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Full-Text Articles in Legislation

A Twisted Fate: How California's Premier Environmental Law Has Worsened The State's Housing Crisis, And How To Fix It, Noah Dewitt Mar 2022

A Twisted Fate: How California's Premier Environmental Law Has Worsened The State's Housing Crisis, And How To Fix It, Noah Dewitt

Pepperdine Law Review

California, the iconic Golden State, holds the infamous record for the largest population of people experiencing homelessness in the United States. These record-setting numbers have been steadily on the rise for decades and are due in large part to the state’s severe housing shortage, which is currently just under one million housing units. From those directly experiencing homelessness to those living in the country’s most expensive zip codes, the compounding economic and social impacts of the crisis touch every Californian. The extent of the crisis is not lost on California’s leaders, but despite countless initiatives on both the state and …


Whither The Lofty Goals Of The Environmental Laws?: Can Statutory Directives Restore Purposivism When We Are All Textualists Now?, Stephen M. Johnson Mar 2022

Whither The Lofty Goals Of The Environmental Laws?: Can Statutory Directives Restore Purposivism When We Are All Textualists Now?, Stephen M. Johnson

Pepperdine Law Review

Congress set ambitious goals to protect public health and the environment when it enacted the federal environmental laws through bipartisan efforts in the 1970s. For many years, the federal courts interpreted the environmental laws to carry out those enacted purposes. Over time, however, courts greatly reduced their focus on the environmental and public health purposes of the environmental laws when interpreting those statutes due to the rise in textualism, the declining influence of the Chevron doctrine, and the increasing willingness of courts to defer to agency underenforcement of statutory responsibilities across all regulatory statutes. In 2020, the Environmental Protection Network, …


Partnership Tax Provisions Of The Tcja As Illustrations Of Planning Simplification Versus Compliance Simplification Trade-Offs, Emily Cauble Sep 2021

Partnership Tax Provisions Of The Tcja As Illustrations Of Planning Simplification Versus Compliance Simplification Trade-Offs, Emily Cauble

Pepperdine Law Review

Oftentimes, efforts to simplify the process of reporting the tax consequences of events that have already occurred exacerbate complexity faced by taxpayers at the stage in time when they are deciding how to act. Efforts to simplify reporting include, for instance, provisions that obviate the need to value assets prior to their sale or methods for determining tax consequences that reduce the number of computational steps used when determining tax liability. While such efforts may, to a degree, simplify tax compliance, they can also set traps for unwary taxpayers at the planning stage. Avoiding asset valuation or taking short-cuts when …


Taxing The Ivory Tower: Evaluating The Excise Tax On University Endowments, Jennifer Bird-Pollan Sep 2021

Taxing The Ivory Tower: Evaluating The Excise Tax On University Endowments, Jennifer Bird-Pollan

Pepperdine Law Review

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 introduced the first-ever excise tax imposed on the investment income of university endowments. While it is a relatively small tax, this new law is a first step towards the exploration of taxing non-profit entities on the vast sums of wealth they hold in their endowments. In this essay I take the new tax as a starting place for investigating the justification for tax exemption for universities and thinking through the consequences of changing our approach, both in the form of the new excise tax and possible alternatives. There remain reasons to be …


May The Odds Be Ever In Your Favor: How The Tax Cuts And Jobs Act Fortified The Great Wealth Divide, Phyllis Taite Sep 2021

May The Odds Be Ever In Your Favor: How The Tax Cuts And Jobs Act Fortified The Great Wealth Divide, Phyllis Taite

Pepperdine Law Review

Have Americans become so desensitized to inequality that we have morphed into a state of dystopia, and vast inequalities have become normalized? Discussions of dystopia typically describe acts of oppression, tyranny, inequality, and an overall undesirable societal state. Dystopia analysis also requires a hard look at societal values to determine ways to avoid adverse outcomes that vast inequalities may produce. By identifying the undesirable outcome, there is an opportunity to avoid or reverse it by enacting laws to combat inequalities. The Hunger Games is a fictional tale of wealthy society members enjoying the rewards of high society while using the …


