Law Commons^™

Revising The Tax Law: The Tcja And Its Place In The History Of Tax Reform, Jennifer Bird-Pollan

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Tax reform in the United States seems like a nearly unending process.

Despite this nearly constant tweaking of the law, there has not been a major

revision of the tax law in the U.S. since the bipartisan efforts that led to the

1986 tax reform. The law known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (or "TCJA")

of 2017 (which most commentators continue to call it, and which title I will

use here, although the title was not formally enacted as part of the bill, leaving

the bill without an official name) represents the first major piece of tax

legislation …

Local Democracy On The Ballot, Joshua A. Douglas

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Essay, focusing particularly on voter-backed local election rules, proceeds in three parts. Part I highlights how local laws play a significant role in dictating voting rights and election rules. Too often election law scholars focus solely on federal or state law. But local laws are also important in defining the right to vote and providing rules for our democracy. New local election law experiments in one place can highlight innovative reforms that other cities and states may eventually adopt. This avenue to election law reform is particularly important given the current political climate.

Part II considers local ballot initiatives …

Data Beyond Borders: Mutual Legal Assistance In The Internet Era, Andrew K. Woods

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The global nature of today’s Internet services presents a unique challenge to international law enforcement cooperation. On a daily basis, law enforcement agents in one country seek access to data that is beyond their jurisdictional reach; as one industry analyst put it, there has been, “an internationalization of evidence.” In order to gain lawful access to data that is subject to another state’s jurisdiction, law enforcement agents must request mutual legal assistance (MLA) from the country that can legally compel the data’s disclosure. But the MLA regime has not been updated to manage the enormous rise of requests for MLA. …

Pfo Law Reform, A Crucial First Step Towards Sentencing Sanity In Kentucky, Robert G. Lawson

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The purpose of this article is to engage in some analysis and discussion of the part of this sentencing law that cries out loudest for reform (the state's persistent felony offender law), reform that in short order would begin to deflate the population that has our prisons and jails grossly overcrowded. In this analysis and discussion, there is some brief consideration of the justifications used to support repeat offender laws (Part I), a segment on the history and evolution of Kentucky's law (Part II), an examination of a selection of repeat offender laws from other states (Part III), a report …

The Future Of Social Security: Principles To Guide Reform, Kathryn L. Moore

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

On February 12, 2008, the nation's first Baby Boomer, Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, was the first of her generation to receive a Social Security retirement benefit. Born one second after midnight on January 1, 1946, Ms. Casey-Kirschling was born just eleven years after the Social Security system was originally enacted, nine years after the first Social Security payroll taxes were collected, and six years after the system first began to pay monthly retirement benefits.

"As the nation's first Baby Boomer, Ms. Casey-Kirschling is leading what is often referred to as America's silver tsunami. Over the next two decades, nearly eighty million Americans …

Social Security Reform: Fundamental Restructuring Or Incremental Change?, Kathryn L. Moore

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In light of Social Security's long-term deficit, reform of the system appears inevitable. Commentators and policymakers have offered a wide range of possible reforms. This Article describes and analyzes five possible types of reform: (1) individual accounts, (2) progressive price indexing, (3) general revenue and/or estate tax revenue financing, (4) increasing the maximum taxable wage base, and (5) increasing the normal retirement. The Article opposes the first two proposed changes, individual accounts and progressive price indexing, because they would fundamentally restructure the current system. The Article recommends that Social Security's financing difficulties be addressed by a combination of estate tax …

Privatization Of Social Security: Misguided Reform, Kathryn L. Moore

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This article begins by briefly describing the social security program. It then discusses the reasons for social security's widespread popularity and its impending funding crisis. The article goes on to briefly describe some of the pending privatization proposals. The article concludes by discussing the practical and theoretical problems with privatizing social security. Specifically, it describes the investment risk participants face under a privatized system and the transition problems created by converting to such a system. Finally, this article explains why the privatization proposals promote misguided paternalism and misconceive the role social security should play in our national retirement system.

Mass Tort Litigation: Congress's Silent, But Deadly, Reform Effort, Mary J. Davis

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This article explores the ways in which The Common Sense Product Liability and Legal

Reform Act (“Act”) treats mass tort litigation issues. The Act does so both directly and indirectly. The direct methods of reform are mostly industry-specific and, thus, almost inconsequential in contrast to the indirect treatment. The indirect, almost clandestine, methods of reform are the most insidious and provide the most cause for concern as Congress once again attempts to "reform" products liability by reintroducing the Act in 1997. Given the President's early indication that a reform measure could meet with his approval, but that this one in …

Prison Reform Issues For The Eighties: Modification And Dissolution Of Injunctions In The Federal Courts, Sarah N. Welling, Barbara W. Jones

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

During the past two decades, federal courts have become involved in the supervision of state and local prison systems. This supervisory role is the result of a new type of litigation, the institutional reform lawsuit. These lawsuits originate when prisoners sue state or local prison administrators, alleging unconstitutional conditions of confinement. Plaintiffs usually seek a permanent injunction outlining a plan to eliminate the offending conditions. As prison litigation matured, the normal evolution of these lawsuits led to new questions taking center stage in the 1980's, questions of injunction, modification, and dissolution.

This article begins with a summary examination of prison …

Financial Screening In Criminal Cases—Impractical And Irrelevant, William H. Fortune

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In 1970 Chief Justice Burger, commenting on the work of the ABA Advisory Committee, compared the criminal justice system to a three-legged stool, one leg the judge, the second leg the prosecution, and the third leg the defense lawyer: "We concluded very quickly that that third leg in this context was as essential as the third leg of a stool. We have not quite said it ought to be jurisdictional that you have three parts to this enterprise but we have come very, very close to it." It is time to admit the overriding social need for attorney representation and …

Kentucky Penal Code: The Culpable Mental States And Related Matters, Robert G. Lawson

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

All efforts to improve the criminal law of this commonwealth prior to 1972 were directed toward relatively narrow problems. Legislative changes in the law had been made from time to time, almost always without conscious regard for the manner in which related principles were affected. Defects of considerable importance resulted. The criminal law became substantially disjointed and difficult of administration. Unjust and inequitable treatment of offenders was more prominent than its opposite. In some instances sanctions were clearly inadequate for the type of behavior sought to be controlled. In others they were grossly disproportionate to the social harms used to …

Venue Of Civil Actions In Kentucky, William H. Fortune

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The purpose of this paper is primarily to analyze Kentucky’s venue statutes, and secondarily to suggest the path to reform. The paper is divided into four parts. Part I is a brief history of the confusion in Kentucky between jurisdiction and venue. Some exposure to this history is essential to an understanding of the older cases, which in some areas are the only cases in point. Part II is an analysis of the four major venue statutes in KRS Chapter 454: KRS § 452.400—actions involving land; KRS § 452.450-actions against corporations; KRS § 452.460—actions for personal injury or property damage; …