Law Commons^™

The Eagle’S Eye On The Rising Dragon: Why The United States Has Shifted Its View Of China, Jackson Craig Scott

Baker Scholar Projects

Since 1978, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has long been viewed as an economic trading partner of the United States of America (US). The PRC has grown to be an economic powerhouse, and the US directly helped with that process and still benefits from it. However, during the mid-2010’s, US rhetoric began to turn sour against the PRC. The American government rhetoric toward the PRC, beginning with the Obama administration, switched. As Trump’s administration came along, they bolstered this rhetoric from non-friendly to more or less hostile. Then, Biden’s administration strengthened Trump’s rhetoric. Over the past ten years or …

The Politics And Ethics Of Immigration In A Commercial Republic, Kiara Palomares

Honors Program Theses and Projects

The quote on the Statue of Liberty reads: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The retched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” These words are central to the mythology of America as a nation of immigrants and, to the extent that this myth is accurate, one would expect that after experiencing multiple waves of immigration the United States (US) would have developed a set of principles guiding how legislators think about and frame immigration policy. This would not be …

Local Elected Officials’ Receptivity To Refugee Resettlement In The United States, Robert Shaffer, Lauren E. Pinson, Jonathan A. Chu, Beth A. Simmons

All Faculty Scholarship

Local leaders possess significant and growing authority over refugee resettlement, yet we know little about their attitudes toward refugees. In this article, we use a conjoint experiment to evaluate how the attributes of hypothetical refugee groups influence local policymaker receptivity toward refugee resettlement. We sample from a novel, national panel of current local elected officials, who represent a broad range of urban and rural communities across the United States. We find that many local officials favor refugee resettlement regardless of refugee attributes. However, officials are most receptive to refugees whom they perceive as a strong economic and social fit within …

Do We Intend To Keep Our Republic?, John M. Greabe

Law Faculty Scholarship

[Excerpt] Commentators recently have reminded us of a famous statement Benjamin Franklin allegedly made upon exiting Independence Hall on the final day of the 1787 Constitutional Convention. When asked whether the proposed Constitution would establish a monarchy or a republic, Franklin supposedly answered: "A republic, if you can keep it."

The anecdote, which both inspired the title of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch's recent book and was recounted by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi when she announced the impeachment inquiry into the conduct of the president, reminds us that our republican form of government is not to be taken …

Naming Names: The Impact Of Supreme Court Opinion Attribution On Citizen Assessment Of Policy Outcomes, Scott S. Boddery, Laura P. Moyer, Jeff Yates

Political Science Faculty Publications

The manner in which political institutions convey their policy outcomes can have important implications for how the public views institutions' policy decisions. This paper explores whether the way in which the U.S. Supreme Court communicates its policy decrees affects how favorably members of the public assess its decisions. Specifically, we investigate whether attributing a decision to the nation's High Court or to an individual justice influences the public's agreement with the Court's rulings. Using an experimental design, we find that when a Supreme Court outcome is ascribed to the institution as a whole, rather than to a particular justice, people …

Citizens United V. Federal Election Commission, And The Inherent Unfairness To The “Un-United” American Citizen, Christopher J. Kantor

Writing Across the Curriculum

Among contemporary United States Supreme Court rulings that have impacted the structure of our nation, the 2010 case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission resulted in significant political campaign finance reform that gave rise to an election system influenced by money, corporations, and powerful individuals. The ruling of Citizens United allows for the unlimited spending of corporations and labor unions on political expenditures and the limited disclosures of these campaign donors. This overturned precedent established in the 1990 case Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and the 2003 case McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, the respective rulings of which …

Supreme Court Term In Review: Ot 2016, Donald Roth

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"Even though the Court is expected to be apolitical, there are many who assume that the judges are beholden to party politics."

Posting about recent major cases before the U.S. Supreme Court from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

http://inallthings.org/supreme-court-term-in-review-ot-2016/

International Law In The Obama Administration's Pivot To Asia: The China Seas Disputes, The Trans- Pacific Partnership, Rivalry With The Prc, And Status Quo Legal Norms In U.S. Foreign Policy, Jacques Delisle

All Faculty Scholarship

The Obama administration’s “pivot” or “rebalance” to Asia has shaped the Obama administration’s impact on international law. The pivot or rebalance has been primarily about regional security in East Asia (principally, the challenges of coping with a rising and more assertive China—particularly in the context of disputes over the South China Sea—and resulting concerns among regional states), and secondarily about U.S. economic relations with the region (including, as a centerpiece, the Trans-Pacific Partnership). In both areas, the Obama administration has made international law more significant as an element of U.S. foreign policy and has sought to present the U.S. as …

