Law Commons^™

Horizontal Federalism & The Big State "Problem", Elizabeth Beske

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Horizontal Federalism is poorly understood and increasingly important. When a big state regulates products for sale in its own markets, producers nationwide will predictably choose to modify their products to take advantage of the state’s large consumer base. Is this problematic? More importantly, does it offend the Constitution? A sharply divided Supreme Court, offering no single majority rationale, recently rejected dormant Commerce Clause challenges to California’s Proposition 12, which sets requirements for raw pork sold in California. Although the Court left California’s regulation intact, at least five Justices registered discomfort, with one dissenter expressly inviting argument under other clauses that …

Guns N' Ganja: How Federalism Criminalizes The Lawful Use Of Marijuana, Ira P. Robbins

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Federalism is a vital tenet of our Republic. Although federal law is the supreme law of the land, our Constitution recognizes the integral role that state law plays in the national scheme. Like any pharmaceutical drug that withstands rounds of clinical testing, state law functions as a laboratory in which Congress can evaluate and potentially adopt novel policies on a nation-wide basis. Most of the time, federal and state law exist harmoniously, complementing one another; other times, however, the two systems clash, striking a dissonant chord.

In the United States, state marijuana laws are currently on a crash course with …

Inferiority Complex: Should State Courts Follow Lower Federal Court Precedent On The Meaning Of Federal Law?, Amanda Frost

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The conventional wisdom is that state courts need not follow lower federal court precedent when interpreting federal law. Upon closer inspection, however, the question of how state courts should treat lower federal court precedent is not so clear. Although most state courts now take the conventional approach, a few contend that they are obligated to follow the lower federal courts, and two federal courts of appeals have declared that their decisions are binding on state courts. The Constitution’s text and structure send mixed messages about the relationship between state and lower federal courts, and the Supreme Court has never squarely …

Federalism, State Prison Reform, And Evolving Standards Of Human Decency: On Guessing, Stressing, And Redressing Constitutional Rights, Ira P. Robbins

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Punitive Conditions Of Prison Confinement: An Analysis Of Pugh V. Locke And Federal Court Supervision Of State Penal Administration Under The Eighth Amendment, Ira P. Robbins, Michael B. Buser

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.