Law Commons^™

Yes, Virginia: The President Can Deploy Federal Troops To Prevent The Loss Of A Major American City From A Devastating Natural Catastrophe, Michael Greenberger

Michael Greenberger

As a direct response to the lackadaisical and much criticized federal handling of Hurricane Katrina, a critical provision within the Fiscal Year 2007 Defense Authorization Act amended in October 2006 the Insurrection Act to allow the President to deploy Federal troops to respond to catastrophic natural disasters and other major domestic emergencies without a prior request from affected state or local governments. This amendment was passed over universal and bipartisan opposition by the Nation's governors, all of whom claimed that this provision upends the delicate balance between Federal and state responsibilities for responding to natural disasters. In fact, this amendment …

False Conflict: Who's In Charge Of National Public Health Catastrophes, Michael Greenberger

Michael Greenberger

Hurricane Katrina renewed an old debate concerning which level of government should lead the response effort to catastrophic disasters. Traditionally, emergency response is handled at the most local level possible. The National Response Plan (NRP) adheres to this tenet, while providing for extensive coordination between the federal government and states and localities, if necessary. In doing so, the NRP provides procedures to ensure that federal assets may be brought to bear, without stomping on the nation's time honored commitment to the principles of federalism.

Unfunded Environmental Mandates And The "New (New) Federalism": Devolution, Revolution, Or Reform, Rena Steinzor

Rena I. Steinzor

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court's Assault On Litigation: Why (And How) It Might Be A Good Thing For Health Law, Abigail R. Moncrieff

Abigail R. Moncrieff

In recent years, the Supreme Court has narrowed or eliminated private rights of action in many legal regimes, much to the chagrin of the legal academy. That trend has had a significant impact on health law; the Court’s decisions have eliminated the private enforcement mechanism for at least three important healthcare regimes: Medicaid, employer-sponsored insurance, and medical devices. In a similar trend outside the courts, state legislatures have capped noneconomic and punitive damages for medical malpractice litigation, weakening the tort system’s deterrent capacity in those states. This Article points out that the trend of eliminating private rights of action in …

How The Dissent Becomes The Majority: Using Federalism To Transform Coalitions In The U.S. Supreme Court, Vanessa Baird, Tonja Jacobi

Duke Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Free Speech Federalism, Adam Winkler

Michigan Law Review

For decades, constitutional doctrine has held that the Constitution's guarantee of freedom of speech applies equally to laws adopted by the federal, state, and local governments. Nevertheless, the identity of the government actor behind a law may be a significant, if unrecognized, factor in free speech cases. This Article reports the results of a comprehensive study of core free speech cases decided by the federal courts over a 14-year period. The study finds that speech-restrictive laws adopted by the federal government are far more likely to be upheld than similar laws adopted by state and local governments. Courts applying strict …

Harmonious Federalism In Support Of National Energy Goals – Increased Wind Renewable Energy, Ronald H. Rosenberg

Faculty Publications

American energy policy has slowly begun to change the mix in the sources of supply of electricity to residences, industry, and businesses. Renewable sources of electricity have been promoted as future contributors of large portions of the nation's electricity consumption. Wind power has been identified as a potentially substantial future electricity source contributing up to 20% of American demand 2030. To achieve these optimistic goals, there must be: (1) cost-effective, reliable energy technology; (2) sufficient investment capital to finance new construction; and (3) the existence of supportive governmental policies at all levels government. This article discusses the importance of inter-governmental …

Beyond The Employee Free Choice Act: Unleashing The States In Labor-Management Relations Policy, Henry H. Drummonds

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Federalism, Forum Shopping, And The Foreign Injury Paradox, Elizabeth T. Lear

William & Mary Law Review

This Article explores the contours of state regulatory power in the foreign injury context. The Supreme Court has long declined to question forum choice in domestic cases, apparently concluding that any other response would be inconsistent with our federalism. But move the injury offshore and the judicial deference to state regulatory supremacy evaporates. Federal judges subject forum choice in transnational tort actions to exacting scrutiny, routinely dismissing such claims on forum non conveniens grounds with no examination of the state interests at stake. This Article first considers whether the offshore nature of a foreign injury diminishes or even extinguishes traditional …

