In his new book Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom, Ilya Somin explains how broadening opportunities for foot voting can greatly enhance political liberty for millions around the world, often more effectively than voting at the ballot box. People can “vote with their feet” by participating in international migration, choosing where to live within a federal system, and making decisions in the private sector. These three types of foot voting are rarely considered together, but Somin explains how they have important common virtues. He also pushes back against the most common objections to expanded migration rights, including the claim that the self‐​determination of natives gives them the power to exclude migrants. By making a systematic case for a more open world, Free to Move challenges conventional wisdom on both the left and right. Professors Peter Margulies and Bryan Caplan will provide additional insights, comments, and criticisms. Please join us for a timely and lively discussion.

• Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom, by Ilya Somin, Oxford University Press, May 13, 2020.
• “The Libertarian Case for Immigration (and Against Trump),” by Peter Margulies.

Over the past several decades, America’s criminal justice system has moved dangerously close to a “point and convict” process of adjudication as trials have been all but replaced by plea bargaining. As a result, 95 percent of all criminal convictions today are obtained not through constitutionally prescribed public jury trials but through an often astonishingly coercive process of inducing defendants to forego their right to a trial and simply condemn themselves instead.

Directed and produced by Emmy‐​nominated Wynette Yao, The Vanishing Trial follows four individuals forced to make the excruciating choice of either pleading guilty to a crime they did not commit in exchange for a shorter sentence or going to trial and risking decades behind bars. Throughout the film, we hear from leading experts about how this so‐​called trial penalty has effectively abrogated one of our most hallowed constitutional rights and helped fuel mass incarceration.

This online event will feature a panel discussion followed by a question‐​and‐​answer session with the audience. Participants are encouraged to watch The Vanishing Trial before the panel discussion and will receive a link and password upon registering for the event so they can watch the 40‐​minute film online.

• The Trial Penalty: The Sixth Amendment Right to Trial on the Verge of Extinction and How to Save It
• Prisons Are Packed because Prosecutors Are Coercing Plea Deals. And, Yes, It’s Totally Legal.
• The Vanishing Trial Official Page

The COVID-19 pandemic made state and federal lawmakers acutely aware of how state‐​based regulation of clinicians contributes to the overall shortage of health care providers and obstructs their rapid response to public health emergencies. Governors tacitly acknowledged this when they issued executive actions temporarily suspending most of these regulations. Policymakers should learn from this. States should reform health care practitioner licensing laws to allow providers to move more quickly to areas where they are needed, which will allow patients better access to health care. State medical licensing laws block a large pool of experienced and motivated health care practitioners from other countries who are eager to come to America and provide health care.

• “Solve imminent physician shortage by licensing foreign doctors,” by Jeffrey A. Singer
• “Governors Send Out S.O.S. for More Doctors—Immigrant Doctors Can Heed the Call,” by Jeffrey A. Singer
• “COVID-19 and the Provisional Licensing of Qualified Medical School Graduates as Physicians,” by Paul J. Larkin Jr., The Heritage Foundation
• “Reforming American Medical Licensure,” by Kevin Dayaratna, Ph.D., Paul J. Larkin, Jr., John O’Shea, M.D.