The Voting Rights In Winter: The Death Of A Superstatute, Guy-Uriel Charles, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

Faculty Scholarship

The Voting Rights Act (“VRA”), the most successful civil rights statute in American history, is dying. In the recent Shelby County decision, the U.S. Supreme Court signaled that the anti-discrimination model, long understood as the basis for the VRA as originally enacted, is no longer the best way to understand today’s voting rights questions. As a result, voting rights activists need to face up to the fact that voting rights law and policy are at a critical moment of transition. It is likely the case that the superstatute we once knew as the VRA is no more and is never …

Transparency Rules In U.S. Elections Need Updating To Reflect 21st Century Realities, Rebecca Green

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

China's Nine-Dashed Map: Maritime Source Of Geopolitical Tension, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

The South China Sea (SCS) is becoming an increasingly contentious source of geopolitical tension due to its significance as an international trade route, possessor of potentially significant oil and natural gas resources, China’s increasing diplomatic and military assertiveness, and the U.S.’ recent and ongoing Pacific Pivot strategy. Countries as varied as China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia and other adjacent countries have claims on this region’s islands and natural resources. China has been particularly assertive in asserting its SCS claims by creating a nine-dash line map claiming to give it de facto maritime control over this entire region without regard to …

Mapping A Post-Shelby County Contingency Strategy, Guy-Uriel Charles, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay was written for the Yale Law Journal Online Symposium on the future of section 5 of the Voting Rights Act after Shelby County v. Holder. Professors Guy-Uriel E. Charles and Luis Fuentes-Rohwer argue that voting rights activists ought to be prepared for a future in which section 5 is not part of the landscape. If the Court strikes down section 5, an emerging ecosystem of private entities and organized interest groups of various stripes—what they call institutional intermediaries—may be willing and able to mimic the elements that made section 5 an effective regulatory device. As voting rights …

United States Sovereign Debt: A Thought Experiment On Default And Restructuring, Charles W. Mooney Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

This chapter adopts the working assumption that it is conceivable that at some time in the future it would be in the interest of the United States to restructure its sovereign debt (i.e., to reduce the principal amount). It addresses in particular U.S. Treasury Securities. The chapter first provides an overview of the intermediated, tiered holding system for book-entry Treasuries. For the first time the chapter then explores whether and how—logistically and legally—such a restructuring could be effected. It posits the sort of dire scenario that might make such a restructuring advantageous. It then outlines a novel scheme …

From Rapists To Superpredators: What The Practice Of Capital Punishment Says About Race, Rights And The American Child, Robyn Linde

Faculty Publications

At the turn of the 20^th century, the United States was widely considered to be a world leader in matters of child protection and welfare, a reputation lost by the century’s end. This paper suggests that the United States’ loss of international esteem concerning child welfare was directly related to its practice of executing juvenile offenders. The paper analyzes why the United States continued to carry out the juvenile death penalty after the establishment of juvenile courts and other protections for child criminals. Two factors allowed the United States to continue the juvenile death penalty after most states in …

Think Outside The Cell: Are Binding Detention Standards The Most Effective Strategy To Prevent Abuses Of Detained Illegal Aliens?, Federico D. Burlon

Political Science Honors Projects

In the last twenty years the U.S. government has increasingly utilized detention to control illegal immigration. This practice has become controversial because it has caused numerous in-custody abuses and deaths of immigrants, asylum seekers, refugees and even citizens. Immigrant rights advocates have called for the passage of binding detention standards to prevent in-custody abuses. This thesis’s policy analysis reveals, however, that while they may finesse the practice of immigration detention, such binding standards would be ineffective in protecting immigrants’ rights. Instead this policy analysis calls for and explains the feasibility of discontinuing the practice of mass immigrant detention.

Section 2: 2008 Election And The Supreme Court, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

George W. Norris's Persuasion In The Campaign For The Unicameral Legislature, Phillip K. Tompkins

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The people of forty-seven states in this country are governed by bicameral or two-house legislatures. The people of the forty-eighth, Nebraskans, are governed by a unicameral or one-house legislature.

On November 6, 1934, the people of Nebraska provided by amendment to their state constitution, a one-house legislature to be composed of between thirty and fifty members to be elected on a non-partisan ballot. The number of solons was later set at forty-three, and 1957 marked the twentieth anniversary of the first unicameral session in Nebraska.

Senator George W. Norris is generally regarded by all as the father of the unicameral …