Contingent Constitutionalism: State And Local Criminal Laws And The Applicability Of Federal Constitutional Rights, Wayne A. Logan

William & Mary Law Review

Americans have long been bound by a shared sense of constitutional commonality, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly condemned the notion that federal constitutional rights should be allowed to depend on distinct state and local legal norms. In reality, however, federal rights do indeed vary, and they do so as a result of their contingent relationship to the diversity of state and local laws on which they rely. Focusing on criminal procedure rights in particular, this Article examines the benefits and detriments of constitutional contingency, and casts in new light many enduring understandings of American constitutionalism, including the effects of …

Contingent Constitutionalism: State And Local Criminal Laws And The Applicability Of Federal Constitutional Rights, Wayne A. Logan

Scholarly Publications

Americans have long been bound by a shared sense of constitutional commonality, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly condemned the notion that federal constitutional rights should be allowed to depend on distinct state and local legal norms. In reality, however, federal rights do indeed vary, and they do so as a result of their contingent relationship to the diversity of state and local laws on which they rely. Focusing on criminal procedure rights in particular, this Article examines the benefits and detriments of constitutional contingency, and casts in new light many enduring understandings of American constitutionalism, including the effects of …

Greenhouse Gas Regulation In Canada: Constitutional And Policy Dimensions, Shi-Ling Hsu, Robin Elliot

Scholarly Publications

Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions have risen dramatically since the 1997 negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol, and that rise has continued through Canada’s 2002 ratification of the Protocol. Along with economic dislocation, constitutional barriers to regulation have sometimes been cited as the reason for caution in regulating greenhouse gases. This article critically evaluates the constitutional arguments and examines the policy considerations surrounding various regulatory instruments that might be used to reduce greenhouse gases. We conclude that the Canadian constitution does not present any significant barriers to federal or provincial regulation and that policy considerations strongly favour the use of two instruments: …

Refuge From A Jurisprudence Of Doubt: Hohfeldian Analysis Of Constitutional Law, Allen Thomas O'Rourke

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Who Should Regulate? Federalism And Conflict In Regulation Of Green Buildings, Shari Shapiro

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Administrative Law In The Roberts Court: The First Four Years, Robin K. Craig

Robin K. Craig

Given Justice David Souter’s retirement in the summer of 2009, the four U.S. Supreme Court terms that began in October 2005 and ended in June 2009 constitute a first distinct phase of the Roberts Court. During those first four terms, moreover, the Court decided a number of cases relevant to the practice and structure of administrative law.

This Article provides a comprehensive survey and summary of the Supreme Court’s administrative-law-related decisions issued during this first phase of the Roberts Court. It organizes those decisions into three categories. Part I of this Article discusses the Supreme Court decisions that affect access …

Comparative Federalism And The Role Of Judiciary, Daniel Halberstam

Book Chapters

The distinctive feature of federalism is to locate the central and constituent governments' respective claims of organizational autonomy and jurisdictional authority within a set of privileged legal norms that are beyond the arena of daily politics. For the most part, the debate about the role of the judiciary as federal umpire has taken place within two separate disciplinary compartments: comparative politics and law. Building on recent e��orts to bring these two disciplines closer, this article provides a fresh look at three common criticisms of granting the central judiciary power to protect federalism. It argues that political safeguards of federalism are …

Harmonization Of International Legal Structure For Fostering Professional Services: Lessons From Early U.S. Federal-State Relations, Deth Sao

Deth Sao

In the current global marketplace, liberalization of trade in professional services (“services”) presents one of the biggest challenges and profitable opportunities for the international community. Changes in technology and state privatization polices over the past half century have made services the fastest growing sector in international trade. Despite such a transformation, the potential for further innovation and expansion in the services industries is in jeopardy. In response to public policy and regulatory concerns and political pressures to protect domestic jobs and industries, states have adopted a plethora of state-initiated discriminatory and restrictive policies against trade in services. Because existing international …

State Standards For Nationwide Products Revisited: Federalism, Green Building Codes, And Appliance Efficiency Standards, Alexandra B. Klass

