The Columnist Manifesto

I'm glad to have the company of Angry Pregnant Lawyer in my deep disappointment over the Redskins' playoff loss.

I may have disappointed APL further by throwing cold water on her celebration of the new Maryland law

that required companies with more than 10,000 employees (in other words, Wal-Mart) to spend 8 percent of the company's payroll on health care benefits or give that money over to the state's health care program for the poor.

What a great law! Unfortunately, it strikes me that there's a good chance it will be ruled null and void in light of ERISA (the Employment Retirement Income Security Act of 1974), the increasingly outdated employee-benefits law whose main effect may be to prevent states like Maryland from trying innovative solutions to eroding health care and pension protections.

How many of you have stopped reading? "ERISA preemption" is one of those subjects that makes lawyers' and law students' eyes glaze over. If there were a top ten list (what is that game show where contestants have to guess the top ten things based on an audience poll -- is it Family Feud??) for eye-glazing legal subjects the, top four would be:

1. Bankruptcy
2. Federal Income Taxation
3. ERISA
4. Trusts and Estates