Law Commons^™

Legislation And Comment: The Making Of The § 199a Regulations, Shu-Yi Oei, Leigh Osofsky

Faculty Scholarship

In 2017, Congress passed major tax legislation at warp speed. After enactment, it fell to the Treasury Department to write regulations clarifying and implementing the new law. To assure democratic legitimacy in making regulations, administrative law provides that an agency must issue a notice of proposed rulemaking, followed by an opportunity for the public to comment (so-called “notice and comment”). But, after the 2017 tax overhaul, many sophisticated actors did not wait until the issuance of a notice of proposed rulemaking to comment, instead going to the Treasury Department immediately with comments designed to influence the regulations.

In this Article, …

Constraining Monitors, Veronica Root

Faculty Scholarship

Monitors oversee remediation efforts at dozens, if not hundreds, of institutions that are guilty of misconduct. The remediation efforts that the monitors of today engage in are, in many instances, quite similar to activities that were once subject to formal court oversight. But as the importance and power of monitors has increased, the court’s oversight of monitors and the agreements that most often result in monitorships has, at best, been severely diminished and, at worst, vanished altogether. Additionally, statutory efforts to provide formal guidance and restrictions on monitorships have stalled and published bar guidance has taken a nonbinding advisory form. …

Statutory Meanings: Deriving Interpretive Principles From A Theory Of Communication And Lawmaking, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Daniel B. Rodriguez

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Eva And Her Baby (A Story Of Adolescent Sex, Pregnancy, Longing, Love, Loneliness, And Death), Michelle Oberman

Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy

[...] I took the bus to my uncle's house. [...] that wasn't the truth, or at least not all of it. Because in the end, there were a million reasons why it hadn't happened to me.

What’S The Constitution Got To Do With It? Regulating Marriage In Pakistan, Karin Carmit Yefet

Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy

[...] the supreme law of the land seems to embody a blatant contradiction. The Pakistani Constitution extends protection to an impressive catalog of fundamental rights, placing Pakistan in line with some of the most western-minded constitutional regimes in the world.3 At the same time, in contrast to the American-style constitutional commitment to separate church and state,4 the Pakistani regime is constitutionally committed to integrate the two, in the sense that all laws must conform to the injunctions of Islam as a condition of their constitutional validity.5 So the same Constitution that protects western fundamental rights also elevates Islamic law, a …

Legislating For The Provision Of Comprehensive Substance Abuse Treatment Programs For Pregnant And Mothering Women, Janet W. Steverson, Traci Rieckman Phd

Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy

Additionally, in writing this article it became clear that, although the data collection in this area has improved over the past twenty years, more specific data is needed in order to have a clearer picture of the exact nature of the unmet need so that the states can better address it. [...] although the authors were able to obtain enough information to provide some suggestions to the states for providing treatment programs for pregnant and mothering women, work in the area is severely limited by the lack of accessible data.

Surrogacy And The Politics Of Commodification, Elizabeth S. Scott

Law and Contemporary Problems

Scott explores the history of surrogacy over the past twenty years. She also offers a historical account of the legal and social issues surrounding surrogacy over the past twenty years. She seeks to explain how and why the social and political meanings of surrogacy have changed over the past decade. Furthermore, she examines how surrogacy was framed as commodification in the Baby M context.

Rethinking Visitation: From A Parental To A Relational Right, Ayelet Blecher-Prigat

Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy

[...] visitation rights are considered to arise from the very fact of parenthood, so that parents are entitled to this right simply by being legally recognized as parents. [...] visitation rights are subject to the general rule of parental exclusivity: only a child's legal parents have rights considered parental, and non-parents cannot acquire them.

The Bfoq Defense: Title Vii’S Concession To Gender Discrimination, Katie Manley

Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy

Should the BFOQ exception still exist? Because permitting discrimination under Title VII seems fundamentally contrary to the anti-discrimination purpose of the statute, this article questions whether the BFOQ defense is consistent with the aims of Title VII or whether, in actuality, the defense undermines the Act's effectiveness by providing a loophole for employers to participate in the discriminatory practices Title VII seeks to forbid.

