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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Lawlessness Of Sackett V. Epa, William W. Buzbee
The Lawlessness Of Sackett V. Epa, William W. Buzbee
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
When the Supreme Court speaks on a disputed statutory interpretation question, its words and edicts undoubtedly are the final judicial word, binding lower courts and the executive branch. Its majority opinions are the law. But the Court’s opinions can nonetheless be assessed for how well they hew to fundamental elements of respect for the rule of law. In particular, law-respecting versus law-neglecting or lawless judicial work by the Court can be assessed in the statutory interpretation, regulatory, and separation of power realms against the following key criteria, which in turn are based on some basic rule of law tenets: analysis …
Fears, Faith, And Facts In Environmental Law, William W. Buzbee
Fears, Faith, And Facts In Environmental Law, William W. Buzbee
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Environmental law has long been shaped by both the particular nature of environmental harms and by the actors and institutions that cause such harms or can address them. This nation’s environmental statutes remain far from perfect, and a comprehensive law tailored to the challenges of climate change is still elusive. Nonetheless, America’s environmental laws provide lofty, express protective purposes and findings about reasons for their enactment. They also clearly state health and environmental goals, provide tailored criteria for action, and utilize procedures and diverse regulatory tools that reflect nuanced choices.
But the news is far from good. Despite the ambitious …
Jazz Improvisation And The Law: Constrained Choice, Sequence, And Strategic Movement Within Rules, William W. Buzbee
Jazz Improvisation And The Law: Constrained Choice, Sequence, And Strategic Movement Within Rules, William W. Buzbee
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
This Article argues that a richer understanding of the nature of law is possible through comparative, analogical examination of legal work and the art of jazz improvisation. This exploration illuminates a middle ground between rule of law aspirations emphasizing stability and determinate meanings and contrasting claims that the untenable alternative is pervasive discretionary or politicized law. In both the law and jazz improvisation settings, the work involves constraining rules, others’ unpredictable actions, and strategic choosing with attention to where a collective creation is going. One expects change and creativity in improvisation, but the many analogous characteristics of law illuminate why …
The Shallow State: The Federal Communications Commission And The New Deal, Daniel R. Ernst
The Shallow State: The Federal Communications Commission And The New Deal, Daniel R. Ernst
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
American lawyers and law professors commonly turn to the New Deal for insights into the law and politics of today’s administrative state. Usually, they have looked to agencies created in the 1930s that became the foundation of the postwar political order. Some have celebrated these agencies; others have deplored them as the core of an elitist, antidemocratic Deep State. This article takes a different tack by studying the Federal Communications Commission, an agency created before the New Deal. For most of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first two presidential terms, the FCC languished within the “Shallow State,” bossed about by patronage-seeking politicians, …
The Deregulatory State, Lawrence O. Gostin
The Deregulatory State, Lawrence O. Gostin
O'Neill Institute Papers
Public health can be achieved only through collective action, not through individual endeavor. Collective goods are essential conditions for health, but can be secured only through a well-regulated society. Yet, successive governments have eroded health and safety protections, with serious consequences. Think about the death of miners, lead in children’s toys, industrial solvents in toothpaste, salmonella in peanut butter, e-coli in spinach, and unsafe or ineffective pharmaceuticals such as COX-2 inhibitors or non-statin cholesterol medications.
Conservatives have waged a campaign against the administrative state that has created and reinforced deep-seated concerns about over-bearing government, particularly at the national level. The …