At its core, libertarianism is a movement to recognize and respect the equal dignity of every last human. David Boaz has been and shall remain a giant of that movement. David understood the role of the libertarian is to know and to say what is right—to serve as a lamp in the darkness—because if the libertarian fails to do this, no one else will. He did not have to win every argument. He did not succumb to nostalgia or defeatism. He knew the race is long. He brought rigor to the role. He demanded rigor of others. He was funny. If you stuck around long enough, he would surprise you with his essential humility. His status as a giant surprised him. Once upon hearing his close admirers laud his achievements, he struggled against emotion to say he would be very happy if even half of it were true. David’s work will continue to define libertarianism long after this or that batch who fail to grasp its essence.

For more than 40 years, David Boaz has been Cato’s indispensable man—our jack of all trades and master of all trades. He’s made an enormous contribution to the development, not only of the Institute, but the entire libertarian agenda. As a prominent critic, an authoritative voice on a broad range of policy issues, a widely read author, and a cherished colleague, David has earned our enduring respect, admiration, and gratitude. 

David’s book, Libertarianism: A Primer, is, from my perspective, the best book on libertarianism ever written. And his other writings have been a treasure—promoting the libertarian view on vital questions of the day. David has been our intellectual godfather and superstar of the libertarian movement. Second to no one, he’s been responsible for injecting libertarian ideas into public discourse. 

Thank you, David, for your devotion, commitment, and countless accomplishments—writing, speaking, editing, tutoring and, of course, promoting the Cato Institute and our shared pro-liberty mission.

Our inestimable colleague, David Boaz, passed away on June 7, after a year-long battle with cancer. It’s impossible to express how deeply his friends, colleagues, and all libertarians will miss him. David was the longest-tenured staff member in the history of the Cato Institute, serving the organization and its mission for forty-three-and-a-half years. He was the executive vice president of the Institute for decades until 2022, when he ascended to the title of distinguished senior fellow of Cato—an honor held by only four others, three of them Nobel laureates in economics.

David made an incalculable contribution to building Cato into the respected institution and voice it is today, as well as to the “mainstreaming” of libertarianism as a legitimate political philosophy worthy of a seat at the table in all of the nation’s policy debates. Few did more than he did to earn it that seat.

David was the first person from Cato whom I ever met. I was a new contributor in 2001 when he visited my office in New York to thank me, to have a conversation, and, of course, to look for more and hopefully larger contributions in the future. He was a dedicated leader of a non-profit, after all, and that was part of his job.

My experience with David over the ensuing 23 years never deviated from the indelible impression he made on me that very first day. He was smart. He was serious. He dedicated his entire life to protecting and advancing liberty. He loved Cato. And, not least, he was a teacher.

Because I learned from David during that 2001 meeting and would never stop learning from him over the next 23 years. The visit took place about two weeks after the terrorist attack of 9/11. The building was across the street from Ground Zero, and employees were just starting to return. So David visited a near-empty office and a quiet trading room. We went up to the top-floor cafeteria to look over the devastation of what used to be the World Trade Center. David remarked, “After this, I’m very concerned about terrorism. But I’m equally concerned about what this will mean for our civil liberties.”

This was a lesson. Because at that time, I only shared David’s first concern—of terrorism. Barely a month later the PATRIOT Act was passed into law, and we would soon see the national security surveillance state mushroom in ways few might have imagined. Later came revelations of extralegal and unconstitutional spying programs. This confirmed that, in the wake of the World Trade Center tragedy, authorities’ respect for civil liberties were at a low ebb and these rights indeed had been degraded. David’s fears back in September 2001 were well-founded and prescient.

I recall this story because it epitomizes the most important thing I learned from David: all our liberties matter. In defending individual rights we can’t pick and choose, or somehow prioritize the ones that are most important to us. First, because they are interconnected. If we allow some to be threatened or diluted, others will soon be. Second, the ones we deem “less important” may be crucial to us in ways we can’t foresee. And even if not, they are undoubtedly critical to other fellow citizens.