Living In Interesting Times: President Obama And The Rebirth Of The Labor Movement, Daniel S. Bowling Iii

Faculty Scholarship

Legislation has been introduced in the United States that will allow workers to form unions without secret ballot voting among prospective members. This legislation, in its current form, is the most radical change in Federal law governing union recognition in its history. While passage of the legislation is far from certain, it has generated much discussion and argument, most of it polemical. This article examines the issue from a more academic perspective, reviewing the history of organizing and how management practices have developed that effectively use the current election process as a tool to resist organizing efforts, and the effect …

The Conscientious Legislator And Public Opinion On Taxes, Lawrence A. Zelenak

Faculty Scholarship

This essay examines some of the difficulties of understanding public opinion on taxes, and offers some suggestions as to how the conscientious legislator might proceed in light of those difficulties. The essay begins by describing two contexts in which public opinion appears to contradict itself, and suggests how the apparent contradictions might be resolved. It then offers three suggestions for the conscientious legislator whose goal is to discern (rather than to manipulate) public opinion on taxes - to be neither unduly optimistic nor despairing about the potential for educating the public on tax policy issues, to understand and guard against …

The Right Of Public Participation In The Law-Making Process And The Role Of The Legislature In The Promotion Of This Right, Karen Syma Czapanskiy, Rashida Manjoo

Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law

No abstract provided.

The Study Of Law And India’S Society: The Galanter Factor, Robert Moog

Law and Contemporary Problems

Moog pursues three related themes or lines of inquiry that have marked her own research, the roots of which are to be found in Marc Galanter's earlier works and the broader law-and-society movement. These include, the significance of lower courts, the role of the local bar, and the evolution of alternatives to formal court proceedings all represent essential areas for exploration in the attempt to understand the successes and failures of the Indian justice system.

A Holistic Vision Of The Socio-Legal Terrain, Brian Z. Tamanaha

Law and Contemporary Problems

Tamanaha discusses Marc Galanter's holistic vision of the socio-legal terrain. Galanter's socio-legal vision has two central overlapping foci, and he always keeps an eye on each and on their interaction. The first focus is the official state legal system, which he examines from every conceivable angle: who becomes lawyers, how are they trained, how many lawyers are there, what are the circumstances of their work environment, who pays for their services. Galanter also focuses on what they are not doing (intentionally or otherwise), inquiring into the implications and consequences of their inaction. These inquiries extend from the official legal system …

Legal Limits On Religious Conversion In India, Laura Dudley Jenkins

Law and Contemporary Problems

In contemporary India, government assessments of the legitimacy of conversions tend to rely on two assumptions: first, that people who convert in groups may not have freely chosen conversion, and second, that certain groups are particularly vulnerable to being lured into changing their religion. These assumptions, which pervade the anticonversion laws as well as related court decisions and government committee reports, reinforce social constructions of women and lower castes as inherently naive and susceptible to manipulation. Here, Jenkins contends to carefully scrutinized the assumptions since like "protective" laws in many other contexts, such laws restrict freedom in highly personal, individual …

Agenda Power In The Italian Chamber Of Deputies, 1988-2000, Gary W. Cox, William B. Heller, Mathew D. Mccubbins

Faculty Scholarship

We find strong evidence that governing coalitions in Italy exercise significant negative agenda powers. First, governing parties have a roll rate that is nearly zero, and their roll rate is lower than opposition parties’ roll rates, which average about 20% on all final passage votes. Second, we find that, controlling for distance from the floor median, opposition parties have higher roll rates than government parties. These results strongly suggest that governing parties in Italy are able to control the legislative agenda to their benefit. We also document significantly higher opposition roll rates on decree-conversion bills and budget bills that on …

Similarity Or Difference As A Basis For Justice: Must Animals Be Like Humans To Be Legally Protected From Humans?, Taimie L. Bryant

Law and Contemporary Problems

Justice may not require that animals be exactly the same as humans or that they have rights exactly coterminous with the rights of humans, but justice would require that animals receive protection in ways that match up with those similarities they share with humans that are characteristics considered essential to the understanding of what it means to be human. Stated generally, the argument is that if animals are similar to humans as to capacities and characteristics of humans that define humans, then animals should receive protections equivalent to the protections of humans because a just society treats like entities alike.

