Law Commons^™

Public Good Through Charter Schools?, Philip Hackney

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Should nonprofit charter schools be considered “charitable” under § 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and be entitled to the benefits that go with that designation (income tax exemption, charitable contribution deduction, etc.)? Current tax law treats them as such; the question is whether there is a good rationale for this treatment. In addition to efficiency and equity, I consider political justice as a value in evaluating tax policy. By political justice, I mean a democratic system that prioritizes the opportunity for more people to have a voice in collective decisions (political voice equality or PVE). Thus, a tax policy …

Abortion Pills, David S. Cohen, Greer Donley, Rachel Rebouché

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Abortion is now illegal in roughly a third of the country, but abortion pills are more widely available than ever before. Though antiabortion advocates and legislators are attacking pills with all manner of strategies, clinics, websites, and informal networks are openly facilitating the distribution of abortion pills, legally and illegally, across the United States. This Article is the first to explain this defining aspect of the post-Roe environment and the novel issues it raises at the level of state law, federal policy, and on-the-ground advocacy.

This Article first details antiabortion strategies to stop pills by any means necessary. These tactics …

A More Capacious Concept Of Church, Philip Hackney, Samuel D. Brunson

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United States tax law provides churches with extra benefits and robust protection from IRS enforcement actions. Churches and religious organizations are automatically exempt from the income tax without needing to apply to be so recognized and without needing to file a tax return. Beyond that, churches are protected from audit by stringent procedures. There are good reasons to consider providing a distance between church and state, including the state tax authority. In many instances, Congress granted churches preferential tax treatment to try to avoid excess entanglement between church and state, though that preferential treatment often just shifts the locus of …

Color Of Creatorship - Author's Response, Anjali Vats

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This essay is the author's response to three reviews of The Color of Creatorship written by notable intellectual property scholars and published in the IP Law Book Review.

Medication Abortion Exceptionalism, Greer Donley

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Restrictive state abortion laws garner a large amount of attention in the national conversation and legal scholarship, but less known is a federal abortion policy that significantly curtails access to early abortion in all fifty states. The policy limits the distribution of mifepristone, the only drug approved to terminate a pregnancy so long as it is within the first ten weeks. Unlike most drugs, which can be prescribed by licensed healthcare providers and picked up at most pharmacies, the Food and Drug Administration only allows certified providers to prescribe mifepristone, and only allows those providers to distribute the drug to …

White Supremacy, Police Brutality, And Family Separation: Preventing Crimes Against Humanity Within The United States, Elena Baylis

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Although the United States tends to treat crimes against humanity as a danger that exists only in authoritarian or war-torn states, in fact, there is a real risk of crimes against humanity occurring within the United States, as illustrated by events such as systemic police brutality against Black Americans, the federal government’s family separation policy that took thousands of immigrant children from their parents at the southern border, and the dramatic escalation of White supremacist and extremist violence culminating in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. In spite of this risk, the United States does not have …

Dark Money Darker? Irs Shutters Collection Of Donor Data, Philip Hackney

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The IRS ended a long-time practice of requiring most nonprofits to disclose substantial donor names and addresses on the nonprofit annual tax return. It is largely seen as a battle over campaign finance rather than tax enforcement. Two of the nonprofits involved, social welfare organizations and business leagues, are referred to as “dark money” organizations because they allow individuals to influence elections while maintaining donor anonymity. Many in the campaign finance community are concerned that this change means wealthy donors can avoid campaign finance laws and have no reason to fear being discovered. In this Article, I focus on whether …

Political Justice And Tax Policy: The Social Welfare Organization Case, Philip Hackney

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In addition to valuing whether a tax policy is equitable, efficient, and administrable, I argue we should ask if a tax policy is politically just. Others have made a similar case for valuing political justice as democracy in implementing just tax policy. I join that call and highlight why it matters in one arena – tax exemption. I argue that politically just tax policy does the least harm to the democratic functioning of our government and may ideally enhance it. I argue that our right to an equal voice in collective decision making is the most fundamental value of political …

The Life Of Administrative Democracy, Joshua Galperin

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Imagine if Congress, the President, and the industries they hoped to regulate all decided that neither politically isolated bureaucrats nor a popularly sanctioned President should wield the power to administer Congress’ laws, to make legislative-type policy, to enforce that policy, and to adjudicate disputes under it. Imagine if there were another experiment, one that has persisted, but few have noticed.

