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Full-Text Articles in Law
Taxation Without Representation, Nancy Staudt
Taxation Without Representation, Nancy Staudt
Faculty Working Papers
Poll taxes are unconstitutional and yet Americans continue to link political rights to economic status. When taxpayers claim, "We pay taxes and therefore should decide how public monies are spent," they claim a privileged position in society based on their monetary contributions to the state and federal fiscal position that, by implication, nontaxpaying Americans should not have. Not only do taxpayers claim they deserve special political privileges, but the law itself continues to couple political rights to taxpaying status in ways that legal scholars have largely left unexplored. This article examines a range of political benefits tied to the payment …
Public Wrongs And Private Bills: Indemnification And Government Accountability In The Early Republic, James E. Pfander, Jonathan L. Hunt
Public Wrongs And Private Bills: Indemnification And Government Accountability In The Early Republic, James E. Pfander, Jonathan L. Hunt
Faculty Working Papers
Students of the history of administrative law in the United States regard the antebellum era as one in which strict common law rules of official liability prevailed. Yet conventional accounts of the antebellum period often omit a key institutional feature. Under the system of private legislation in place at the time, federal government officers were free to petition Congress for the passage of a private bill appropriating money to reimburse the officer for personal liability imposed on the basis of actions taken in the line of duty. Captain Little, the officer involved in one oft-cited case, Little v. Barreme, pursued …