A Gilti Fix For An Employment Tax Glitch, Richard Winchester Sep 2021

A Gilti Fix For An Employment Tax Glitch, Richard Winchester

Pepperdine Law Review

Self-employed individuals who operate through a business entity can often dictate how much employment tax they pay, if any. That’s because the rules permit them to control whether their earnings count as labor income – which is subject to employment tax – or the returns on any capital invested in their business – which is not subject to the tax. The GILTI rules enacted as part of the 2017 Tax Act assume that capital investments generally earn a 10 percent annual rate of return. That same assumption can be used to allocate the earnings of a self-employed individual between the …


Intent, Inequality, And The Berlin Walls Of The Mind, Bobby L. Dexter Sep 2021

Intent, Inequality, And The Berlin Walls Of The Mind, Bobby L. Dexter

Pepperdine Law Review

Although acknowledging that various provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 appear responsive to normative arguments presented in tax literature, this article posits that, true to its core intent, the law aggressively advanced the persistent effort to shift the tax burden away from the nation’s wealthiest citizens to the great bulk of taxpayers of more modest financial means. Thus, those with political power successfully employed the tax law to protect, preserve, and enhance prevailing wealth and income inequality. With the election of President Joe Biden and the assumption of Democratic control in both chambers of Congress, however, …


Comparing Capital Income And Wealth Taxes, Ari Glogower Sep 2021

Comparing Capital Income And Wealth Taxes, Ari Glogower

Pepperdine Law Review

As part of the Pepperdine Law Review Symposium The Impact of the 2017 Tax Act on Income and Wealth Inequality: Lessons for 2020 and Beyond, this Essay compares two reform directions to rebuild the progressive tax system: an improved capital income tax—which would eliminate the benefit from deferring gains until a sale—or a wealth tax. The Essay first introduces the concept of a “rate-equivalent” wealth or capital income tax as a way to assess reform alternatives consistently and to identify the assumptions as to how the reforms would be structured. For any chosen capital income tax (or wealth tax) reform, …


“Magic Words” And Original Understanding: An Amplified Clear Statement Rule To Abrogate Tribal Sovereign Immunity, Justin W. Aimonetti Mar 2021

“Magic Words” And Original Understanding: An Amplified Clear Statement Rule To Abrogate Tribal Sovereign Immunity, Justin W. Aimonetti

Pepperdine Law Review

The Indian plenary power doctrine—an invention of the late nineteenth-century Supreme Court—grants Congress exclusive authority to legislate with respect to Indian tribes, including the ability to abrogate tribal sovereign immunity. Under current doctrine, Congress must “unequivocally express” its intent to abrogate the sovereign immunity of Indian tribes with “explicit legislation.” Circuit courts tasked with applying this standard have split on the level of textual specificity required to strip tribes of their immunity. Employing the tools of statutory construction, courts are divided over whether the term ‘domestic government,’ as found in Section 106 of the Bankruptcy Code, unequivocally covers Indian tribes. …


Fight Or Flight: The Ninth Circuit's Advancement Of Textualism During An Era Of Intentionalism In United States V. Lozoya, Zachary Remijas Jul 2020

Fight Or Flight: The Ninth Circuit's Advancement Of Textualism During An Era Of Intentionalism In United States V. Lozoya, Zachary Remijas

Pepperdine Law Review

The modern complexities of global interaction and accessibility have recently forced some federal courts to reconsider standards for determining proper venue for criminal defendants who commit offenses while engaged in transportation, particularly those involving interstate commerce and crimes spanning multiple districts. These courts’ application of two adversarial schools of statutory interpretation—textualism and intentionalism—has driven conflict between textualist jurisdictions adhering to the plain meaning of established constitutional and statutory sources, and intentionalist jurisdictions refraining from the “creeping absurdity” of establishing venue for certain in-transit offenses under the literal meaning of such provisions. This Note endorses the sensibility and superiority of the …


