Law Commons^™

The State Of Our Republic: State Constitutions’ Role In Creating A More Perfect Union, Caroline Bullock

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis situates state constitutionalism in the modern context of federal constitutional paralysis. By tracing patterns of state constitutional development, we find that states were always the fundamental setting of democracy, and there has always been critical action happening at state legislatures, in state courts, and through state constitutional change. State constitutions provide an active means to achieve progress and protect rights not federally enshrined (and thus, endangered by the political process). The use of state constitutions to prescribe ways of life, protect individual and specialized rights, and to limit local governments has always occurred, but with the current federal …

Lessons Of The Plague Years, Barry Sullivan

Faculty Publications & Other Works

The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged governments of every description across the globe, and it surely would have tested the mettle of any American administration. But the pandemic appeared in the United States at a particularly inopportune time. January 2020 marked the beginning of a presidential election year in a deeply polarized country. President Donald Trump was a controversial figure, beginning the fourth year of a highly idiosyncratic administration. He was both a candidate for re-election and the subject of an ongoing impeachment proceeding. In these circumstances, the pandemic quickly became politicized. President Trump's response to the COVID-19 pandemic has often …

Chisholm V. Georgia (1793): Laying The Foundation For Supreme Court Precedent, Abigail Stanger

The Cardinal Edge

No abstract provided.

A Breath Of Fresh Air: A Constitutional Amendment Legalizing Marijuana Through An Article V Convention Of The States, Ryan C. Griffith, Esq.

University of Massachusetts Law Review

Criminal enforcement of anti-marijuana laws by the United States federal government has been non-sensical for more than twenty years. Culminating, ultimately, in an anomaly within American jurisprudence when California legalized marijuana in 1996 in direct violation of federal law, yet the federal government did little to stop it. Since then, a majority of states have followed California and legalized marijuana. Currently, thirty-six states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana despite federal law. Every year billions of dollars are spent on the federal enforcement of anti-marijuana laws while states collect billions in tax revenue from marijuana sales. Even …

The Democracy Principle In State Constitutions, Jessica Bulman-Pozen, Miriam Seifter

Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, antidemocratic behavior has rippled across the nation. Lame-duck state legislatures have stripped popularly elected governors of their powers; extreme partisan gerrymanders have warped representative institutions; state officials have nullified popularly adopted initiatives. The federal constitution offers few resources to address these problems, and ballot-box solutions cannot work when antidemocratic actions undermine elections themselves. Commentators increasingly decry the rule of the many by the few.

This Article argues that a vital response has been neglected. State constitutions embody a deep commitment to democracy. Unlike the federal constitution, they were drafted – and have been repeatedly rewritten and amended …

Law School News: 'Unmatched Opportunities' 12-16-2020, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Mike Andrews '97 Nominated To U.S. Court Of Federal Claims 12-15-2020, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Rwu Law News: The Newsletter Of Roger Williams University School Of Law 12-2020, Barry Bridges, Michael M. Bowden, Nicole Dyszlewski, Louisa Fredey

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Meat Wars: The Unsettled Intersection Of Federal And State Food Labeling Regulations For Plant-Based Meat Alternatives, Shareefah Taylor

University of Massachusetts Law Review

Due to technological advances and the rise in popularity of plant-based meat alternatives (i.e., Beyond Meat, the Impossible Burger, etc.), nearly thirty states have proposed or enacted legislation to limit which foods can be labeled with terms that have traditionally been used to describe products derived from animal carcasses (i.e., meat, burger, sausage, etc.). Fueled in many places by the cattle industry, the states’ legislation proposes stricter guidelines than the federal counterparts in an attempt to specifically prohibit plant-based, cell-based (lab-grown meat), and even insect-based products from being labeled in meat-associated terms. To date, lawsuits have been filed by opponents …

Fifty States, Fifty Attorneys General, And Fifty Approaches To The Duty To Defend, Neal Devins, Saikrishna B. Prakash

Neal E. Devins

Whether a state attorney general has a duty to defend the validity of state law is a complicated question, one that cannot be decided by reference either to the oath state officers must take to support the federal Constitution or the supremacy of federal law. Instead, whether a state attorney general must defend state law turns on her own state’s laws. Each state has its own constitution, statutes, bar rules, and traditions, and not surprisingly, the duties of attorneys general vary across the states. To simplify somewhat, we believe that there are three types of duties. One set of attorneys …

Professional Rights Speech, Timothy Zick

Timothy Zick

Some regulations of professional-client communications raise important, but sofar largely overlooked, constitutional concerns. Three recent examples of professional speech regulation-restrictions on physician inquiries regarding firearms, "reparative" therapy bans, and compelled abortion disclosures-highlight an important intersection between professional speech and constitutional rights. In each of the three examples, state regulations implicate a non-expressive constitutional right--the right to bear arms, equality, and abortion. States are actively, sometimes even aggressively, using their licensing authority to limit and structure conversations between professionals and their clients regarding constitutional rights. The author contends that government regulation of "professional rights speech" should be subjected to heightened First …