Imagine no longer. Overlooked by most, there is a model for federal administration that does not rely on isolated administrators or Presidential control, but instead on elected bureaucrats. Today, the United States Department of Agriculture houses over 7,500 elected farmer-bureaucrats …

The International Law Commission's Soft Law Influence, Elena Baylis

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Since the 1990s, the International Law Commission has increasingly produced soft law, such as principles and draft conclusions, in addition to hard law like draft treaty articles This essay explores the implications of the International Law Commission’s transition toward a greater emphasis on soft law. Soft law is an effective vehicle for the International Law Commission’s mission of codification and progressive development of international law; the International Law Commission’s involvement increases the clarity and accessibility of international law norms and promotes a dynamic, synergistic relationship between hard law and soft law that contributes to the effective evolution of international law. …

Regulation Of Encapsulated Placenta, Greer Donley

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The practice of placenta encapsulation is rapidly growing. It typically involves post-partum mothers consuming their placentas as pills in the months after childbirth. The perceived benefits include improved mood and energy, reduced bleeding and pain, and greater milk supply. But these effects are unproven, and consumption comes with health risks. The rise of this trend has sparked a vigorous debate in the recent medical literature, but this Article is the first to consider the legal implications of placenta encapsulation. This Article examines whether FDA should regulate encapsulated placenta, and if so, whether it should be regulated as a drug, supplement, …

Administrative Truth: Comments On Cortez’S Information Mischief, David Thaw

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This short essay responds to Professor Nathan Cortez’s argument describing an emerging “information policy” reflecting on the practices of President Donald J. Trump’s executive administration (the “Trump Administration”) regarding the development, release, and management of official information. Professor Cortez argues that viewed holistically, this information policy suggests a shift toward the use of information practices by administrative agencies for purposes other than “neutral principles” and rather focusing on a “more cynical [use] of government information.”

This argument may be well-founded, and the Trump Administration certainly has been criticized widely for the relationship between its public statements and widespread media interpretation …

Pragmatism, Pragtivism, And Private Environmental Governance, Joshua Galperin

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This essay is an edited version of a talk presented at the 2017 J.B. & Maurice C. Shapiro Environmental Law Symposium on Private Environmental Governance at the George Washington University. It is adapted from a longer article entitled Trust Me, I’m A Pragmatist: A Partially Pragmatic Critique of Pragmatic Activism, in 42 Colum. J. Envtl. L. 425 (2017).

Board Rooms And Jail Cells- Assessing Ngo Approaches To Private Environmental Governance, Joshua Galperin

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Staff of the Nature Conservancy often find themselves in corporate board rooms. Staff of Greenpeace often find themselves in jail cells. The Nature Conservancy (TNC) prides itself on its non-confrontational, collaborative deal making, partnering closely with corporations like chemical giant Dow and agricultural lightning rod Monsanto. Both Dow and Monsanto, in fact, are members of TNC’s Business Council along with the likes of BP, Shell, and Cargill. Greenpeace, on the other hand, prides itself on direct action, civil disobedience, and non-violent confrontation. Greenpeace has launched combative operations against Dow, Monsanto, and other TNC collaborators. While business partners praise TNC’s cooperative …

Federalism, Convergence, And Divergence In Constitutional Property, Gerald S. Dickinson

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Federal law exerts a gravitational force on state actors, resulting in widespread conformity to federal law and doctrine at the state level. This has been well recognized in the literature, but scholars have paid little attention to this phenomenon in the context of constitutional property. Traditionally, state takings jurisprudence—in both eminent domain and regulatory takings—has strongly gravitated towards the Supreme Court’s takings doctrine. This long history of federal-state convergence, however, was disrupted by the Court’s controversial public use decision in Kelo v. City of New London. In the wake of Kelo, states resisted the Court’s validation of the …

The Broken Medicare Appeals System: Failed Regulatory Solutions And The Promise Of Federal Litigation, Greer Donley

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The Medicare Appeals System is broken. For years, the System has been unable to accommodate a growing number of appeals. The result is a backlog so large that even if no new appeals were filed, it would take the System a decade or more to empty. Healthcare providers wait many years for their appeals to be heard before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), and because the government recoups providers' Medicare payments while they wait, the delays cause them serious financial harm. Even worse, providers are more likely than not to prevail before the ALJ, proving that the payment should never …

Eating Is Not Political Action, Joshua Galperin, Graham Downey, D. Lee Miller

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Food and environment are cultural stalwarts. Picture the red barn and solitary farmer toiling over fruited plains; or purple mountains majesty reflected in pristine waters. Agriculture and environment are core, distinct, American mythologies that we know are more intertwined than our stories reveal.

