#TaxProf, fmr DC IRS chief counsel atty, fmr BakerBotts atty; #nonprofits, IRS, public policy, #darkmoney, Art Law; #LawProf @Pittlaw @Pitttaxreview he/him
Pittsburgh, PA
Joined December 2013
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Philip Hackney retweeted
This is simply bonkers. The White House is in active discussions with DOJ about settling Trump's lawsuit against the IRS in his favor, *precisely because* a judge might soon throw it out. WH apparently wants DOJ to agree to "settle" the lawsuit *before* that happens. Insanity.
Philip Hackney retweeted
HOLY CRAP: Never seen anything like this: "DOJ has proven unworthy of this trust at every point in this case. It has misrepresented and withheld information to both this court [and Judge O'Connor in Texas... Its representatives have, under oath, misrepresented salient facts."
Philip Hackney retweeted
#BREAKING: MY Nicolle: “I’ve not heard you this angry in a long time.”
Marc Elias: “…have we learned nothing?…has the broader legal community not leaned anything?…have people not learned that when you do this to Black voters it turns out bad for democracy for everybody? So yeah, I’m angry. I’m angry because of the appalling SILENCE that is going on right now around this case and the aftermath.”😳
Philip Hackney retweeted
What Clyburn is saying here is actually very important. The court found a way to rule that a 75% white district (higher than SC’s total non Hispanic white pop.) is legal if you call it a political gerrymander, but a 40 or 45% Black district is an illegal racial gerrymander.
Philip Hackney retweeted
The redistricting chaos we’re seeing in AL, FL, LA, TN, and VA is something #SCOTUS knowingly enabled, and it belies both the putative purpose of the “Purcell principle” and the Court’s repeated insistence that it’s staying out of the political process:
stevevladeck.com/p/227-were-…
Philip Hackney retweeted
🇺🇸BREAKING: Someone placed a $920 million crude oil short at 3:40 AM.
70 minutes later Axios reported the US and Iran were close to a deal.
Oil dropped 12%.
The trade made $125 million in profit.
Minutes after that Iran launched the “Persian Gulf Strait Authority” and oil surged 8%.
$760 million placed before Trump’s last announcement.
$920 million placed before this one.
Every major announcement in this war has been front-run by someone who knew it was coming.
What kind of war is this?
This is more like a trading desk with an army.
Never stop connecting the dots.
Philip Hackney retweeted
Last year half of CDC’s Vessel Sanitation Program staff were fired. This is the group responsible for investigating cruise ship outbreaks. The cuts were made despite the fact that US taxpayers don’t pay for this team. The cruise ship industry does.
Philip Hackney retweeted
The same justice as who said no, we can’t change what was then an unconstitutional district in Alabama that favored white voters because it was too close to the election. The Purcell principle applied when it worked for their side. But not this time. Partisan hacks.
Justice Jackson argues that sticking to the 32-day default rule is necessary to avoid the appearance of partiality. Alito correctly identifies this as a tactic to run out the clock on the 2026 election cycle. She claims the Court’s decision creates chaos because the primary process had already started… ballots were already in the mail.
This hypersensitivity to "chaos" masks a desire to maintain a gerrymandered status quo that her ideological allies find useful. She accuses the majority of letting principles give way to power. It’s a groundless and irresponsible charge meant to shame the Court for actually enforcing the Constitution.
She wants the Court to stay in the business of racial sorting because a world where race and politics are disentangled threatens the leftist grip on redistricting as a tool for power.
Her position is an explicit rejection of the principle that the Constitution is color-blind.
Philip Hackney retweeted
Having used the shadow docket to halt maps favorable to minority voters because elections were approaching, it would be indefensible for the Court to refuse to apply the same standard now—when voting has begun in Louisiana and is days away in Alabama. democracydocket.com/opinion/…
Philip Hackney retweeted
Drawing a map that gives New Orleans no representation via executive order. A disgraceful assault on democracy and hard earned civil rights in the south:.
Louisiana lawmakers will begin the work of adopting a new congressional map on Friday. The Chair (R) of the committee overseeing redistricting predicted dropping to a single majority Black district that would be based in Baton Rouge #lalege #lagov
lailluminator.com/2026/05/04…
Philip Hackney retweeted
No better time for the people to restrain both the supermajority and minority wing of our superlegislature
Philip Hackney retweeted
1/2 Louisiana just interrupted an election where early voting had started. In Alabama, we were saddled with an unconstitutional map for an extra two years after a 2/22 ruling by SCOTUS deemed it too close to the election to do anything about it. Purcell is in the eye of the beholder, not much of a principle.
