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Articles 1 - 30 of 249
Full-Text Articles in Law
Critical Race Theory Bans And The Changing Canon: Cultural Appropriation In Narrative, Susan Ayres
Critical Race Theory Bans And The Changing Canon: Cultural Appropriation In Narrative, Susan Ayres
Faculty Scholarship
Thirty-five states have enacted critical race theory bans at the level of elementary and secondary public education, and seven states have extended these to the university level. One way to resist these attempts to repress a healthy democracy by whitewashing history is through a pedagogy of antiracism, including literary works. The question of what that would look like involves questions of cultural appropriation, which occurs when one takes from another culture, such as a writer creating a narrative about a character outside of the writer’s cultural identity. This Article considers the story of Ota Benga, brought from the Congo to …
The Perennial Eclipse: Race, Immigration, And How Latinx Count In American Politics, Rachel F. Moran
The Perennial Eclipse: Race, Immigration, And How Latinx Count In American Politics, Rachel F. Moran
Faculty Scholarship
In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Evenwel v. Abbott, a case challenging the use of total population in state legislative apportionment as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. The plaintiffs sued Texas, alleging that the State impermissibly diluted their voting power because they lived in areas with a high proportion of voting-age citizens. When total population was used to draw district lines, the plaintiffs had to compete with more voters to get their desired electoral outcomes than was true for voters in districts with low proportions of voting-age citizens. The Court rejected the argument, finding that states enjoy …
Confusion, Chaos, And Conflict In U.S. Law And Health Care After Dobbs, Nicole Huberfeld
Confusion, Chaos, And Conflict In U.S. Law And Health Care After Dobbs, Nicole Huberfeld
Faculty Scholarship
The U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision caused a proliferation of contradictory state laws and judicial decisions that are producing confusion for health care providers, which in turn limits access to care for all patients of reproductive age. This paper documents the rapidly changing legal landscape to investigate and contextualize the significance of these inter‑state conflicts and illustrate how inequities deepen when health care is left in the hands of state governments without national law to provide guardrails. Drawing on interdisciplinary scholarship, including legal, medical, and public health research, this essay considers how traditional federalism theory, which encourages sub‑government variation, does …
The Short And Troubled History Of The Printed State Administrative Codes And Why They Should Be Preserved, Kurt X. Metzmeier
The Short And Troubled History Of The Printed State Administrative Codes And Why They Should Be Preserved, Kurt X. Metzmeier
Faculty Scholarship
This article makes a case for the historical importance of early state administrative codes and urges that law libraries preserve them for future researchers of state administrative law and policy.
Dying In Isolation: Public Health Implications Of Transportation And Burial Of Human Remains During A Pandemic A Fifty State Survey, Christopher Ogolla
Dying In Isolation: Public Health Implications Of Transportation And Burial Of Human Remains During A Pandemic A Fifty State Survey, Christopher Ogolla
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Interposition: A State-Based Constitutional Tool That Might Help Preserve American Democracy, Christian G. Fritz
Interposition: A State-Based Constitutional Tool That Might Help Preserve American Democracy, Christian G. Fritz
Faculty Scholarship
Interposition was not a claim that state sovereignty could or should displace national authority, but a claim that American federalism needed to preserve some balance between state and national authority.
http://commonplace.online/article/interposition/
Beneath The Property Taxes Financing Education, Timothy M. Mulvaney
Beneath The Property Taxes Financing Education, Timothy M. Mulvaney
Faculty Scholarship
Many states turn in sizable part to local property taxes to finance public education. Political and academic discourse on the extent to which these taxes should serve in this role largely centers on second-order issues, such as the vices and virtues of local control, the availability of mechanisms to redistribute property tax revenues across school districts, and the overall stability of those revenues. This Essay contends that such discourse would benefit from directing greater attention to the justice of the government’s threshold choices about property law and policy that impact the property values against which property taxes are levied.