Recommendations For Improving Firearms Vetting In Massachusetts, Robert C. Devine

University of Massachusetts Law Review

The United States is in a state of conflict over the ability to obtain firearms as well as their use in highly publicized mass shootings. On December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza obtained several firearms that were lawfully owned by his mother, but were improperly secured. Lanza killed his mother that morning and then drove a short distance to the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut where he murdered twenty-six people, many of whom were small children. Lanza eventually turned a gun on himself before being confronted by responding officers. Though mass shootings are often headlines in this country, the …

Public Financing Of Elections In The States, Nicholas Meixsell

Honors Theses

In the US, there is a history of the courts striking down campaign finance reform measures as unconstitutional. As such, there are few avenues remaining for someone who is interested in 'clean government' reforms. One such avenue is publicly financed elections, where the state actually provides funding for campaigns. These systems can be quite varied in the restrictions and contingencies they attach to the money, and for examples one has to look no further than the states There are many states that have some form of public financing for elections, and by looking at the different states' systems we are …

State Regulations Are Failing Our Children: An Analysis Of Child Marriage Laws In The United States, Rachel L. Schuman

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Standing For Nothing, Robert Mikos

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

A growing number of courts and commentators have suggested that states have Article III standing to protect state law. Proponents of such "protective" standing argue that states must be given access to federal court whenever their laws are threatened. Absent such access, they claim, many state laws might prove toothless, thereby undermining the value of the states in our federal system. Furthermore, proponents insist that this form of special solicitude is very limited-that it opens the doors to the federal courthouses a crack but does not swing them wide open. This Essay, however, contests both of these claims, and thus, …

The Thirteenth Amendment, Prison Labor Wages, And Interrupting The Intergenerational Cycle Of Subjugation, Josh Halladay

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment argues that meager or no compensation for prisoners, who are disproportionately black and other persons of color, entraps them and their children in a cycle of subjugation that dates back to the days of slavery, and this Comment proposes to interrupt this cycle by setting a minimum wage for prisoners and creating college savings accounts for their children. As part of the cycle, when people enter prisons and the doors behind them close, so do their families’ bank accounts and the doors to their children’s schools. At the same time, the cells next to them open, ready to …

Constitutional Challenges And Regulatory Opportunities For State Climate Policy Innovation, Felix Mormann

Articles

This Article explores constitutional limits and regulatory openings for innovative state policies to mitigate climate change by promoting climate-friendly, renewable energy. In the absence of a comprehensive federal policy approach to climate change and clean energy, more and more states are stepping in to fill the policy void. Already, nearly thirty states have adopted renewable portfolio standards that create markets for solar, wind, and other clean electricity. To help populate these markets, a few pioneering states have recently started using feed-in tariffs that offer eligible generators above-market rates for their clean, renewable power.

But renewable portfolio standards, feed-in tariffs, and …

Ulysses: A Mighty Hero In The Fight For Freedom Of Expression, Marc J. Randazza

University of Massachusetts Law Review

James Joyce’s Ulysses was a revolutionary novel, and this much is common knowledge. What is not common knowledge is how useful Ulysses was in pushing the boundaries of freedom of expression. This masterpiece of literature opened the door for modern American free speech jurisprudence, but in recent years has become more of an object of judicial scorn. This Article seeks to educate legal scholars as to the importance of the novel, and attempts to reverse the anti-intellectual spirit that runs through modern American jurisprudence, where the novel is now more used as an object of mockery, or as a negative …

Amendment Creep, Jonathan L. Marshfield

Michigan Law Review

To most lawyers and judges, constitutional amendment rules are nothing more than the technical guidelines for changing a constitution’s text. But amendment rules contain a great deal of substance that can be relevant to deciding myriad constitutional issues. Indeed, judges have explicitly drawn on amendment rules when deciding issues as far afield as immigration, criminal procedure, free speech, and education policy. The Supreme Court, for example, has reasoned that, because Article V of the U.S. Constitution places no substantive limitations on formal amendment, the First Amendment must protect even the most revolutionary political viewpoints. At the state level, courts have …

Whether Sovereign Immunity Is A Defense For States In Bankruptcy Cases, Melanie Lee

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

Sovereign immunity, generally, prohibits suit against a sovereign without the sovereign’s consent. The defense of sovereign immunity may not be asserted by any state, or arm of the state, in any bankruptcy proceeding. The prohibition of asserting sovereign immunity in a bankruptcy case has been common practice, almost continuously, since the states agreed to such a waiver in the Constitutional Convention. Moreover, this waiver of sovereign immunity, has since been codified in Section 106 of title 11 of the United States Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”). As a result, a state involved in a bankruptcy case will typically be treated …