To create policy at the interface of such centrally important and overlapping American ideals, there are two options. Passive governance fosters markets in which participants make individual choices that aggregate into inadvertent collective action. In contrast, assertive governance allows the public, mediated through elected officials, to enact intentional, goal oriented policy.

American mythologies of food and environment …

Trust Me, I'M A Pragmatist: A Partially Pragmatic Critique Of Pragmatic Activism, Joshua Galperin

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Pragmatism is a robust philosophy, vernacular hand waiving, a method of judicial and administrative decisionmaking, and, more recently, justification for a certain type of political activism. While philosophical, judicial, and administrative pragmatism have garnered substantial attention and analysis from scholars, we have been much stingier with pragmatic activism — that which, in the spirit of the 21st Century’s 140-character limit, I will call “pragtivism.” This Article is intended as an introduction to pragtivism, a critique of the practice, and a constructive framework for addressing some of my critiques.

To highlight the contours of pragtivism, this Article tells the story of …

Prop Up The Heavenly Chorus? Labor Unions, Tax Policy, And Political Voice Equality, Philip Hackney

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Labor Unions are nonprofit organizations that provide laborers a voice before their employer and governments. They are classic interest groups. United States federal tax policy exempts labor unions from the income tax, but effectively prohibits labor union members from deducting union dues from the individual income tax. Because these two policies directly impact the political voice of laborers, I consider primarily the value of political fairness in evaluating these tax policies rather than the typical tax critique of economic fairness or efficiency. I apply a model that presumes our democracy should aim for one person, one political voice. For the …

Cybersecurity Stovepiping, David Thaw

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Most readers of this Article probably have encountered – and been frustrated by – password complexity requirements. Such requirements have become a mainstream part of contemporary culture: "the more complex your password is, the more secure you are, right?" So the cybersecurity experts tell us… and policymakers have accepted this "expertise" and even adopted such requirements into law and regulation.

This Article asks two questions. First, do complex passwords actually achieve the goals many experts claim? Does using the password "Tr0ub4dor&3" or the passphrase "correcthorsebatterystaple" actually protect your account? Second, if not, then why did such requirements become so widespread? …

Landowners' Fcc Dilemma: Rereading The Supreme Court's Armstrong Opinion After The Third Circuit's Depolo Ruling, Gerald S. Dickinson

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In Armstrong v. Exceptional Child Ctr., Inc., the Supreme Court took a turn in its refusal to provide avenues for relief to private actors against the state in federal court, finding that the Supremacy Clause does not provide for an implied right of action to sue to enjoin unconstitutional actions by state officers. Many critics of that decision, including the four dissenting Justices, question the wisdom of the ruling generally. However, from a property rights perspective, the decision sheds light on a dilemma unforeseen by many scholars and made most apparent by a recent Third Circuit decision, Jeffrey DePolo …

Defining And Closing The Hydraulic Fracturing Governance Gap, Joshua Galperin, Grace Heusner, Allison Sloto

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As recent examples in Texas and Colorado have shown, if local governments ban fracking, they risk pushback from state governments. This pushback, in turn, can result in preemption making an outright local ban on fracking self-defeating because it could ultimately result in less local control over the impacts of hydraulic fracturing. Given this potentially self-defeating nature of local fracking bans, local governments should address the impacts of fracking through more traditional local governance mechanisms that do not pose as great a risk to local authority.