David did much to imbue Cato with a similarly holistic view of individual liberty. He also never ceased to stress the Institute’s need to be truly independent, to be truly nonpartisan, and to adhere faithfully to libertarian principles. It’s now the duty of the Cato staff of today, and of the future, to honor David by upholding all of these values as faithfully and as capably as he did.

New York City has maintained a system of rent control since the 1940s. Property owners in the city are subject to a thicket of regulations that affect their ability to lease and limit their right to exclude—arguably the most fundamental right in the “bundle” of property rights. The cornerstone of the city’s rent control regime is the Rent Stabilization Law, or RSL.

There are approximately one million units under the purview of the RSL, comprising half of all New York City apartments. The RSL authorizes a government board to set annual maximum rent increases for these “stabilized” units. This board is required to consider tenants’ ability to pay as one factor in setting rents, alongside owners’ costs and housing affordability.

The RSL severely limits property owners’ rights to occupy, use, change the use of, and dispose of their property. The RSL requires owners to renew tenants’ leases in perpetuity with very few exceptions, and those exceptions are entirely beyond the owners’ control. Additionally, these renewal rights may be passed on to any member of a tenant’s family who has lived in the tenant’s apartment for two years.

Once a tenant occupies a stabilized unit, an owner may not retake possession of the apartment for personal use. Only upon a demonstration of “immediate and compelling necessity” may an owner reclaim just one of his or her units. And the RSL also severely restricts owners’ rights regarding the buildings themselves. Owners may not withdraw their buildings from residential use, change their units to commercial rentals or cooperatives, leave their property vacant, or demolish their property.

A group of individuals and business entities that own rent‐​stabilized apartments in New York City sued to challenge several 2019 amendments to the RSL in federal court. However, the Second Circuit upheld the law. Now the owners are petitioning the Supreme Court to take their case, and Cato has filed an amicus brief supporting that petition.

Our brief makes three key points. First, the Supreme Court’s recent opinion in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid (2021) casts serious doubt on the constitutionality of the RSL, since New York City has appropriated building owners’ right to exclude and granted that right to third parties. All of the Supreme Court’s precedents addressing the constitutionality of rent‐​control statutes long predate the per se rule for physical takings articulated in Cedar Point, which calls for those precedents to be reexamined.

Second, there is already a circuit split between the Eighth and Second Circuits over whether property owners can allege that rent control effects a per se taking under Cedar Point. We argue that the Eighth Circuit correctly followed the Supreme Court when it held that a per se takings claim could proceed against an eviction moratorium, while the Second Circuit erred here in denying plaintiffs’ claim against New York.

Finally, we argue that the Supreme Court should take this opportunity to reconsider the approach to regulatory takings that it established in Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City (1978). The Penn Central test has proven to be unworkable, and it lacks grounding in both the text and history of the Constitution. A regulatory takings doctrine rooted in the common‐​law understanding of compensable takings would be more consistent with the Constitution and would better protect property rights. For all these reasons, the Supreme Court should take the case and ultimately reverse the Second Circuit.

A proposed amendment to this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) strays a little far from the mark of supporting military readiness or countering threats our military may face on the battlefield. Instead, it mandates that social media companies describe in detail exactly how they are handling online terrorist content, costing these companies and the government time and money that would be better spent on actually countering terrorists. 

While on its face, it may claim to be stopping designated terrorist organizations and individuals, the proposal does nothing to enhance security online. The amendment mandates that social media companies tell their users about their policies regarding terrorism, how to report such content, and what the consequences might be. Most social media companies already do this, so on one hand, this is entirely unnecessary. On the other hand, the bill defines “social media platform” in a way that likely includes unintended targets like porn sites. 

The amendment also mandates that social media companies provide detailed information to the attorney general on their content moderation practices and policies regarding terrorism. This includes the number of 

• “flagged” or reported pieces of content; 

• “actioned” items and a count of how exactly they were actioned (e.g., removed, made less visible, demonetized, or otherwise suppressed); 

• actions taken against posters of content because of their violating content; 

• times actioned content was viewed by other users; 

• times actioned content was shared; 

• appeals and reversals; and 

• how these stats and platform polices are changing over time. 