When Considering Federal Privacy Legislation, Neil Chilson Jun 2020

When Considering Federal Privacy Legislation, Neil Chilson

Pepperdine Law Review

Legislators, advocates, and business interests are proposing federal privacy legislation with new urgency. The United States has a long-established federal framework for addressing commercial privacy concerns, including general consumer protection law and sector-specific legislation. But the calls to expand or replace this approach have grown louder since Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation went into effect and since California adopted detailed and prescriptive privacy legislation. Should we create a U.S. federal privacy law, and if so, how? When considering any kind of privacy regulation, three concepts are fundamental. First, no one can control all information about them. Second, all privacy laws …


Comparing Literary And Biblical Hermeneutics To Constitutional And Statutory Interpretation, Robert J. Pushaw Jr. Mar 2020

Comparing Literary And Biblical Hermeneutics To Constitutional And Statutory Interpretation, Robert J. Pushaw Jr.

Pepperdine Law Review

Interpreters determine the meaning of language. To interpret literary and biblical texts, scholars have developed detailed rules, methods, and theories of human understanding. This branch of knowledge, “hermeneutics,” features three basic approaches. First, “textualists” treat words as directly conveying their ordinary meaning to a competent reader today. Second, “contextualists” maintain that verbal meaning depends on generally shared linguistic conventions in the particular historical and cultural environment of the author—and that therefore translations or commentaries are necessary to make the writing intelligible to a modern reader. Third, “hermeneutic circle” scholars argue that texts have no objective meaning. Rather, a person’s subjective …


Administrative Law: Whose Job Is It Anyway?, Allison Mather Jan 2020

Administrative Law: Whose Job Is It Anyway?, Allison Mather

Pepperdine Law Review

This Note examines the current state of judicial deference to administrative agencies and suggests modifying the doctrine to better comport with the Constitution. It examines the history of administrative agencies and the rise of judicial deference. The Note explores the present-day applications of judicial deference and analyzes whether the current doctrine is consistent with both its initial underlying policies and the Constitution. Ultimately, judicial deference to administrative agencies raises serious separation of powers concerns and should be modified to remain faithful to the nation’s founding principles.


The [Un]Fair Debt Collection Practices Act: A Critique Of Henson V. Santander, Monica Paladini Jun 2019

The [Un]Fair Debt Collection Practices Act: A Critique Of Henson V. Santander, Monica Paladini

Pepperdine Law Review

Congress was clear about its purposes and motivations behind enacting the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act of 1977. Namely, it set out to protect consumers from abusive debt collectors and to protect ethical debt collectors from being competitively disadvantaged by those who employ abusive tactics. Although Congress gave much time and effort to crafting the definition of “debt collectors” at the time of the Act’s passage, changes in the debt collection industry over the last four decades have greatly impacted the scope and reach of the FDCPA. Specifically, the advent and rise of debt purchasing have introduced an entirely new …


Digital Realty, Legislative History, And Textualism After Scalia, Michael Francus Jun 2019

Digital Realty, Legislative History, And Textualism After Scalia, Michael Francus

Pepperdine Law Review

There is a shift afoot in textualism. The New Textualism of Justice Scalia is evolving in response to a new wave of criticism. That criticism presses on the tension between Justice Scalia’s commitment to faithful agency (effecting the legislature’s will) and his rejection of legislative history in the name of ordinary meaning (which ignores legislative will). And it has caused some textualists to shift away from faithful agency, even to the point of abandoning it as textualism’s grounding principle. But this shift has gone unnoticed. It has yet to be identified or described, let alone defended, even as academic and …


