Law Commons^™

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.

Tribal-State Gaming Compacts And Revenue Sharing Provisions: Are The States Upping The Ante? , Richard L. Skeen

ExpressO

In the ten years following, the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Seminole Tribe v. Florida, Indian Gaming has grown to over a $19 billion a year industry, in 26 States, involving over 241 Approved Class III Tribal Gaming Ordinances. States have been eager to get a piece of this ever-increasing pie. Some commentators have predicted that States will be reluctant to enter into new compacts or renew existing compacts, however, other’s have indicated that States will continue to demand a percentages of Gaming revenues.

This comment addresses the central issue of whether the Tribal-State compacts entered into subsequent to the …

Harnessing The Costs Of International Tax Arbitrage, Adam H. Rosenzweig

ExpressO

The issue of international tax arbitrage has proven a difficult and at times intractable one. Rather than try to minimize costs of the arbitrage or prevent “abuse” of the laws of a particular regime, the United States should also consider affirmatively bearing some of the costs of international tax arbitrage to further the policy of international vertical equity and transform the incentives that led to the current worldwide non-cooperative equilibrium, and thus the rise of international tax arbitrage, in the first place.

Harnessing the costs of international tax arbitrage transactions will not always be the appropriate response to each particular …

Five Recommendations To Law Schools Offering Legal Instruction Over The Internet, Daniel C. Powell

ExpressO

This article addresses the emerging market for legal distance education. The market is being driven by recent changes in ABA regulations, as well as specialization in the curriculum, and expanding costs of traditional education. We are seeing the emergence of legal distance education consortiums, which offer a platform for the trading or selling of courses and programs.

However, much skepticism remains about the ability of distance education technology to offer law schools and law students a sufficiently interactive pedagogy. In the words of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg legal education is a “shared enterprise, a genuine interactive endeavor” that …

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 …

Finding The Constitutional Right To Education In San Antonio School District V. Rodriguez, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

In Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court abolished the scrutiny regime because it impermissibly interfered with an important fact, liberty. And yet, even in earlier cases which ostensibly upheld the scrutiny regime, it is difficult to see that the Court ever did so to the detriment of facts it considered important. In short, the Court often (always?) found itself raising the level of scrutiny for a fact in the same case it upheld the regime, leaving us to wonder if the scrutiny regime ever actually had any effect at all, or even whether the Court felt it was relevant. As …

Constitutional Limits On State Taxation Of Nonresident Trusts: Gavin Misinterprets And Misapplies Both Quill And Mcculloch, Joseph W. Blackburn

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

The Option Conundrum In Tax Law: After All These Years, What Exactly Is An Option?, Kevin J. Liss

ExpressO

Some of the latest financial products that have become prevalent on Wall Street defy easy categorization for tax purposes. Certain products, such as economic derivatives or weather derivatives, bear the trappings of options, but lack an underlying property component. Other products, such as credit default swaps, have option-type payouts, but are cast in the form of financial swaps. Which of these products are truly options and why? When and how to tax these instruments depends on proper resolution of this fundamental classification issue. With respect to credit default swaps, arguably the single most important product innovation on Wall Street in …