Law Commons^™

Rules Of The Road: The Struggle For Safety And The Unmet Promise Of Federalism, Sara C. Bronin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

American streets have become increasingly dangerous. 2020 saw the highest year-over-year increase in roadway death rates in 96 years, and the last year for which we have data on non-drivers, 2018, was the was the deadliest year for pedestrians and cyclists in three decades. Though this resurgence of road violence has many complex causes, what makes American roads uniquely deadly are laws that lock in two interrelated design problems: unfriendly streets and unsafe vehicles.

Design standards articulate how streets and vehicles look and function. As they have been enshrined in law, they favor drivers and their passengers over any other …

Connecticut Cities, Towns Cutting Red Tape Amid Covid-19 Crisis, Sara C. Bronin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Over the last two weeks, Governor Ned Lamont has issued two executive orders that have brought sweeping changes in the way municipalities across Connecticut function in the COVID-19 era. This short piece summarizes the changes in the executive orders as they relate to municipal procedures and decision-making.

Medical And Mental Health Implications Of Gestational Surrogacy And Trends In State Regulations On Compensated Gestational Surrogacy: A Report Submitted To The New York State Legislature, Steven Spandorfer, Allison Petrini, Sital Kalantry

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

As the New York State legislature considers legalizing compensated gestational surrogacy this legislative session, this report provides insight into (1) the impact of surrogacy on the medical and mental health of women who become surrogates and the children born through gestational surrogacy, and (2) how other state legislatures have addressed compensated gestational surrogacy in recent years.

Medical research demonstrates that there is significant growth in gestational surrogacy in the United States. The number of families working with gestational surrogates has quadrupled in the new millennium. Weill Cornell Medicine physicians and medical students reviewed the published literature on the medical and …

Zoning For Families, Sara C. Bronin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Is a group of eight unrelated adults and three children living together and sharing meals, household expenses, and responsibilities—and holding themselves out to the world to have long-term commitments to each other—a family? Not according to most zoning codes—including that of Hartford, Connecticut, where the preceding scenario presented itself a few years ago. Zoning, which is the local regulation of land use, almost always defines family, limiting those who may live in a dwelling unit to those who satisfy the zoning code’s definition. Often times, this definition is drafted in a way that excludes many modern living arrangements and preferences. …

Community-Scale Renewable Energy, Hannah J. Wiseman, Sara C. Bronin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

As the movement toward cleaner energy has gained momentum within the United States, a growing number of scholars and policymakers have made the case for community-scale renewable energy: mid-sized energy sources supported by resources pooled from several private parties in close geographic proximity. When built and utilized at the community level, these energy facilities may allow for economies of scale that their owners could not achieve working individually. Individual distributed generation, such as solar infrastructure on the roofs of homes, involves high transaction costs and creates relatively small impacts. At the same time, community-scale renewable energy has advantages over large-scale …

Curbing Energy Sprawl With Microgrids, Sara C. Bronin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Energy sprawl - the phenomenon of ever-increasing consumption of land, particularly in rural areas, required to site energy generation facilities - is a real and growing problem. Over the next twenty years, at least sixty-seven million acres of land will have been developed for energy projects, destroying wildlife habitats and fragmenting landscapes. According to one influential report, even renewable energy projects - especially large-scale projects that require large-scale transmission and distribution infrastructure - contribute to energy sprawl. This Article does not aim to stop large-scale renewable energy projects or even argue that policymakers focus solely on land use in determining …

The Quiet Revolution Revived: Sustainable Design, Land Use Regulation, And The States, Sara C. Bronin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Thirty-seven years ago, a book called The Quiet Revolution in Land Use Control argued that states would soon take over localities' long-held power over land use regulation. In the authors' view, this quiet revolution would occur when policymakers and the public recognized that certain problems - like environmental destruction - were too big for localities to handle on their own. Although the quiet revolution has not yet occurred, this Article suggests that it will, and should, occur alongside the ever-growing green building movement. This movement presents practical and ideological challenges to our current system of regulating land use. This Article …

Wrestling With Muds To Pin Down The Truth About Special Districts, Sara C. Bronin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Federal, state, and local governments encourage and empower special districts—board-run, special purpose local government units that are administratively and fiscally independent from general purpose local governments. Special districts receive incentives, grants, and freedom from limitations (such as limitations on tax and debt) imposed on general purpose local governments. Special districts are treated favorably because they are small in size, which theoretically means they foster democratic participation; are limited in purpose, meaning that states can tailor the special districts' powers to serve specific problems; and are viewed as efficient solutions to specific problems. Though special districts have tripled in number over …

Gone Too Far: Measure 37 And The Perils Of Over-Regulating Land Use, Sara C. Bronin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In November 2004, Oregonians passed a ballot measure, Measure 37, that presented a radical remedy for landowners by preventing the state from engaging in regulatory takings without compensating landowners. It required that local governments either monetarily compensate landowners whose properties fall in value as a result of land use regulations or, under certain conditions, exempt those landowners from the regulations altogether. At its core, Measure 37 addressed Oregon voters' concern that - for all the good the land use system had done - the government had gone too far in prohibiting landowners from using their land as they saw fit. …

The "Blaine" Debate: Must States Fund Religious Schools?, Laura S. Underkuffler

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, the United States Supreme Court held-by a vote of 5 to 4-that the funding of religious schools with taxpayer money through voucher programs does not violate the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution. Emboldened by this success, voucher proponents now attack state constitutional provisions (often called "Blaine Amendments") that prohibit taxpayer funding of religious schools. These state provisions, which may stand in the way of religious-school voucher programs, are attacked as violative of the federal Constitution, rooted in anti-religious bias, or otherwise illegal or unwise.

It is my view that efforts to force states …

State Attorney General Actions, The Tobacco Litigation, And The Doctrine Of Parens Patriae, Richard P. Ieyoub, Theodore Eisenberg

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

On November 23, 1998, a master settlement agreement settled the lawsuits of forty-six states against the tobacco industry. The settlement brings about historic public health initiatives, such as the end to outdoor advertising, the ban on using cartoon characters in advertisements, and the creation of public education trusts. It also provides that the settling tobacco manufacturers will pay over $200 billion over the next twenty-five years. Some of the legal theories upon which states relied have implications beyond the tobacco litigation. Of particular importance is the application of the theory of parens patriae in the tobacco litigation. That theory may …

The Health Security Act: Coercion And Distrust For The Market, H. Richard Beresford

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Constructive Trusts In Bankruptcy, Emily Sherwin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Commercial Law And Contracts – 1961 Oregon Survey, Robert S. Summers

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court And The Decline Of State Power, Roger C. Cramton

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court And State Power To Deal With Subversion And Loyalty, Roger C. Cramton

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In this Article, Professor Cramton discusses the effect of recent United States Supreme Court decisions on state control of Subversive activities. He finds that while the decisions to some extent restrict state activity in this area, and though the Court in its decisions gives the impression of vacillation and confusion, some definite and workable principles are emerging which contribute to a resolution of the inherent conflict of federal-state relations which these issues pose. He concludes that as the states grow more sophisticated in their treatment of these issues, so the policy of judicial self-restraint will become more influential in restricting …

Pennsylvania V. Nelson: A Case Study In Federal Pre-Emption, Roger C. Cramton

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.