What Statutes Mean: Interpretive Lessons From Positive Theories Of Communication And Legislation, Cheryl Boudreau, Arthur Lupia, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Daniel B. Rodriguez

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Entrenchment Of Ordinary Legislation: A Reply To Professors Posner And Vermeule, Erwin Chemerinsky

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Abdication Or Delegation? Congress, The Bureaucracy, And The Delegation Dilemma, Mathew D. Mccubbins

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Justice In The Wake Of Genocide: The Case Of Rwanda, Madeline Morris

Faculty Scholarship

During three months in 1994, genocide was committed in Rwanda. Two years after those events, and notwithstanding efforts at both national and international levels to bring the perpetrators to justice, the first case has yet to go to trial. Over the past months, I have worked closely with the government of Rwanda on justice issues in the course of a research project that I am doing on the role of national and international tribunals in the former Yugoslavia, Ethiopia, and Rwanda. I would like to share with you some observations arising from that work. I will examine the approaches to …

Reclaiming Self-Determination: A Call For Intraracial Adoption, Jacinda T. Townsend

Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy

The wholesale marketing of Black children to suit the economic interests of others was one of the cruelest aspects of slavery. Sons and daughters who were traded away from their parents would later struggle in vain to remember their families, their customs, and their countries of origin. Even the extended families which evolved in the transient slave communities were continually fragmented as children and their caretakers were merchanted to different plantations according to the whims of White slavemasters. 1 Although due to quite different circumstances, today the Black community continues to lose its children. At present, government sponsored entities, 2 …

United States Tort Liability For War Crimes Abroad: An Assessment And Recommendation, Kenneth Bullock

Law and Contemporary Problems

Bullock proposes that victims of war crimes be permitted to recover against the US government through administrative procedures similar to those of the Foreign Claims Act.

Process And Progress: Reviewing The Criminal Justice Act, Edward C. Prado

Law and Contemporary Problems

Prado describes the results of a comprehensive study of the federal defender program and concludes that as the federal criminal justice system evolves, the Criminal Justice Act program must adapt to ever-changing conditions.

Accrediting And The Sherman Act, Clark C. Havighurst, Peter M. Brody

Law and Contemporary Problems

The shortcomings of the Sherman Act as it relates to private accrediting are examined in order to assist courts in minimizing the anticompetitive features of accreditation and maximizing its procompetitive benefits. A lack of clear legal principles to guide factual analysis and to facilitate the granting of summary judgment in appropriate cases has led to unfocused and protracted litigation.

Color As A Trademark Under The Lanham Act: Confusion In The Circuits And The Need For Uniformity, J. Christopher Carraway

Law and Contemporary Problems

The Lanham Act--the Trademark Act of 1946--is examined to determine if it allows the protection of color per se as a trademark. Circuit courts vary in their use of the legislation, but color does satisfy the Act's broad definition of a trademark.

Regulations Under The Higher Education Amendments Of 1992: A Case Study In Negotiated Rulemaking, Mark L. Pelesh

Law and Contemporary Problems

The Higher Education Amendments of 1992 formally provided for a "Program Integrity Triad" of accrediting agencies, the states, and the Department of Education to control access to student financial assistance programs. Negotiated rulemaking was mandated by Congress for the implementation of the program.

Comment On Judge F. Weis, Jr., Service By Mail—Is The Stamp Of Approval From The Hague Convention Always Enough?, Doug Rendleman

Law and Contemporary Problems

Joseph F. Weis Jr's theories regarding US procedural policymaking and service by mail from the Hague Convention are examined. Weis explores two themes that run through US civil procedure: counterintuitive instrumentalism and underlying pragmatism.

Reflections On The Interface Of Treaties And Rules Of Procedure: Time For Federal “Long-Arm” Legislation, J. Dickson Phillips, Paul D. Carrington

Law and Contemporary Problems

Civil justice in the US is a primary means of law enforcement, and those who compete in the US economy ought, except in compelling circumstances, to be subject to the same modes of law enforcement as their US competitors. The five-tiered process for rulemaking regarding special accomodation of foreign interests is examined.

Comment On Mcnollgast “Legislative Intent”, Robert H. Bates

Law and Contemporary Problems

McNollgast's (1994) theory on legislative intent is argued as an exercise in textual interpretation. Possible weaknesses in the application of this theory are highlighted.