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Comment by cabaalis | Hacker News Reader

A new law and a new tax is right up their alley, but this is the thing that got me:

> But they add that under the regulators’ proposal the charge could be applied retroactively for five years — which they call “an alarming precedent” — and could amount to a bill of more than $220 million for California consumers.

Edit: I just wanted to point out: As someone else mentioned in another thread on this article, there's an idea of "ex post facto" laws in the US constitution[1]. So considering this "an alarming precedent" when the authors of the constitution already knew of such a thing and prohibited it is a statement about our generation.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_One_of_the_United_Stat...

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The applicability of ex post facto constitutionality to taxes aside, the effective radius of the US Constitution appears to sometimes fall just short of the California legislature[1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG5xWcV412E

The ex post facto provision is normally interpreted to apply only to criminal laws, not to civil penalties or taxes.

Which says some depressing things about our legal system, in my opinion.

> Which says some depressing things about our legal system, in my opinion

Not really. The laws still need to be passed. I believe Deepwater Horizon was largely resolved with ex post facto legislation.

> The ex post facto provision is normally interpreted to apply only to criminal laws, not to civil penalties or taxes.

FWIW, the precedent distinguishing prohibited ex post facto laws from permitted retrospective laws was established by the Supreme Court when ink on the Constitution was practically still wet, in Calder v. Bull (1798).

It has also been rolled back. I do not remember the specific case, but it dealt with the SOR requirements being extended on people long after they has been convicted and sentenced due to a change in SOR laws. The courts ruled that it did not violate ex post facto. If that doesn't violate it, then taxes definitely wouldn't either.

I think there is an applicable quote about defending scoundrels that would apply here.

You're probably thinking of Smith v. Doe from 2003.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_v._Doe

An interesting side note is that many state courts have continued to strike down similar provisions, and some Federal courts have apparently also concluded that certain rules about sex offenders are "punitive" and so constitutionally invalid as outside of the Smith v. Doe rule. So this example is hard to summarize in a simple way, not least because many other courts have been trying to narrow this rule.

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