Jane Bambauer and Eugene Volokh analyze the US Supreme Court’s new Chiles v. Salazar decision, which struck down (by an 8-1 vote) a law banning sexual orientation/gender identity conversion therapy, including therapy that consists entirely of speech.
The Court held that the First Amendment protects professional-client speech, including counselors’ use of conversion therapy with minor patients when that therapy consists solely of speech. In the process, the 8-justice majority rejected the state’s argument that such speech can be regulated as “speech integrally related to unlawful conduct” – and in the process, cited Volokh’s discussion of the speech integral to unlawful conduct exception in a friend-of-the-court brief that he filed.
Articles
[Subscription Required] The history of wealth taxes is that they raise much less revenue than hoped as targeted taxpayers find ways to avoid them. That looks to be the case with California’s wealth tax ballot measure (Proposition 40), which a new paper by the Hoover Institution’s Joshua Rauh and Benjamin Jaros estimates will result in a net revenue loss of $38.9 billion.
October 21, 2026
Articles
Hoover Institution fellow Robert E. Hall's 2026 Nobel win offers an opportunity to recall another of his major contributions with Hoover Institution fellow Alvin Rabushka: the idea of a single flat tax. They proposed a flat tax that would simplify tax collection and increase investment in physical and human capital, without abandoning the idea of progressive taxes.
October 22, 2026
Articles
Demonizing Donald Trump is a recurring theme in the closing arguments for California ballot initiatives. That’s even true of one measure making permanent a “temporary” state tax increase that has nothing to do with the president—but says plenty about the Golden State’s fiscal house of cards.
October 22, 2026
