Law Commons^™

Sex, Money, And Free Speech: The Many Harms Of Fosta/Sesta, Desmond Mantle

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis tracks the development of the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act/Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, or FOSTA/SESTA, which became federal law in 2018. The law's passage followed as a natural consequence of popular concerns about human trafficking. Congress passed the legislation by large margins in both houses given bipartisan opposition to sex trafficking. This thesis identifies plausible reasons for the only two Senate votes against the bill: those of Senators Rand Paul and Ron Wyden. Though these senators came from opposite sides of the aisle, they shared concerns about the future of free speech online and the potential failure …

The Politicization And Polarization Of Climate Change, Williamson Grassle

CMC Senior Theses

In the mid to late 20th-century, climate change and other environmental issues were addressed on a bipartisan basis, with Republican politicians like President Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush supporting and advancing measures to combat climate change. However, since the 1990s, climate change has become increasingly polarized, with significant polarization in the last decade. This paper dives into the causes behind climate change's politicization and polarization and what the future holds for bipartisan agreement by analyzing peer-reviewed articles, campaign contributions, news stories, political archives, and past interviews with climate experts. The analysis finds that the polarization has been driven by …

America’S Presidential Crisis Of Legitimacy: How The Electoral College Became Obsolete And How We Can Fix It, Julia Rose Foodman

Scripps Senior Theses

The goal of this thesis is to critique the current American Presidential electoral system, the Electoral College, and to show what an alternative could potentially mean for the American people. This paper seeks to answer the following questions: What are the main arguments for the Electoral College, why are they troubling, and how can we mend American Presidential elections for the greater purposes of political equality, democracy, and freedom? To do so, core arguments made by conservative pundits in favor of the Electoral College are outlined in order to bring attention to their logical, political, and moral inconsistencies. The inequalities …

Neither “Post-War” Nor Post-Pregnancy Paranoia: How America’S War On Drugs Continues To Perpetuate Disparate Incarceration Outcomes For Pregnant, Substance-Involved Offenders, Becca S. Zimmerman

Pitzer Senior Theses

This thesis investigates the unique interactions between pregnancy, substance involvement, and race as they relate to the War on Drugs and the hyper-incarceration of women. Using ordinary least square regression analyses and data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates, I examine if (and how) pregnancy status, drug use, race, and their interactions influence two length of incarceration outcomes: sentence length and amount of time spent in jail between arrest and imprisonment. The results collectively indicate that pregnancy decreases length of incarceration outcomes for those offenders who are not substance-involved but not evenhandedly -- benefitting white …

Stationary Distribution Of Recombination On 4x4 Grid Graph As It Relates To Gerrymandering, Camryn Hollarsmith

Scripps Senior Theses

A gerrymandered political districting plan is used to benefit a group seeking to elect more of their own officials into office. This practice happens at the city, county and state level. A gerrymandered plan can be strategically designed based on partisanship, race, and other factors. Gerrymandering poses a contradiction to the idea of “one person, one vote” ruled by the United States Supreme Court case Reynolds v. Sims (1964) because it values one demographic’s votes more than another’s, thus creating an unfair advantage and compromising American democracy. To prevent the practice of gerrymandering, we must know how to detect a …

An Analysis And Critique Of Mental Health Treatment In American State Prisons And Proposal For Improved Care, Shelby Hayne

Scripps Senior Theses

Mental health treatment in state prisons is revealed to be highly variable, under-funded, and systematically inadequate. Existing literature exposes this injustice but fails to provide a comprehensive proposal for reform. This paper attempts to fill that gap, outlining a cost-effective, evidence-based treatment proposal, directly addressing the deficits in care revealed through analysis of our current system. In addition, this paper provides historical overviews of the prison system and mental health treatment, utilizing theoretical perspectives to contextualize this proposal in the present state of affairs. Lastly, the evidence is provided to emphasize the potential economic and social benefits of improving mental …

California As A “Blue-Print’ For Progressive Immigration Reform?: Uncovering Racial Liberalism To Expose Reconfigured Anti-Migrant Hegemony, Edith Jaicel Ortega

Scripps Senior Theses

Using the frames of analysis and language of political whiteness and anti-migrant hegemony, this paper examines the narrative of liberal immigration reformers transforming California’s political landscape within the period of 1994 to 2017. Taken as case studies the following articles of legislation are analyzed: Proposition 187 in 1994, the California Dream Act in 2010, the Trust Act in 2014, up to the present Senate Bill 54 in 2017. The paper finds that while California has experienced a recognizable shift in racial liberalism in rhetoric and legislation, its overall policy continues to work within the framework of anti-migrant hegemony that functions …

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act: The Solution Or The Problem?, Sophie S. Chou

CMC Senior Theses

Tax evasion has been happening for decades, but after the highly publicized cases with two foreign banks, LGT and UBS, the United States (US) is cracking down on tax evaders. The latest addition to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)’s repertoire of enforcement tools is the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, otherwise known as FATCA. The Act was enacted to incentivize tax information release by foreign financial institutions (FFIs) who would otherwise face a 30% withholding tax on any US source income. The question was whether or not the design of the Act and its implementation successfully met this goal.

