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Full-Text Articles in Law
Negotiating Federalism And The Structural Constitution: Navigating The Separation Of Powers Both Vertically And Horizontally (A Response To Aziz Huq), Erin Ryan
Erin Ryan
This essay explores the emerging literature on the negotiation of structural constitutional governance, to which Professor Aziz Huq has made an important contribution in The Negotiated Structural Constitution, 114 Colum. L. Rev. 1595 (2014). In the piece, Professor Huq reviews the negotiation of constitutional entitlements and challenges the conventional wisdom about the limits of political bargaining as a means of allocating authority among the three branches of government. He argues that constitutional ambiguities in the horizontal allocation of power are sometimes best resolved through legislative-executive negotiation, just as uncertain grants of constitutional authority are already negotiated between state and federal …
Environmental Federalism's Tug Of War Within, Erin Ryan
Environmental Federalism's Tug Of War Within, Erin Ryan
Erin Ryan
Anyone paying attention has noticed that many of the most controversial issues in American governance—health care reform, marriage rights, immigration, drug law, and others—involve questions of federalism. The intensity of these disputes reflects inexorable pressure on all levels of government to meet the increasingly complicated challenges of governance in an ever more interconnected world, where the answers to jurisdictional questions are less and less obvious. Yet even as federalism dilemmas continue to erupt all from all corners, environmental law remains at the forefront of controversy, and it is likely to do so for some time. From mining to nuclear waste …
The Great American Gun Violence Lottery, Erin Ryan
The Great American Gun Violence Lottery, Erin Ryan
Erin Ryan
Reflecting on the one-year anniversary of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, this very short essay compares the experience of gun violence in America to the dystopian game of chance in Shirley Jackson’s classic American short story, “The Lottery.” With references to the role of Constitutional law, media consumption, and cultural change, it urges an available, common-sense middle ground on gun policy. The essay was first published by the American Constitution Society (Dec. 17, 2013) and later appeared in the Huffington Post (Dec. 20, 2013).
Obamacare And Federalism's Tug Of War Within, Erin Ryan
Obamacare And Federalism's Tug Of War Within, Erin Ryan
Erin Ryan
This month, the Supreme Court will decide what some believe will be among the most important cases in the history of the institution. In the “Obamacare” cases, the Court considers whether the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) exceeds the boundaries of federal authority under the various provisions of the Constitution that establish the relationship between local and national governance. Its response will determine the fate of Congress’s efforts to grapple with the nation’s health care crisis, and perhaps other legislative responses to wicked regulatory problems like climate governance or education policy. Whichever way the gavel falls, the decisions will likely impact …
How The New Federalism Failed Katrina Victims, Erin Ryan
How The New Federalism Failed Katrina Victims, Erin Ryan
Erin Ryan
This book chapter explores the Katrina response effort to illustrate the governmental decision-making that operates in the shadow of the interpretive model of federalism in use by courts and policymakers. In the American federal system, citizens are of both the United States and the individual states in which they reside, and subject to the respective laws of each. The Constitution enumerates those powers under which the federal government is authorized to make law, and the states may regulate in any area not preempted by legitimate federal law. Yet the fact that Americans are citizens of two separate sovereigns does not …
Federalism At The Cathedral: Property Rules, Liability Rules, And Inalienability Rules In Tenth Amendment Infrastructure, Erin Ryan
Erin Ryan
As climate change, war in the Middle East, and the price of oil focus American determination to move beyond fossil fuels, nuclear power has resurfaced as a possible alternative. But energy reform efforts may be stalled by an unlikely policy deadlock stemming from a structural technicality in an aging Supreme Court decision: New York v. United States, which set forth the Tenth Amendment anti-commandeering rule and ushered in the New Federalism era in 1992. This dry technicality also poses ongoing regulatory obstacles in such critical interjurisdictional contexts as stormwater management, climate regulation, and disaster response. Such is the enormous power …
Palazzolo, The Public Trust, And The Property Owner’S Reasonable Expectations: Takings And The South Carolina Marsh Island Bridge Debate, Erin Ryan
Erin Ryan
South Carolina recently promulgated new guidelines regulating the State’s consideration of requests by private marsh island owners to build bridges for vehicular access through publicly owned marsh and tidelands. Many thousands of these islands hug the South Carolina coast, but they are surrounded by tidelands subject to South Carolina’s formidable public trust doctrine, which obligates the State to manage submerged lands and waterways for the benefit of the public. This piece evaluates the relationship between the public trust doctrine and the takings subtext to the debate over the new guidelines – a relationship that has become particularly interesting in the …
Zoning, Taking, & Dealing: The Problems And Promise Of Bargaining In Land Use Planning, Erin Ryan
Zoning, Taking, & Dealing: The Problems And Promise Of Bargaining In Land Use Planning, Erin Ryan
Erin Ryan
Municipal land use bargaining may imply as many problems as it heralds promise, but it is widely acknowleged as the universal language of land use planning. Planners and scholars agree that public-private negotiation plays a central role in the vast majority of local land use decision-making. At least in part, this is a result of the peculiar attributes of the resource at issue. Land is, perhaps, the ultimate nonfungible. Each parcel of land possesses unique characteristics not only in its physical attributes, but also by virtue of its location, and its proximity to other unique parcels. Moreover, land uses implicate …