Legislation in the News Contest -- Week Eight

We have three winning stories this week. The first two relate to President Obama's decision to authorize U.S. military force against the Gaddafi regime in Libya. This blog post submitted by Aaron Zaluzec contains an excellent discussion of whether the President's action exceeded his war powers under the Constitution and whether it violated the War Powers Act of 1973. And this Huffington Post article submitted by Kathryn Wheeler talks about several ways in which Congress could respond to the action.

The final winner this week is a Los Angeles Times article sent in by Christina Sepulveda which describes an important Supreme Court decision on statutory interpretation -- Kasten v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp. (March 22, 2001). The Court ruled that the anti-retaliation provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1937, which protects workers who "file any complaint" about violations of the Act, applies to oral as well as to written complaints. Justice Breyer wrote an opinion for the six-Justice majority, while Justice Scalia wrote a dissent that was joined by Justice Thomas. Justice Kagan was recused. The opinions in the case can be found here.

Congratulations to Aaron, Kathryn, and Christina.