Reflections On Comity In The Law Of American Federalism, Gil Seinfeld

Articles

Comity is a nebulous concept familiar to us from the law of international relations. Roughly speaking, it describes a set of reciprocal norms among nations that call for one state to recognize, and sometimes defer to, the laws, judgments, or interests of another. Comity also features prominently in the law of American federalism, but in that context, it operates within limits that have received almost no attention from scholarly commentators. Specifically, although courts routinely describe duties that run from one state to another, or from the federal government to the states, as exercises in comity, they almost never rely on …

Fifty States, Fifty Attorneys General, And Fifty Approaches To The Duty To Defend, Neal Devins, Saikrishna B. Prakash

Faculty Publications

Whether a state attorney general has a duty to defend the validity of state law is a complicated question, one that cannot be decided by reference either to the oath state officers must take to support the federal Constitution or the supremacy of federal law. Instead, whether a state attorney general must defend state law turns on her own state’s laws. Each state has its own constitution, statutes, bar rules, and traditions, and not surprisingly, the duties of attorneys general vary across the states. To simplify somewhat, we believe that there are three types of duties. One set of attorneys …

Eaja Fees For Reasons-And-Bases Remands: The Perspective Of A Veterans' Lawyer, David E. Boelzner

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Professional Rights Speech, Timothy Zick

Faculty Publications

Some regulations of professional-client communications raise important, but sofar largely overlooked, constitutional concerns. Three recent examples of professional speech regulation-restrictions on physician inquiries regarding firearms, "reparative" therapy bans, and compelled abortion disclosures-highlight an important intersection between professional speech and constitutional rights. In each of the three examples, state regulations implicate a non-expressive constitutional right--the right to bear arms, equality, and abortion. States are actively, sometimes even aggressively, using their licensing authority to limit and structure conversations between professionals and their clients regarding constitutional rights. The author contends that government regulation of "professional rights speech" should be subjected to heightened First …

The Rites Of Dissent: Notes On Nationalist Federalism, Jessica Bulman-Pozen

Faculty Scholarship

Responding to Heather K. Gerken’s Childress Lecture, Federalism and Nationalism: Time for a Détente?

In this response, I consider how the nationalist school of federalism reconceptualizes nationalism, and not only federalism. Taking as my starting point Gerken’s claim that federalism can be good for nationalism, that nationalists should “believe in giving power to the states,” I first outline two possible understandings of nationalism suggested by this claim — that “national” refers to the federal government, and that “national” refers to a unified American polity — and explain what it would mean for federalism to serve nationalism so understood. After rejecting …

Appellate Division, Second Department, Langan V. St. Vincent's Hospital Of New York, Christin Harris

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Taking States (And Metaphysics) Seriously, Sanford Levinson

Michigan Law Review

Sotirios A. Barber has written many incisive and important books, in addition to coediting an especially interesting casebook on constitutional law and interpretation. He is also a political theorist. An important part of his overall approach to constitutional theory is his philosophical commitment to “moral realism.” He believes in the metaphysical reality of moral and political truths, the most important of which, for any constitutional theorist, involve the meanings of justice and the common good. He not only believes in the ontological reality of such truths — that is, that these truths are more than mere human conventions or social …

Through Our Glass Darkly: Does Comparative Law Counsel The Use Of Foreign Law In U.S. Constitutional Adjudication?, Kenneth Anderson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This (35 pp.) essay appears as a contribution to a law review symposium on the work of Harvard Law School professor Mary Ann Glendon in comparative law. The essay begins by asking what comparative law as a scholarly discipline might suggest about the use of foreign (or unratified or nationally "unaccepted" international law) by US courts in US constitutional adjudication. The trend seemed to be gathering steam in US courts between the early-1990s and mid-2000s, but by the late-2000s, it appeared to be stalled as a practice, notwithstanding the intense scholarly interest throughout this period.

Practical politics within the US …

The Right To Vote Under State Constitutions, Joshua A. Douglas

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article provides the first comprehensive look at state constitutional provisions explicitly granting the right to vote. We hear that the right to vote is "fundamental," the "essence of a democratic society," and "preservative of all rights." But courts and scholars are still searching for a solution to the puzzle of how best to protect voting rights, especially because the U.S. Supreme Court has underenforced the right to vote. The answer, however, is right in front of us: state constitutions. Virtually every state constitution includes direct, explicit language granting the right to vote, as contrasted with the U.S. Constitution, which …

Overcoming Obstacles To Religious Exercise In K-12 Education, Lewis M. Wasserman

Lewis M. Wasserman

Overcoming Obstacles to Religious Exercise in K-12 Education Lewis M. Wasserman Abstract Judicial decisions rendered during the last half-century have overwhelmingly favored educational agencies over claims by parents for religious accommodations to public education requirements, no matter what constitutional or statutory rights were pressed at the tribunal, or when the conflict arose. These claim failures are especially striking in the wake of the Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (“RFRAs”) passed by Congress in 1993 and, to date, by eighteen state legislatures thereafter, since the RFRAs were intended to (1) insulate religious adherents from injuries inflicted by the United States Supreme Court’s …