"Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin was elected the 62nd speaker of the House on Thursday..."

"... taking the gavel that he never sought to wield from John A. Boehner, who relinquished it under fire," says the NYT.

Mr. Ryan received 236 votes, a comfortable margin that included several of the hardline conservatives who had worked to oust Mr. Boehner.

"The best thing I can assume is that [Paul Ryan' really doesn’t want the job [of Speaker of the House]."

"You put forth a list of conditions that nobody is going to throw their weight behind, and force people to tell you ‘no,’ rather than the other way around . . . that’s the only thing that makes sense to me."

Said Representative Tim Huelskamp, of Kansas, speaking to The National Review, who is "put off" by the "list of unmeetable conditions," especially getting rid of the motion to vacate the chair, which lets the members of the House vote to oust the Speaker.

"It was my understanding that Thomas Jefferson thought that was good for the House," Huelskamp says, "and Paul Ryan thinks he doesn’t have to live by that?"

So now there's a concept that whatever Thomas Jefferson thought was good we the people of the present ought to stick with? Speaking of lists, help me make a list of things Thomas Jefferson thought that we'd hate to have to live by today.

IN THE COMMENTS: Crossett offered for the list of things Thomas Jefferson thought:

That Jesus wasn't divine. The Jefferson Bible would make a few of the current Congressmen squirm.

Fully human Jesus was good enough for Thomas Jefferson and Paul Ryan thinks he doesn’t have to live by that?

"How John Boehner could stay Speaker."

His resignation is contingent on the election of a new Speaker, so he stays until somebody wins a majority vote in the House.

It's the first Monday in October, so the Supreme Court is back on the bench, and mainstream media are telling readers which upcoming cases to care about.

SCOTUSblog collects links.

I'll just read the one in The Washington Post, from Robert Barnes, which I'm choosing because the headline so perfectly sums up the reason mainstream media think you could or should care: "Supreme Court faces politically charged election-year docket."

The "politically charged" issues that might matter to an ordinary person — because they might affect how you'll vote in the presidential election (the all-important question of our time) — are: "the legality of racial preferences to encourage diversity; how far government must go to accommodate religious liberty; how far government may go to restrict a woman’s right to abortion."

I'm not an ordinary person. I'm a law professor, and I've been a law professor for a very long time. From that perspective, I'm going to home in on the language discrepancy between: "how far government must go to accommodate religious liberty" and "how far government may go to restrict a woman’s right to abortion."

The "must" is deceptive if not wrong. The cases about accommodating religious believers are not about what the Constitution requires — what government must do — but about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act ("RFRA") — which is a limitation that the federal government chose to take on and which the government may change by statute. We already know — and the current cases are not about — that the government need only treat religious believers the same as everybody else when it comes to regulating conduct. That's the constitutional law. As I've explained before on this blog, RFRA was a reaction to the Court's rejection of constitutionally required accommodation: "The RFRA bill was sponsored in the House by Congressman Chuck Schumer and in the Senate by Teddy Kennedy. (Each had a GOP co-sponsor). The Democrats controlled Congress, but the Republicans all voted for it too (with the sole exception of [arch-conservative] Jesse Helms)." President Clinton signed the bill, which he effused over: "The power of God is such that even in the legislative process miracles can happen."

The government — Democrats and Republicans — chose to accommodate religion, and the Court is simply stuck determining what their statute means. Government can repeal or amend RFRA or put language in statutes (e.g., the Affordable Care Act) saying RFRA doesn't apply, so we are not talking about how far government must go to accommodate religious liberty.

Adjust your presidential preferences accordingly.

Cecile Richards — Planned Parenthood President and the daughter of former Texas Governor Ann Richards — stood up to intense pressure from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Here are some highlights:



Featured at a WaPo article titled: "In Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richards, GOP faces formidable fan of ‘kick-butt’ politics." Excerpt:

Unlike past presidents, Richards didn’t have a background in women’s health. She was an organizer and a strategist. Her goal, she told the New York Times in 2008, was to turn Planned Parenthood into “the largest kick-butt political organization.”

Richard’s political tactics were targeted by Republicans at the hearing, who suggested that the federal funding received by the organization in effect subsidized the group’s political action committee, which raises funds primarily for Democratic candidates. “It’s the co-mingling [of the funds] that bothers us,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the committee chairman.