Law Commons^™

The De-Gentrification Of New Markets Tax Credits, Roger M. Groves

ExpressO

This article provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of the New Markets Tax Credits program established by Congress. The purpose of the NMTCs is to use tax credits as incentives for investors to provide equity funds into low income areas. The article reveals that over $2 billion of federal tax subsidies that have been allocated to gentrified projects for the wealthy, rather than the intended beneficiaries – low income residents in the urban core – as Congress intended. The article proposes amendments to the statute and regulations to close unintended loopholes.

A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

The trend of the eminent domain reform and "Kelo plus" initiatives is toward a comprehensive Constitutional property right incorporating the elements of level of review, nature of government action, and extent of compensation. This article contains a draft amendment which reflects these concerns.

Compulsory Labor In A National Emergency: Public Service Or Involuntary Servitude? The Case Of Crippled Ports, Michael H. Leroy

ExpressO

The 13th Amendment ban on involuntary servitude has new relevance as the U.S. grapples with national emergencies such as catastrophic hurricanes, flu pandemics, and terrorism. This Article considers work refusal and coerced work performance in life-threatening employment contexts. Overwhelmed by fear, hundreds of police officers and health care workers abandoned their jobs during Hurricane Katrina. Postal clerks worked against their will without masks in facilities with anthrax. A report by Congress worries that avian flu will cause sick and frightened medical personnel to stay away from work, thus jeopardizing a coherent response to a crisis.

How far can the U.S. …

Revitalizing Our Urban Core Without Marginalizing Our Core People: Closing Tax Credit Loopholes For The Wealthy While Generating Ethnic Entrepreneurial Self Help Alternatives To Subsidized Gentrification, Roger M. Groves

ExpressO

This article provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of the New Markets Tax Credits program established by Congress. The purpose of the NMTCs is to use tax credits as incentives for investors to provide equity funds into low income areas. The article reveals that over $2 billion of federal tax subsidies that have been allocated to gentrified projects for the wealthy, rather than the intended beneficiaries – low income residents in the urban core – as Congress intended. The article proposes amendments to the statute and regulations to close unintended loopholes.

The article also creates a model for a …

Revitalizing Our Urban Core Without Marginalizing Our Core People: Closing Tax Credit Loopholes For The Wealthy While Generating Ethnic Entrepreneurial Self Help Alternatives To Subsidized Gentrification, Roger M. Groves

ExpressO

This article provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of the New Markets Tax Credits program established by Congress. The purpose of the NMTCs is to use tax credits as incentives for investors to provide equity funds into low income areas. The article reveals that over $2 billion of federal tax subsidies that have been allocated to gentrified projects for the wealthy, rather than the intended beneficiaries – low income residents in the urban core – as Congress intended. The article proposes amendments to the statute and regulations to close unintended loopholes.

The article also creates a model for a …

Bond Repudiation, Tax Codes, The Appropriations Process And Restitution Post-Eminent Domain Reform, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

This brief comment suggests where the anti-eminent domain movement might be heading next.

Review Essay: Radicals In Robes , Dru Stevenson

ExpressO

This essay reviews and critiques Cass Sunstein’s new book entitled Radicals in Robes. After a discussion of Sunstein’s (somewhat misleading) rhetorical nomenclature, this essay argues that Sunstein’s proposed “minimalist” methodology in constitutional jurisprudence is beneficial, but not for the reasons Sunstein suggests. Sunstein alternatively justifies judicial restraint or incrementalism on epistemological self-doubt (cautiousness being an outgrowth of uncertainty) and his fear that accomplishments by Progressives in the last century will be undone by conservative judges in the present. Constitutional incrementalism is more convincingly justified on classical economic grounds. While affirming Sunstein’s overall thesis, this essay offers an alternative rationale for …

Finding New Constitutional Rights Through The Supreme Court’S Evolving “Government Purpose” Test Under Minimum Scrutiny, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

By now we all are familiar with the litany of cases which refused to find elevated scrutiny for so-called “affirmative” or “social” rights such as education, welfare or housing: Lindsey v. Normet, San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez, Dandridge v. Williams, DeShaney v. Winnebago County. There didn’t seem to be anything in minimum scrutiny which could protect such facts as education or housing, from government action. However, unobtrusively and over the years, the Supreme Court has clarified and articulated one aspect of minimum scrutiny which holds promise for vindicating facts. You will recall that under minimum scrutiny government’s action is …

Poisoning The Well: Law & Economics And Racial Inequality, Robert E. Suggs

Faculty Scholarship

The standard Law & Economics analysis of racial discrimination has stunted our thinking about race. Its early conclusion, that laws prohibiting racial discrimination were unnecessary and wasteful, discredited economic analysis of racial phenomena within the civil rights community. As a consequence we know little about the impact of racial discrimination on commercial transactions between business firms. Laws do not prohibit racial discrimination in transactions between business firms, and the disparity in business revenues between racial minorities and the white mainstream dwarfs disparities in income by orders of magnitude. This disparity in business revenues is a major factor in the persistence …

Card Check Recognition: The Ongoing Legal And Legislative Battle, Michael E. Aleo

ExpressO

A great debate has been brewing for years over whether unions should be able to organize employees outside of the traditional election procedures provided by the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA” or “the Act”). Typically, in an organizing drive, a union solicits support from employees to indicate a desire to run a National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) election. The union does this by collecting cards from employees affirming the employees’ desire to have a representation election. If the union collects valid cards from at least one-third of eligible employees in the appropriate bargaining unit, the union may then …