NEW: In a brief filed with SCOTUS, civil rights groups contend that under the court’s own history of applying “the Purcell principle,” it is too late into the election season to suspend it. democracydocket.com/news-ale…
Philip Hackney retweeted
Two different technical, procedural moves from #SCOTUS yesterday have one thing in common: The Court is behaving differently in otherwise similar cases based upon the ideological/partisan valence of the dispute.
Results aside, that's not a healthy trend:
stevevladeck.com/p/226-two-m…
Philip Hackney retweeted
The Court slow walked taking it up. Slow walked deciding it. Avoided giving express direction to the lower courts. And created an entire series of atextual loopholes through which a president could abuse their power with impunity.
There’s something amiss with this “analysis.”
Philip Hackney retweeted
This is incorrect. SCOTUS held that Section 5 of the VRA applies to redistricting back in 1969.
It's true that *Section 2* claims against district maps didn't start until the 1980s -- after Congress amended the provision in 1982 (an amendment now undone by Callais).
Philip Hackney retweeted
Justice Kagan:
"I dissent. The Voting Rights Act is—or, now more accurately, was—'one of the most consequential, efficacious, and amply justified exercises of federal legislative power in our Nation's history.' It was born of the literal blood of Union soldiers and civil rights marchers. It ushered in awe-inspiring change, bringing this Nation closer to fulfilling the ideals of democracy and racial equality. And it has been repeatedly, and overwhelmingly, reauthorized by the people's representatives in Congress. Only they have the right to say it is no longer needed—not the Members of this Court. I dissent, then, from this latest chapter in the majority's now-completed demolition of the Voting Rights Act."
Philip Hackney retweeted
Roy Moore "dated" 14-year-old girls as a 30 something lawyer and was kicked out of a mall for being creepy. (Trump still endorsed him).
An ad ran on those facts, he sued, and an Alabama jury awarded him an 8 million dollar verdict.
Today, the 11th Circuit vacated it. /1
Philip Hackney retweeted
Let’s be entirely clear about what this does. It blocks a man who was duly elected from taking office. It is wrong. House votes to merge New Orleans court clerks offices. Bill moves to governor’s desk nola.com/news/louisina-house…
Philip Hackney retweeted
A vascular surgeon friend spent $50,000+ and over 2 years navigating the U.S. immigration system from petitions to waivers to medical exams.
He did everything right. Lived legally in the country for 9 years now. Completed 8 years of US training.
His green card petition was approved based on EB1A for extraordinary ability. Based on that, he signed a job in an underserved rural area that had been searching for his specialty for years, accepted a $100,000 signing bonus, bought a home, and enrolled his children in school.
Then everything stopped because USCIS stopped processing application based on where he was born.
No final step. No physical green card. Not even the work permit or travel document normally issued while you wait for your green card. Even his H-1B extension that hospital filled has been sitting for 6 months despite premium processing.
In 1 week, he may lose his job, his health insurance, and his entire financial stability.
He told me:
“I don’t want this anymore.”
He is now thinking of leaving the country.
But then the question becomes:
Who pays the mortgage?
Who covers the loans he took?
Who repays the signing bonus he accepted in good faith?
When the government takes your money, approves your petition, invites you to build your life around it, and then freezes at the last step…
That is not policy.
That is not vetting.
That is state-inflicted financial ruin, and punishment for trusting the legal process.
#UscisPause #LiftTheHold
"We're always looking to charge more." USCIS head @USCISJoe Edlow, who is leading the fraud of $1 billion in fees from Americans and immigrants, says he "always" wants to charge more, even as he delivers worse and worse service.
Philip Hackney retweeted
This is a lie. Measles has a well established mortality and morbidity rate among unvaccinated children. Once measles enters the bloodstream and causes viremia there’s not much to be done other than supportive measures. It’s the antivaccine activists killing America’s children
🚨 JUST IN: HHS Sec. RFK Jr. is GOING OFF on hospitals who MISTREAT children who get measles if they are unvaccinated
"There's no child who should die in this country of measles...[I'm] making sure that for people who do get measles, that they're treated DECENTLY, they're treated with COMPASSION, and they're given the kind of treatments that exist that are given by other countries — but are refused in this country because of the bias toward a vaccination-only policy!"
"We need to treat people who get sick, no MATTER WHAT, they ALL should be treated with compassion."
Exactly. No more vaccine discrimination!