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Social Welfare Law Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Social Welfare Law

Poverty Law 101: The Law And History Of The U.S. Welfare State, Karen M. Tani Jun 2015

Poverty Law 101: The Law And History Of The U.S. Welfare State, Karen M. Tani

Karen M. Tani

Poverty law will remain marginalized so long as we confine it to a population that we and our students understand as marginal. Tani discusses Professor Wax’s characterization of the “old welfare law framework,” as well as her account of what happened to it, and would not advocate a return to a court-centered, advocacy-oriented approach.


Administrative Equal Protection: Federalism, The Fourteenth Amendment, And The Rights Of The Poor, Karen M. Tani Dec 2014

Administrative Equal Protection: Federalism, The Fourteenth Amendment, And The Rights Of The Poor, Karen M. Tani

Karen M. Tani


This Article intervenes in a burgeoning literature on “administrative constitutionalism,” the phenomenon of federal agencies—rather than courts—assuming significant responsibility for elaborating the meaning of the U.S. Constitution.  Drawing on original historical research, I document and analyze what I call “administrative equal protection”: interpretations of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause in a key federal agency at a time when the Clause’s meaning was fiercely contested.  These interpretations are particularly important because of their interplay with cooperative federalism—specifically, with states’ ability to exercise their traditional police power after accepting federal money.
The Article’s argument is based on a story of change …