Disaster Law Commons^™

The Marijuana Insurgency: Federalism And Social Reframing In Policy Reform, Matthew P. Cavedon

Seattle University Law Review

After fifty years of federal prohibition, marijuana reform efforts have won political and legal success. These victories hold lessons for anyone seeking to resist federal law without being able to directly affect it.

Victory can come from reframing an issue. For marijuana reform, social reframing—not formal legal analysis or material factors—provides the best explanation for how advocates achieved change. Their unconventional political tactics, akin to those used by insurgents in wartime, undercut federal prohibition by winning hearts and minds.

This is an analysis of the sociology of legal change. It is also the story of how ordinary Americans retook personal …

A History Of Corporate Law Federalism In The Twentieth Century, William W. Bratton

Seattle University Law Review

This Article describes the emergence of corporate law federalism across a long twentieth century. The period begins with New Jersey’s successful initiation of charter competition in 1888 and ends with the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002. The federalism in question describes the interrelation of state and federal regulation of corporate internal affairs. This Article takes a positive approach, pursuing no normative bottom line. It makes six observations: (1) the federalism describes a division of subject matter, with internal affairs regulated by the states and securities issuance and trading regulated by the federal government; (2) the federalism is an …

Katrina, Federalism, And Military Law Enforcement: A New Exception To The Posse Comitatus Act, Sean Mcgrane

Michigan Law Review

In the days following Hurricane Katrina, as lawlessness and violence spread throughout New Orleans, the White House considered invoking the Insurrection Act so that members of the U.S. military could legally perform law enforcement functions inside the flooded city. This Note contends that the White House's decision not to invoke the Act was substantially driven by federalism concerns-in particular, concerns about intruding on Louisiana's sovereignty. But, this Note further contends, in focusing so heavily on these state sovereignty concerns, the White House largely ignored the other side of the 'federalism coin "-namely, enabling the federal government to act where national …