Law Commons^™

Policing In A Democratic Constitution, Michael Wasco

Indiana Journal of Constitutional Design

Most constitutions contain provisions relating to or impacting policing. Separate from the armed forces and intelligence services, the police are the state’s internal security apparatus, and codifying issues related to policing within a constitution can ensure efficient service delivery and human rights protections.

Originating from the Libyan constitution making process, this paper provides a taxonomy of options for constitution drafters and scholars. More so than other issues, such as separation of powers or human rights protections generally, policing sections are very country specific. While not advocating for specific best practices, the work gives ample justifications for certain policing principles and …

Minority Vetoes In Consociational Legislatures: Ultimately Weaponized?, Devin Haymond

Indiana Journal of Constitutional Design

In societies emerging from or at risk for conflict, dividing power among rival groups—called power-sharing—can be an appropriate arrangement to maintaining peace. But how can groups, who are often emerging from violent conflict, trust sharing a government with rival groups that were just recently shooting at them?

A potential solution is the minority veto, which is allows minority groups to block the government from harming those groups’ vital interests. But what sorts of change blocking mechanisms constitute a minority veto? Who gets the veto power, and when can they be used? Do minority vetoes function as effective incentives for ensuring …

The Child Welfare System: A Misnomer In Need Of Services, Allison Hilmer

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

Legislative Committee Systems: A Design Perspective, Chase Stoddard

Indiana Journal of Constitutional Design

Committees are the defining characteristic of the modern legislature. While the centrality and study of party politics goes back further than committee politics, the focus on committee systems emerged over the course of the twentieth century, and legislatures could not function as we understand them without this mechanism. The United States Congressional committee system is the most studied system, yet virtually every country utilizes a committee system of some sort within its legislature. Despite their ubiquity in and centrality to the operations of legislatures, committees remain insufficiently studied, especially outside of the United States. The existing body of work tends …

Dictation And Delegation In Securities Regulation, Usha Rodrigues

Indiana Law Journal

When Congress undertakes major financial reform, either it dictates the precise con-tours of the law itself or it delegates the bulk of the rule making to an administrative agency. This choice has critical consequences. Making the law self-executing in federal legislation is swift, not subject to administrative tinkering, and less vulnerable than rule making to judicial second-guessing. Agency action is, in contrast, deliberate, subject to ongoing bureaucratic fiddling, and more vulnerable than statutes to judicial challenge.

This Article offers the first empirical analysis of the extent of congressional delegation in securities law from 1970 to the present day, examining nine …

A Taxonomy Of Independent Electoral Reapportionment Systems, James Ruley

Indiana Journal of Constitutional Design

This paper addresses a means of checking legislative gerrymandering, which I have called the Independent Electoral Reapportionment Commission (IERC). Its purpose is to prevent self-interested politicians from drawing biased constituency lines. While scholars have researched gerrymandering, few scholars have researched commissions designed to limit such gerrymandering, and no comprehensive work details the global means of accomplishing this goal.

Thus, the purpose of this paper is not to normatively prescribe the best practices for composing and empowering an IERC, but rather to descriptively show how different countries conduct this process. While Part II makes some determinations about which commissions may conceptually …

Access To Legal Services In Rural Areas Of The Northern Rockies: A Recommendation For Town Legal Centers, Brian L. Lynch

Indiana Law Journal

There are two distinct but related issues that affect legal representation in rural areas of the United States: the problem of attracting and keeping private attorneys,1 and the problem of satisfying the immense need for pro bono representation for low-income residents. Although these issues are interrelated—attracting attorneys to rural areas can help satisfy the need for pro bono representation—each state is handling the problems in distinctive ways.

In Part I, this Note will demonstrate why the Northern Rockies—which consists of the states of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming—is a distinctive region with enough similarities between states that a single proposal to …

Preventing Government Shutdowns: Designing Default Rules For Budgets, David Gamage, David Scott Louk

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In nearly every area of law and governance, default policies exist when lawmakers cannot pass new legislation — typically, the status quo simply remains in effect. To its detriment, U.S. budget making at both the state and federal levels lacks effective defaults. If a new budget isn’t passed by year end, there is no budget, and the government shuts down. This lack of defaults, coupled with a dysfunctional era of budgetary politics, has led to a number of recent high-profile and costly state and federal government shutdowns at the state and federal levels.

To date, legal scholarship has failed to …

The Trouble With Tax Increase Limitations, David Gamage, Darien Shanske

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In this symposium essay, we explore the theoretical implications of one particular type of fiscal limitation on state legislatures — namely, special Tax Increase Limitation rules (TILs). We argue that there is no meaningful content to the term “tax increase” as used in TILs. This incoherence allows legislative majorities who wish to do so to circumvent TILs. This fact about TILs, among others, explains the observed inefficacy of TILs in shrinking the size of state governments.

Furthermore, TILs are not just harmless political theater. When combined with other common features of state fiscal constitutions, particularly Balanced Budget Requirements (BBRs), they …

Preventing State Budget Crises: Managing The Fiscal Volatility Problem, David Gamage

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Forty-nine of the U.S. states have balanced budget requirements, and every state acts as though bound by such constraints. These constraints create fiscal volatility - the states must either cut spending or raise taxes during economic downturns, while doing the opposite during upturns. This paper discusses how states should cope with fiscal volatility on both the levels of ordinary politics and of institutional-design policy. On the level of ordinary politics, the paper applies principles of risk allocation theory to conclude that states should primarily adjust the rates of broad-based taxes as their economies cycle, rather than fluctuating public spending. States …

The Changing Shape Of Government, Alfred C. Aman, Steve Savas, Elliott Sclar, Lester Salamon, Charles Sabel

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Gillian E. Metzger, Alfred C. Aman Jr., Charles F. Sabel, Lester M. Salamon, E.S. Savas and Elliot D. Sclar participate in panel discussions focusing on the question of how to secure government accountability in the context of the expansion of privatization in government? This panel discusses some of the changes we are seeing in government institutions and in the ways government operates. The panelists describe ways in which the move toward privatization and the expansion of the gray area between public and private is occurring, but also will talk about changes we may see as being particularly useful in dealing …

Book Review. Stein, H. (Ed.), Public Administration And Policy Development: A Case Book, Ralph F. Fuchs

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Legal Education And Public Administration, Ralph F. Fuchs

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Book Review. Waldo, D., The Administrative State: A Study Of The Political Theory Of American Public Administration, Ralph F. Fuchs

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Some Aspects And Implications Of The Report Of The Attorney General's Committee On Administrative Procedure, Ralph F. Fuchs

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Book Review. Regional Plan Of New York And Its Environs Vol. Ii, Frank Edward Horack

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.