Law Commons^™

The Separation Of Platforms And Commerce, Lina M. Khan

Faculty Scholarship

A handful of digital platforms mediate a growing share of online commerce and communications. By structuring access to markets, these firms function as gatekeepers for billions of dollars in economic activity. One feature dominant digital platforms share is that they have inte­grated across business lines such that they both operate a platform and market their own goods and services on it. This structure places domi­nant platforms in direct competition with some of the businesses that de­pend on them, creating a conflict of interest that platforms can exploit to further entrench their dominance, thwart competition, and stifle innovation.

This Article argues …

Rethinking Article I, Section I: From Nondelegation To Exclusive Delegation, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

The first substantive clause of the Constitution – providing that "[all legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress" – is associated with two postulates about the allocation of legislative power. The first is the nondelegation doctrine, which says that Congress may not delegate legislative power. The second is the exclusive delegation doctrine, which says that only Congress may delegate legislative power. This Article explores the textual, historical, and judicial support for these two readings of Article I, Section 1, as well as the practical consequences of starting from one postulate as opposed to the other. The Article …

Paint-By-Numbers Tax Lawmaking, Michael J. Graetz

Faculty Scholarship

Although their meaning and contours have long been controversial, the general criteria for evaluating changes in tax law enjoy both stability and consensus. At least since Adam Smith, there has been virtually universal agreement that the nation's tax law should be fair, economically efficient, and simple to comply with and to administer. Tax law changes should be designed to make the law more equitable, easier to comply with, more conducive to economic growth, and less likely to interfere with private economic decisionmaking.

Precisely what these criteria imply for policymaking is controversial, however. Fairness is often said to require that people …

Legislative Theory And The Rule Of Law: Some Comments On Rubin, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Rubin's article is an admirable piece of work on many levels, from its attention to jurisprudence to its concern with the practical changes in the Congress and its function, and their implications. In commenting on it, I mean to restrict myself to the latter subjects. These are the matters that have the closest tangency to my own work and produce for me the strongest response. Professor Rubin has given us a compelling statement of the problems posed for contemporary constitutional and legislative theory by one transformation in statutory practice accompanying the rise of the administrative state, the change from …