And all this information must be broken down in many ways. Was it a post, comment, direct message, profile, etc.? Was it text, a still image, or a video? Was it flagged by users, civil society, artificial intelligence, or other sources? And similarly, how was it actioned? 

None of this helps the intelligence community or our military stop terrorists and defeat threats to US interests. How does Meta telling the attorney general that 648,000 people appealed the removal of their content for dangerous organizations and individuals violations help advance US security? Or that X removed 33,693 accounts for terrorism, 92 percent proactively? All it does is give the government granular information with which it can later berate social media companies for not doing enough or not doing the “right” thing. 

Many social media companies already provide some of this information in various degrees of detail, but this amendment would likely require greater detail than some companies may track. It also ignores the cooperation that already exists between the government, social media companies, and other civil society groups on issues of terrorism. 

And while big companies can more easily absorb and manage these rules, every additional unfunded mandate makes it harder and more costly for companies to operate and for new companies to enter the field. While this bill is nowhere near as costly as the mandates of the European Union’s various tech laws, adding this on top of all the other government demands is simply unnecessary and bad for innovation. 

We should also be careful whenever we approach an issue where American’s speech rights are potentially threatened. While many of the groups and individuals designated on these government lists are dangerous and terrible, that does not remove the rights of Americans to exercise their First Amendment rights to speak about these groups, however distasteful many may find it. Tech companies can and do often remove such content, but that is their choice. 

When arguments for safety and security override expression, we see situations like in Australia where recently its E‑Safety Commission tried to force X to globally take down imagery of a terrorist attack that didn’t violate X’s content policies. The Commission finally backed down after drawing worldwide attention, but this is only the most recent example of security being used to limit speech. 

The NDAA should promote peace and security that allows American businesses to prosper. Tacking new reporting mandates onto social media companies fails on all fronts. 

“Qualified immunity” is a special legal protection for government officials, but it is not absolute. Officials are still liable for damages if they violate clearly established law. Unfortunately, in a recent case involving the arrest and prosecution of a local journalist in Texas, the Fifth Circuit applied a rule that, in the words of Judge Don Willett, “is less qualified immunity than unqualified impunity.”

Priscilla Villarreal is a popular citizen-journalist in Laredo who posts frequently about local police activity. Her content is often viewed unfavorably by the Laredo Police Department, the district attorney, and other local officials. She alleges that, in retaliation for her reporting, the police chief, district attorney, and police officers searched for months for an excuse to arrest her.

Eventually these officials enforced, for the first time, a Texas law that makes it a felony to engage in a routine journalistic practice—corroborating nonpublic information with a public official. After Villarreal asked an officer to confirm the identities of a suicide victim and car accident victim, the officials sprang into action. They obtained a warrant and arrested Villarreal, who promptly petitioned a judge for a writ of habeas corpus, which was granted.

However, when Villarreal sought damages from the officials involved for the violation of her constitutional rights, the Fifth Circuit deemed that law “facially valid” and granted the officers qualified immunity, largely “because no final decision of a state court had held the law unconstitutional at the time of the arrest.”

Villarreal has petitioned the Supreme Court for review of the Fifth Circuit decision, and Cato has submitted an amicus brief in support, in a case called Villarreal v. Alaniz. Our brief argues, first, that the Fifth Circuit erred in relying so heavily on a general presumption that codified laws are constitutional. An arrest would obviously be unreasonable if there were controlling precedent holding the statute at issue unconstitutional. But controlling precedent is not inherently required for an arrest to be unreasonable. To hold otherwise goes against Supreme Court precedent, the decisions of nine other circuits, and the plain text of Section 1983—the statute under which Villarreal seeks damages.