The …
Personhood, Property, And Public Education: The Case Of Plyler V. Doe, Rachel F. Moran
Personhood, Property, And Public Education: The Case Of Plyler V. Doe, Rachel F. Moran
Faculty Scholarship
Property law is having a moment, one that is getting education scholars’ attention. Progressive scholars are retooling the concepts of ownership and entitlement to incorporate norms of equality and inclusion. Some argue that property law can even secure access to public education despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s longstanding refusal to recog- nize a right to basic schooling. Others worry that property doctrine is inherently exclusionary. In their view, property-based concepts like resi- dency have produced opportunity hoarding in schools that serve affluent, predominantly white neighborhoods. Many advocates therefore believe that equity will be achieved only by moving beyond property-based claims, …
Monitoring American Federalism: The Overlooked Tool Of Sounding The Alarm Interposition, Christian G. Fritz
Monitoring American Federalism: The Overlooked Tool Of Sounding The Alarm Interposition, Christian G. Fritz
Faculty Scholarship
One key feature of the U.S. Constitution – the concept of federalism – was unclear when it was introduced, and that lack of clarity threatened the Constitution’s ratification by those who feared the new government would undermine state sovereignty. Proponents of the new governmental framework were questioned about the underlying theory of the Constitution as well as how it would operate in practice, and their explanations produced intense and extended debate over how to monitor federalism.
Grid Governance In The Energy-Trilemma Era: Remedying The Democracy Deficit, Daniel E. Walters, Andrew N. Kleit
Grid Governance In The Energy-Trilemma Era: Remedying The Democracy Deficit, Daniel E. Walters, Andrew N. Kleit
Faculty Scholarship
Transforming the electric power grid is central to any viable scenario for addressing global climate change, but the process and politics of this transformation are complex. The desire to transform the grid creates an “energy trilemma” involving often conflicting desires for reliability, cost, and decarbonization; and, at least in the short run, it is difficult to avoid making tradeoffs between these different goals. It is somewhat shocking, then, that many crucial decisions about electric power service in the United States are made not by consumers or their utilities, nor by state public utilities commissions or federal regulators. Instead, for much …
If We Build It, Will They Legislate? Empirically Testing The Potential Of The Nondelegation Doctrine To Curb Congressional "Abdication", Daniel E. Walters, Elliott Ash
If We Build It, Will They Legislate? Empirically Testing The Potential Of The Nondelegation Doctrine To Curb Congressional "Abdication", Daniel E. Walters, Elliott Ash
Faculty Scholarship
A widely held view for why the Supreme Court would be right to revive the nondelegation doctrine is that Congress has perverse incentives to abdicate its legislative role and evade accountability through the use of delegations, either expressly delineated or implied through statutory imprecision, and that enforcement of the nondelegation doctrine would correct for those incentives. We call this the Field of Dreams Theory—if we build the nondelegation doctrine, Congress will legislate. Unlike originalist arguments for the revival of the nondelegation doctrine, this theory has widespread appeal and is instrumental to the Court’s project of gaining popular acceptance of a …
A Prophylactic Approach To Compact Constitutionality, Katherine Mims Crocker
A Prophylactic Approach To Compact Constitutionality, Katherine Mims Crocker
Faculty Scholarship
From COVID-19 to climate change, immigration to health insurance, firearms control to electoral reform: state politicians have sought to address all these hot-button issues by joining forces with other states. The U.S. Constitution, however, forbids states to “enter into any Agreement or Compact” with each other “without the Consent of Congress,” a requirement that proponents of much interstate action, especially around controversial topics, would hope to circumvent.