Rfra As Legislative Entrenchment, Branden Lewiston Mar 2018

Rfra As Legislative Entrenchment, Branden Lewiston

Pepperdine Law Review

When there is a conflict between two federal statutes, the more recent statute overrides the past statute. However, courts have used the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) to preempt federal laws passed after it. Normally that is the role of constitutional provisions, not statutes. RFRA has been subject to much constitutional criticism, but its attempt to control subsequent federal law has drawn little attention. Courts use RFRA to trump subsequent federal statutes without second thought. This Essay draws on legislative entrenchment doctrine to argue that this feature of RFRA is unconstitutional. RFRA should be used to strike down prior laws …


The Impact Of Marijuana Legalization On Youth & The Need For State Legislation On Marijuana-Specific Instruction In K–12 Schools, Amanda Harmon Cooley Jan 2017

The Impact Of Marijuana Legalization On Youth & The Need For State Legislation On Marijuana-Specific Instruction In K–12 Schools, Amanda Harmon Cooley

Pepperdine Law Review

State legalization of marijuana is a divisive and polarizing issue that has resulted in fragmentation between governments and citizens. Contrary to federal law, voters in many states have approved ballot initiatives legalizing the sale of marijuana to adults for their recreational use. This Article argues that any state that legalizes marijuana has a concomitant duty to amend its K–12 public school instructional statutes to provide for substantial marijuana education. No state has yet enacted such legislation even though current alternative educational methods fail to provide sufficient safeguards. Accordingly, this Article proposes new statutory remedies that could bridge the gap between …


Putting Public Law Into "Private" Sport, Dionne L. Koller May 2016

Putting Public Law Into "Private" Sport, Dionne L. Koller

Pepperdine Law Review

Across all levels of sport — professional, Olympic, intercollegiate, interscholastic, and youth recreational — the prevailing view is that the government should not take an active role in regulating athletics. As a result, there are relatively few federal or state statutes directed at regulating sports, and those that are aimed at sports primarily serve to support the professional sports industry. Moreover, courts show great deference to sports leagues and administrators, most often applying law in a way that insulates and empowers them. This creates a climate where leagues and administrators are permitted wide latitude to structure and conduct their respective …


The Indefinite Deflection Of Congressional Standing, Nat Stern Feb 2016

The Indefinite Deflection Of Congressional Standing, Nat Stern

Pepperdine Law Review

Recent litigation brought or threatened against the administration of President Obama has brought to prominence the question of standing by Congress or its members to sue the President for nondefense or non-enforcement of federal law. While scholars divide over the normative propriety of such suits, the Court has never issued a definitive pronouncement on their viability. Nevertheless, the Court’s rulings when the issue has arisen have displayed a distinct pattern. While the Court has not formally repudiated suits of this nature, neither has it issued a decision that hinges on the presence of congressional standing. On the contrary, the Court …


Building A Better Laboratory: The Federal Role In Promoting Health System Experimentation, Kristin Madison May 2014

Building A Better Laboratory: The Federal Role In Promoting Health System Experimentation, Kristin Madison

Pepperdine Law Review

While expanding federal involvement in the health care system, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) preserves states' roles as policy laboratories and private providers' roles as health care delivery laboratories. State-based and provider-based laboratories suffer from many shortcomings, however, as mechanisms to develop, evaluate, and facilitate diffusion of reforms within the health system. This Article argues that the federal government can take steps to address these shortcomings. It first briefly reviews ACA provisions that promote policy and delivery experimentation. It then suggests that by tying funding to policy outcomes, making use of regulatory variation and regulatory menus, and …


Preserving Home Rule: The Text, Purpose, And Political Theory Of California’S Municipal Affairs Clause, Brett A. Stroud Apr 2014

Preserving Home Rule: The Text, Purpose, And Political Theory Of California’S Municipal Affairs Clause, Brett A. Stroud

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Climate Change And Water Transfers, Jesse Reiblich, Christine A. Klein Apr 2014