On this premise, this Article seeks to make the case for the importance of, and …

Value Hypocrisy And Policy Sincerity: A Food Law Case Study, Joshua Galperin

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It is tempting to say that in 2017 there is a unique problem of hypocrisy in politics, where words and behaviors are so often in opposition. In fact, hypocrisy is nothing new. A robust legal and psychological literature on the importance of procedural justice demonstrates a longstanding concern with developing more just governing processes. One of the important features of this scholarship is that it does not focus only on the consequences of policymaking, in which behaviors, but not words, are relevant. Instead, it respects the intrinsic importance of fair process, lending credence not only to votes but also to …

Reflections On Seminole Rock: The Past, Present, And Future Of Deference To Agency Regulatory Interpretations, Amy J. Wildermuth, Sanne H. Knudsen

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Seminole Rock (or Auer) deference has captured the attention of scholars, policymakers, and the judiciary. That is why Notice & Comment, the blog of the Yale Journal on Regulation and the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice, hosted an online symposium from September 12 to September 23, 2016 on the subject. This symposium contains over 20 contributions addressing different aspects of Seminole Rock deference.

Resilience And Raisins: Partial Takings And Coastal Climate Change Adaptation, Joshua Galperin, Zahir Hadi Tajani

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The increased need for government-driven coastal resilience projects will lead to a growing number of claims for “partial takings” of coastal property. Much attention has been paid to what actions constitute a partial taking, but there is less clarity about how to calculate just compensation for such takings, and when compensation should be offset by the value of benefits conferred to the property owner. While the U.S. Supreme Court has an analytically consistent line of cases on compensation for partial takings, it has repeatedly failed (most recently in Horne v. U.S. Department of Agriculture) to articulate a clear rule. The …

Unearthing The Lost History Of Seminole Rock, Amy J. Wildermuth, Sanne H. Knudsen

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In 1945, the Supreme Court blessed a lesser known type of agency deference in Bowles v. Seminole Rock. Also known as Auer deference, it affords deference to agency interpretations of their own regulations. Courts regularly defer to agencies under this doctrine, regardless of where the interpretations first appear or how long-standing they are. Recently members of the Supreme Court have signaled a willingness to reconsider, and perhaps jettison, Seminole Rock. We agree. Seminole Rock has been widely accepted but surprisingly disconnected from any analysis of its origins and justifications. This Article — the first historical explication of Seminole …

Encouraging Maternal Sacrifice: How Regulations Governing The Consumption Of Pharmaceuticals During Pregnancy Prioritize Fetal Safety Over Maternal Health And Autonomy, Greer Donley

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Pregnant women are routinely faced with the stressful decision of whether to consume needed medications during their pregnancies. Because the risks associated with pharmaceutical drug consumption during pregnancy are largely unknown, pregnant women both inadvertently consume dangerous medications and avoid needed drugs. Both outcomes are harmful to pregnant women and their fetuses. This unparalleled lack of drug safety information is a result of ill-conceived, paternalistic regulations in two areas of the law: regulations governing ethical research in human subjects and regulations that dictate the required labels on drugs. The former categorizes pregnant women as “vulnerable” and thus precludes them from …

Taxing The Unheavenly Chorus: Why Section 501(C)(6) Trade Associations Are Undeserving Of Tax Exemption, Philip Hackney

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Our federal, state, and local governments provide a subsidy that enhances the political voice of business interests. This article discusses the federal subsidy for business interests provided through the Internal Revenue Code (“Code”) and argues why we should end that subsidy. Under the same section that provides exemption from income tax for charitable organizations, the Code also exempts nonprofit organizations classified as “business leagues, chambers of commerce, real-estate boards, boards of trade, or professional football leagues.” Theory supporting tax exemption states that we should subsidize nonprofit organizations that provide goods or services that are undersupplied by the market. A charitable …

Charitable Organization Oversight: Rules V. Standards, Philip Hackney

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Congress has traditionally utilized standards as a means of communicating charitable tax law in the Code. In the past fifteen years, however, Congress has increasingly turned to rules to stop fraud and abuse in the charitable sector. I review the rules versus standards debate to evaluate this trend. Are Congressional rules the best method for regulating the charitable sector? While the complex changing nature of charitable purpose would suggest standards are better, the inadequacy of IRS enforcement and the large number of unsophisticated charitable organizations both augur strongly in favor of rules. Congress, however, is not the ideal institution to …

Data Breach (Regulatory) Effects, David Thaw

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No abstract provided.