The Supreme Court lets them do just that. By interpreting “any Agreement or Compact” so narrowly that it is difficult to see what besides otherwise unlawful coordination qualifies, the Court has essentially read …
Establishing A Conditional Driver Permit In Texas, Luz E. Herrera, Taylor Garner, Crystal Hernandez, Lisa Mares
Establishing A Conditional Driver Permit In Texas, Luz E. Herrera, Taylor Garner, Crystal Hernandez, Lisa Mares
Faculty Scholarship
The article presents supporting data to expand access to state-issued driver permits for Texans who cannot provide the required documents to obtain a driver’s license. Part I examines the unlicensed and uninsured population in Texas that these efforts attempt to address. Part II discusses state jurisdiction to issue driver licenses and permits. It discusses existing Texas statutes that authorize the issuance of driver’s licenses and permits. The section also offers examples of other state statutes that have expanded their right to regulate driving privileges beyond Real ID Act requirements. Part III presents a partial economic analysis illustrating potential economic benefits …
State Constitutional Rights And Democratic Proportionality, Jessica Bulman-Pozen, Miriam Seifter
State Constitutional Rights And Democratic Proportionality, Jessica Bulman-Pozen, Miriam Seifter
Faculty Scholarship
State constitutional law is in the spotlight. As federal courts retrench on abortion, democracy, and more, state constitutions are defining rights across the nation. Despite intermittent calls for greater attention to state constitutional theory, neither scholars nor courts have provided a comprehensive account of state constitutional rights or a coherent framework for their adjudication. Instead, many state courts import federal interpretive practices that bear little relationship to state constitutions or institutions.
This Article seeks to begin a new conversation about state constitutional adjudication. It first shows how in myriad defining ways state constitutions differ from the U.S. Constitution: They protect …
Lawyerless Law Development, Colleen F. Shanahan, Jessica K. Steinberg, Alyx Mark, Anna E. Carpenter
Lawyerless Law Development, Colleen F. Shanahan, Jessica K. Steinberg, Alyx Mark, Anna E. Carpenter
Faculty Scholarship
State civil courts are the object of growing scholarly attention converging from two directions: rapidly expanding research regarding lawyerless state civil trial courts, and an increasing volume of voices calling for state supreme courts to serve as a balm for American democracy’s wounds. The challenges of lawyerless trial courts and the potential of state supreme courts converge when considering how law develops in state civil courts. We and others have asserted that law development is not happening in lawyerless courts, at least not in the way that American legal scholars conventionally understand law development. This Essay explores the core theoretical …
States Of Emergency: Covid-19 And Separation Of Powers In The States, Richard Briffault
States Of Emergency: Covid-19 And Separation Of Powers In The States, Richard Briffault
Faculty Scholarship
No event in recent years has shone a brighter spotlight on state separation of powers than the COVID-19 pandemic. Over a more than two-year period, governors exercised unprecedented authority through suspending laws and regulations, limiting business activities and gatherings, restricting individual movement, and imposing public health requirements. Many state legislatures endorsed these measures or were content to let governors take the lead, but in some states the legislature pushed back, particularly — albeit not only—where the governor and legislative majorities were of different political parties. Some of these conflicts wound up in state supreme courts.
This Essay examines the states’ …
Judicial Resistance To New York's 2020 Criminal Legal Reforms, Angelo Petrigh
Judicial Resistance To New York's 2020 Criminal Legal Reforms, Angelo Petrigh
Faculty Scholarship
Scholars have examined judiciaries as organizations with their own culture and considered how this organizational culture can form a significant impediment to the implementation of reforms.22 There is a strong connection between judicial culture and a reform’s ability to accomplish its stated goals. Some go so far as to state that most reforms will fail because of the difficulty in altering judicial culture.23 These studies sometimes focus on legislators misunderstanding the actual effects of legislation when it was drafted, or on the failure to account for particularities in a law’s implementation by undervaluing the fragmentation, adversarial nature, and …
Extreme Risk Protection Orders In The Post-Bruen Age: Weighing Evidence, Scholarship, And Rights For A Promising Gun Violence Prevention Tool, Andrew Willinger, Shannon Frattaroli
Extreme Risk Protection Orders In The Post-Bruen Age: Weighing Evidence, Scholarship, And Rights For A Promising Gun Violence Prevention Tool, Andrew Willinger, Shannon Frattaroli
Faculty Scholarship
Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPOs) are civil court orders that temporarily prohibit gun purchase and possession by people who are behaving dangerously and at risk of committing imminent violence. As of September 2023, ERPOs are available in 21 states and the District of Columbia. This Article presents an overview of ERPO laws, the rationale behind their development, and a review and analysis that considers emerging constitutional challenges to these laws (under both the Second Amendment and due process protections) in the post-Bruen era. This Article notes that the presence of multiple constitutional challenges in many ERPO-related cases has confused judicial …
The Right To Amend State Constitutions, Jessica Bulman-Pozen, Miriam Seifter
The Right To Amend State Constitutions, Jessica Bulman-Pozen, Miriam Seifter
Faculty Scholarship
This Essay explores the people's right to amend state constitutions and threats to that right today. It explains how democratic proportionality review can help courts distinguish unconstitutional infringement of the right from legitimate regulation. More broadly, the Essay considers the distinctive state constitutional architecture that popular amendment illuminates.
