrict entrepreneurs when they attempted to pollute bodies of water that were used by their fellow businesses, or what the EPA calls ‘navigable waters.’ However, its original mission is far too modest for modern-day bureaucrats.

The New York Court of Appeals ruled the New York City ban on super-sized soft drinks unconstitutional late last week, dealing a small but significant blow to the nanny state. According to the ruling, the city’s Board of Health “exceeded the scope of its regulatory authority” by engaging in law-making and infringing upon the legislative jurisdiction of the City Council of New York.

For the past year, the Supreme Court has been mulling the case of Harris v. Quinn, in which the state of Illinois was asserting its authority to collect union dues from non-union members working as home health care workers under a Medicare program. The state’s argument was that, since public sector labor unions negotiate contracts that benefit non-union members in terms of higher wages and better working conditions, it would be acceptable to expect these workers to pay union dues in return.

Today’s much anticipated Supreme Court decision on the case of Burwell, Secretary of Health and Human Services v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. was expected to have broad implications for the application of the Affordable Care Act vis a vis the Constitution. Can the government dictate what kinds of insurance employers are required to provide, or should individuals be free to enter into any contracts they choose?

Where does your representative stand on NSA spying?