Second, our brief argues that the Texas statute, as applied to Villarreal’s conduct, violates clearly established law. The First Amendment protects not just the right to publish news but also the newsgathering process. One cannot publish information without first obtaining it. Supreme Court decisions have held that the publication of nonpublic information is constitutionally protected, affirming the right of reporters to use “routine newspaper reporting techniques.” These cases have held that the government’s interest in protecting privacy is outweighed by the First Amendment right to publish truthful information. To the extent the Texas statute justifies the arrest of Villarreal for requesting corroboration from a government source, it cannot be squared with these precedents.

Determining “clearly established law” is an objective inquiry of reasonableness, not a blind reliance on a lack of judicial precedent. This case presents the Court with an opportunity to clarify and limit lower courts’ expansive interpretations of qualified immunity. The Court should take the case and reverse the Fifth Circuit.

The minimum wage for most fast-food workers in California went up to $20 per hour in April. Since then—no surprise—thousands of workers have lost their jobs and menu prices have risen. Coincidentally, a new book by the Cato Institute, The War on Prices, devotes two chapters to the destructive effects of minimum wage laws. Lawmakers in California and nationwide should read it if they really want to enact policies that help people.

The first, an essay by economist Jeffrey Clemens, details how firms adjust to higher mandated wage floors in ways beyond simply cutting jobs. Yes, despite claims to the contrary, the evidence still suggests overall that raising wages by government fiat can result in “substantial job losses, especially for the least-skilled, least-experienced, and least productive workers,” writes Clemens. But he confirms other ways firms often adapt to higher mandated wage rates to keep their employment costs from rising.

They can trim “fringe benefits,” such as health insurance, paid leave, and pension accounts. They also might forestall improvements or safety upgrades. Or they can sweat workers harder, micromanage their schedules, or substitute inexperienced workers for more experienced staff.

In the second essay, San Diego State University Economics Department Chairman Joseph J. Sabia explains why “minimum wages are an ineffective and inefficient anti-poverty tool.” Although poverty reduction has been a stated rationale for increasing minimum wages since FDR’s federal law in 1938, Sabia shows that less than 10 percent of individuals in poverty are minimum wage workers.

Add to this how high wage floors destroy entry-level opportunities for “less experienced, less educated, low skilled workers”—i.e. those who are more prone to poverty—and one sees why minimum wages are so ineffective and ill-targeted in reducing poverty.

California’s situation affirms some of these pernicious effects.

For instance, raising wage costs has reduced labor demand. The Wall Street Journal reported in March that some restaurants were “already laying off staff and reducing hours for workers as they try to cut costs.” Other businesses said they had “halted hiring” or were “scaling back workers’ hours.” 

Round Table Pizza and Pizza Hut, for example, announced they were laying off about 1,280 delivery drivers. This eradicates entry-level positions that can give vital experience to young and lower-skilled workers and provide protection against poverty. Driver Michael Ojeda, 29 years old, said, “Pizza Hut was my career for nearly a decade and with little to no notice it was taken away.”

At the same time, the fact that the wage control applies to all fast-food outlets (with at least 60 locations nationwide) has meant firms have passed through a lot of the elevated costs into higher prices. Even before the wage floor was introduced at $20 per hour, up from $16 per hour, McDonald’s, Chipotle, and Jack in the Box “plan to raise menu prices to compensate for the required wage increase,” reported NBC 7 San Diego in March.

According to consumer reporter John Stossel, “Starbucks prices have increased as much as 15 percent” and “a chicken burrito at Chipotle will cost up to 8 percent more.” To the extent that poor Californians eat fast food, these higher prices reduce their standard of living.

It’s all a reminder that controlling prices doesn’t change the underlying economic pressures in the labor market. Control one price—the hourly wage rate—and other margins adjust. In California’s case, raising the minimum wage means fewer work opportunities for the young and unskilled and higher prices for fast food consumers.

This is more confirmation that, as The War on Prices documents, minimum wage laws only deliver “symbolic hope to the working poor” and “risk leaving many of the nation’s most vulnerable worse off.”