Inconceivable Families, Malinda L. Seymore
Inconceivable Families, Malinda L. Seymore
Faculty Scholarship
Basic biology tells us that each child has no more than two biological parents, one who supplies the egg and one who supplies the sperm. Adoption law in this country has generally followed biology, insisting only two parents be legally recognized for each child. Thus, every adoption begins with loss. Before a child can be adopted, that child must first be cut off from their family of birth, rendering the equation of adoption one of subtraction, not addition. This Article examines the biological model of adoption that insists on mimicking the nuclear family—erasing one set of parents and replacing them …
No-One Receives Psychiatric Treatment In A Squad Car, Judy A. Clausen, Joanmarie Davoli
No-One Receives Psychiatric Treatment In A Squad Car, Judy A. Clausen, Joanmarie Davoli
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Civil Procedure Update 2022 (Handout And Slide Deck), Verónica C. Gonzales-Zamora, Julio C. Romero
Civil Procedure Update 2022 (Handout And Slide Deck), Verónica C. Gonzales-Zamora, Julio C. Romero
Faculty Scholarship
This presentation aims to 1) review recent amendments to the state and federal rules of civil procedure; 2) help you understand the impact of recent federal and state published opinions interpreting and applying the rules of civil procedure; and 3) assess your understanding of the updates.
Sheriffs, State Troopers, And The Spillover Effects Of Immigration Policing, Huyen Pham, Pham Hoang Van
Sheriffs, State Troopers, And The Spillover Effects Of Immigration Policing, Huyen Pham, Pham Hoang Van
Faculty Scholarship
As the Biden Administration decides whether to continue the 287(g) program (the controversial program deputizing local law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration laws), our research shows that the program has broader negative effects on policing behavior than previously identified. To date, debate about the 287(g) program has focused exclusively on the policing behavior of law enforcement agencies like sheriff’s offices that sign the agreements, and on concerns that these signatory local enforcement agencies (“LEAs”) engage in racial profiling. Our research shows that the agreements also negatively affect the behavior of nearby, nonsignatory law enforcement agencies. Using 18 million traffic …
Evaluating Legal Needs, Luz E. Herrera, Amber Baylor, Nandita Chaudhuri, Felipe Hinojosa
Evaluating Legal Needs, Luz E. Herrera, Amber Baylor, Nandita Chaudhuri, Felipe Hinojosa
Faculty Scholarship
This article is the first to explore legal needs in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas––a region that is predominantly Latinx and has both rural and urban characteristics. There are few legal needs assessments of majority Latinx communities, and none that examine needs in areas that are also U.S. border communities. Access to justice studies often overlook this area of the U.S. and this segment of the population despite their unique qualities. Latinos are projected to constitute the largest ethnic group in the country by 2060, making it imperative that we study access to justice-related assets, needs, opportunities, and barriers …
Latinxs Reshaping Law & Policy In The U.S. South, Luz E. Herrera, Pilar M. Hernández-Escontrías
Latinxs Reshaping Law & Policy In The U.S. South, Luz E. Herrera, Pilar M. Hernández-Escontrías
Faculty Scholarship
This article addresses the key law and policy levers affecting Latinxs in what the U.S. Census Bureau designates as the South. Since the rise of the Latinx population from the 1980s onward, few legal scholars and researchers have participated in a sustained dialogue about how law and policy affects Latinxs living in the South. In response to this gap in legal research, this article provides an overview of the major law and policy challenges and opportunities for Latinxs in this U.S. region. Part II examines the geopolitical landscape of the South with special focus on the enduring legacy of Jim …