Climate Change And Water Transfers, Jesse Reiblich, Christine A. Klein

Pepperdine Law Review

Climate change adaptation is all about water. Although some governments have begun to plan for severe water disruptions, many have not. The consequences of inaction, however, may be dire. As a report of the U.N. Environment Programme warns, “countries that adopt a ‘wait and see’ approach potentially risk the lives of their people, their ecosystems and their economies.” In the United States, according to one study, nearly 60% of the states are unprepared to deal with the impending crisis. Responding to this void, we offer what we believe is the first comprehensive, state-by-state survey of water allocation law and its …


Government Code 800: Reimbursement Of Counsel Fees, Gayle Posner May 2013

Government Code 800: Reimbursement Of Counsel Fees, Gayle Posner

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


The Mink Case: Restoring The Freedom Of Information Act , Patsy T. Mink May 2013

The Mink Case: Restoring The Freedom Of Information Act , Patsy T. Mink

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Juvenile Justice In Transition , Julian C. Dixon May 2013

Juvenile Justice In Transition , Julian C. Dixon

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Enacting Legislation To Identify And Treat Children With Conduct Disorders, Donald J. Barnett, Ola Barnett Feb 2013

Enacting Legislation To Identify And Treat Children With Conduct Disorders, Donald J. Barnett, Ola Barnett

Pepperdine Law Review

The identification of conduct disordered children, that is, those children who are susceptible to becoming delinquent, is the first necessary step that must be undertaken if society's efforts to control a spiraling crime rate are to be successful. It is the authors' underlying premise that since the traditional approaches to rehabilitation have proven ineffective, it is incumbent upon the various state legislatures to become receptive to new methods and programs designed to prevent delinquency. The distinguishing feature of these alternatives would be early intervention and treatment. Admittedly, the authors note, many of these programs are experimental and based on the …


Drug Use And The Exclusionary Manque, Jerome A. Busch Feb 2013

Drug Use And The Exclusionary Manque, Jerome A. Busch

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Corporate Homicide: The Stark Realities Of Artificial Beings And Legal Fictions , Douglas S. Anderson Feb 2013

Corporate Homicide: The Stark Realities Of Artificial Beings And Legal Fictions , Douglas S. Anderson

Pepperdine Law Review

In the aftermath of one of the most highly publicized trials in product liability annals-the celebrated Pinto case-the legal question raised by that litigation remains unresolved. Controversy continues as to whether a corporation should be convicted of homicide when it knowingly markets an unsafe product that results in death. Today the answer is a resounding "no", in light of state statutes defining homicide as the killing of one human being by another, difficulties in finding the requisite criminal intent; and the practical problems of placing a legal fiction behind bars. However, there are recent indications that these present obstacles to …


Aviation Litigation: Federal Preemption And The Creation Of A Federal Remedy As A Means To Extinguish The Current Confusion In The Courts, Deborah J. Olsen Feb 2013

Aviation Litigation: Federal Preemption And The Creation Of A Federal Remedy As A Means To Extinguish The Current Confusion In The Courts, Deborah J. Olsen

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Admissibility Of Illegally Seized Evidence In Civil Cases: Could This Be The Path Out Of The Labyrinth Of The Exclusionary Rule?, Richard J. Hanscom Feb 2013

Admissibility Of Illegally Seized Evidence In Civil Cases: Could This Be The Path Out Of The Labyrinth Of The Exclusionary Rule?, Richard J. Hanscom

Pepperdine Law Review

The use of the exclusionary rule in criminal cases has been the subject of extensive debate since its inception. Although most efforts to modify the rule have been deemed unworkable, the author proposes a modification that is both workable and sensible. Modification would be accomplished by legislation which admits the results of illegal searches by law enforcement officers who acted in good faith, and, at the same time, provide fixed monetary sanctions against the governmental agencies whose officers conducted the search. The author proposes a good faith balancing test to determine evidence admissibility and administrative type proceedings to determine monetary …