This …

California's Foreign Relations, Christopher Gaarder

CMC Senior Theses

Globalization has significantly increased the number of stakeholders in transnational issues in recent decades. The typical list of the new players in global affairs often includes non-state actors like non-governmental organizations, multinational corporations, and international organizations. Sub-national governments, however, have been given relatively little attention even though they, too, have a significant interest and ability to shape the increasing flow of capital, goods, services, people, and ideas that has so profoundly influenced the global political economy in recent decades. California, arguably the most significant among sub-national governments – its economy would be seventh or eighth in the world at $2.2 …

The Right To Digital Privacy: Advancing The Jeffersonian Vision Of Adaptive Change, Kerry Moller

CMC Senior Theses

The relationship between privacy, technology, and law is complex. Thomas Jefferson’s prescient nineteenth century observation that laws and institutions must keep pace with the times offers a vision for change. Statutory law and court precedents help to define our right to privacy, however, the development of new technologies has complicated the application of old precedents and statutes. Third party organizations, such as Google, facilitate new methods of communication, and the government can often collect the information that third parties receive with a subpoena or court order, rather than a Fourth Amendment-mandated warrant. Privacy promotes fundamental democratic freedoms, however, under current …

Bridging The Justice Gap: Exploring Approaches For Improving Indigent Access To Civil Counsel, Kelsey Atkinson

Pomona Senior Theses

The United States is among one of the only democratic industrialized nations in the world that does not provide guaranteed access to civil representation in cases involving basic human need. This leaves indigent litigants who are at risk of losing their homes or their children left to seek counsel through insufficient pro-bono programs or limited scope legal self-help centers. This thesis provides a history of the struggle for the right to civil counsel, known as Civil Gideon, and explores a variety of proposed solutions to bridge the justice gap for indigent litigants. Despite considerable support for Civil Gideon among scholars …

Reforming Affirmative Action For The Future: A Constitutional And Consequentialist Approach, Quinn Chasan

CMC Senior Theses

In my analysis of affirmative action policy, I began the search without having formed any opinion whatsoever. The topic was interesting to me, and after reading a mass of news editorials and their op-eds, I decided to take up the argument for myself. Other than the fact that I am a student, I have no stake in affirmative action policy. This paper relies primarily on the foremost half-dozen or so notable mismatch theory scholars, a close reading of an innumerable number of Supreme Court opinions, affirmative action related studies from higher education academics and policy institutes, and how historical executive …

Eco-Labeling: An Argument For Regulation And Reform, Lauren Sherman

Pomona Senior Theses

This thesis analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of various types of eco-labels, focusing primarily on differences between mandatory and voluntary eco-labeling programs. I argue that many of the problems with eco-labeling could be addressed by improving regulations. The current regulation of eco-labeling in the United States is discussed, especially the shortcomings of the FTC’s Green Guides. I recommend creating enforceable national legislation to regulate environmental claims that includes involvement of key stakeholders, a list of acceptable environmental claims, enforceable national definitions of environmental terms, an avenue for manufacturers and consumers to challenge environmental claims, consumer education, and periodic review and …

The Politics Of Physical Education Reform, Ari Zyskind

CMC Senior Theses

The purpose of the paper is to determine why today's youth are so physically inactive by examining the role and efforts of physical education, and the state and federal governments responsibility in supporting these programs, in fighting today's obesity epidemic by creating generations of healthy and physically active children. Research led to the determination that states have failed to maintain and improve physical education resulting in a physically inactive youth. Therefore, the nation should look to federal legislation to support state-led physical education, which this paper found to be constitutional if the enactments followed the provisions established in South Dakota …

Cobra Subsidies: A Compelling Narrative Of Policy Impact On The Unemployed, Uninsured, Hannah N. Gregg

CMC Senior Theses

This paper analyzes a 2009 U.S. policy which provided short term federal subsidies for COBRA health insurance premiums. COBRA allows the recently unemployed to continue purchasing health insurance through their employment-based insurance plan for a short time period after they become unemployed. Early analysis found low take-up rates for COBRA insurance due to the exceedingly high cost of full health insurance premiums, especially for those who have just lost a steady employment income. A short term 65 percent federal subsidy for COBRA insurance was implemented as a part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009. Subsidy policy proposed …

Reform In California's Immigration Enforcement And Immigration Court, Nelson E. Gil

CMC Senior Theses

According to the Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistic, California accounts for approximately 2,600,000 illegal immigrants in 2009. This number represents about 25 percent of the entire estimated illegal immigrant population in the United States, which is roughly 10.8 million. Between 2003 and 2008, the U.S. government removed 1,446,338 noncitizens from the United States. This rise in deportation is a result o the changes that have been enacted by the federal government over the years that transformed the nature of immigration enforcement. This thesis explores the California Immigration Enforcement system from the programs established to apprehend illegal aliens …

Disability In America: A Minority Group For Everyone, Nicholas W. Ostreim

CMC Senior Theses

July 26, 2010 marked the twentieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act; the greater implications of comprehensive disability policy are yet to be seen. Nearly twenty percent of Americans have a disability. With such a significant portion of Americans affected, is equal access to employment opportunities, transportation, and communication available? The history of disability in America tells a story of isolation and institutionalization. The civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 60’s opened up an opportunity for America’s most versatile minority group. A survey conducted by the International Center for the Disabled in 1986 showed sixty-six percent of non-institutionalized …