How Federalism Built The Fbi, Sustained Local Police, And Left Out The States, Daniel C. Richman, Sarah Seo
How Federalism Built The Fbi, Sustained Local Police, And Left Out The States, Daniel C. Richman, Sarah Seo
Faculty Scholarship
This Article examines the endurance of police localism amid the improbable growth of the FBI in the early twentieth century when the prospect of a centralized law enforcement agency was anathema to the ideals of American democracy. It argues that doctrinal accounts of federalism do not explain these paradoxical developments. By analyzing how the Bureau made itself indispensable to local police departments rather than encroaching on their turf, the Article elucidates an operational, or collaborative, federalism that not only enlarged the Bureau’s capacity and authority but also strengthened local autonomy at the expense of the states. Collaborative federalism is crucial …
America's Lawyerless Courts: Legal Scholars Work To Recommend Large-Scale Changes In Lawyerless Civil Courts, Anna E. Carpenter, Colleen F. Shanahan, Jessica K. Steinberg, Alyx Mark
America's Lawyerless Courts: Legal Scholars Work To Recommend Large-Scale Changes In Lawyerless Civil Courts, Anna E. Carpenter, Colleen F. Shanahan, Jessica K. Steinberg, Alyx Mark
Faculty Scholarship
At approximately 9:00 on most weekday mornings, thousands of state civil courts open their doors and begin hearing cases. These cases involve hundreds of thousands of people acrossthe country. State civil courts are the core of America's civil justice system, whether measured by a raw number of cases or courts'impact on ordinary people's lives. These courts handle 98% of all civil matters filed each year – around 20 million cases.
Many people are pulled into civil court because they cannot pay their rent or debts. Many more come to court for help with intimate and family relationships, including those seeking …
Election Law Localism And Democracy, Richard Briffault
Election Law Localism And Democracy, Richard Briffault
Faculty Scholarship
American federal and state elections are largely run by local officials. Although election law is almost entirely determined by the federal government and the states, elections are actually conducted by thousands of different county and city elections offices. This decentralization of election administration has often, and fairly, been criticized as resulting in undesirable interlocal variation in the application of election rules, inefficiency, and racial discrimination. Yet, in 2020, local election administration, particularly in large urban areas, was a source of strength. Local officials proved to be resilient, innovative, and attentive to local conditions. The record-high turnout in the face of …
Cities, Preemption, And The Statutory Second Amendment, Joseph Blocher
Cities, Preemption, And The Statutory Second Amendment, Joseph Blocher
Faculty Scholarship
Although the Second Amendment tends to dominate the discussion about legal limits on gun regulation, nothing has done more to shape the state of urban gun law than state preemption laws, which fully or partially limit cities’ ability to regulate guns at the local level. The goals of this short Essay are to shed light on this “Statutory Second Amendment” and to provide a basic framework for evaluating it.
Whose Water? Corporatization Of A Common Good, Vanessa Casado-Pérez
Whose Water? Corporatization Of A Common Good, Vanessa Casado-Pérez
Faculty Scholarship
This chapter encourages readers to think of agricultural communities in the era of climate change-induced droughts and population growth similar to when western Pennsylvania’s steel industry collapsed in the 1980s. If water must flow uphill to money, it should not leave a dust bowl behind. While this chapter’s proposals to address the effects on community build on examples of water reallocation where those effects have been addressed, both the just-transition literature and the experiences of some of the towns successfully adapting to abrupt changes in their economic tissue can offer lessons for areas suffering big water losses. In addition, privatization …