Alexandra B. Klass

This Article considers the federal preemption of state standards for building appliances and places the issue within the ongoing federalism debate over the role of state standards for “nationwide products” such as automobiles, pharmaceuticals, and other consumer products. Notably, residential, commercial, and industrial buildings make up approximately 40 percent of total U.S. energy demand and the same percentage of U.S. carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, while the appliances within those buildings are responsible for 70 percent of building energy use, making appliance efficiency a central component of any national effort to reduce energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. For decades …

State Constitutionalism And The Right To Health Care, Elizabeth Leonard

Elizabeth A. Weeks

This Article examines state constitutions and health care rights. Notably, close to a third of states’ constitutions recognize health while the U.S. Constitution contains no reference. Ample scholarly commentary exists on the absence of a right to health care under the U.S. Constitution but little attention has been paid to state constitutional law. This Article begins by explaining the absence of a federal right and the rationale for looking to state constitutional protections for health. The Article then provides a comprehensive survey of state constitutional provisions and judicial decisions enforcing or interpreting them. The survey reveals certain common themes and …

Federal Demand Local Choice: Safeguarding The Notion Of Federalism In Education Law And Policy, Kamina A. Pinder

Kamina A Pinder

As the ESEA undergoes its next transformation under a new presidential administration, this article explores the appropriate federal and state roles in promoting and enforcing laws related to academic achievement, and the appropriate judicial role in interpreting them. Part I of this article provides an overview of how the modern federal role in education law and policy was shaped through politics and litigation. Part II explores the drastic changes that No Child Left Behind brought to education federalism through the lens of cooperation, coercion (enforcement), and competition. It then analyzes the appropriate role of the executive branch in enforcing educational …

The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act Of 2008: A Case Study Of The Need For Better Congressional Responses To Federalism Jurisprudence, Harper Jean Tobin

Harper Jean Tobin

The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA) is the first new civil rights statute enacted since the “federalism revolution” of 1995-2001, in which the Supreme Court announced new limitations on congressional authority. Among other things, these decisions invalidated civil rights remedies against states, declaring that Congress had failed to amass sufficient evidence of the need for legislation. Although passed in the shadow of these decisions, GINA’s limited legislative history makes it vulnerable to attack – potentially limiting its protections for millions of state employees. States will likely attack GINA on two grounds: first, that Congress relied only on its …

Federalism Accountability: “Agency-Forcing” Measures, Catherine M. Sharkey

Duke Law Journal

This Article takes as its starting point the "agency reference model" for judicial preemption decisions, adopting the foundational premise that courts should take advantage of what federal agencies, which are uniquely positioned to evaluate the impact of state regulation and common law liability upon federal regulatory schemes, have to offer. The Article's main focus is on the federalism dimension of the debate: Congress's and federal agencies' respective ability to serve as loci of meaningful debate with state governmental entities about the impact of federal regulatory schemes on state regulatory interests. Notwithstanding the dismal track record of federal agencies, which seems …

Federalization Snowballs: The Need For National Action In Medical Malpractice Reform, Abigail R. Moncrieff

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Because tort law and healthcare regulation are traditional state functions and because medical, legal, and insurance practices are localized, legal scholars have long believed that medical malpractice falls within the states' exclusive jurisdiction and sovereignty. This conventional view fails to consider the impact that federal healthcare programs have on the states' incentives to regulate. As a result of federal financing, each state externalizes some of the costs of its malpractice policy onto the federal government. The federal government therefore needs to take charge of medical malpractice in order to fix the spillover problem created by existing federal healthcare programs.

Importantly, …

Persistent Nonviolent Conflict With No Reconciliation: The Flemish And Walloons In Belgium, Robert Mnookin, Alain Verbeke

Law and Contemporary Problems

Mnookin and Verbeke describe the nonviolent but very serious conflict in Belgium between the Flemish (Dutch) of the North and the Walloons (French) of the South. The Flemish economy is more prosperous than the Walloon economy, and the Flemish constitute a majority of the Belgian population. Nevertheless, the Walloons enjoy a financial subsidy from the Flemish and share equally in the political power of the nation due to antimajoritarian restrictions built into the government structure. Even though significant and persistent, this conflict remains nonviolent due to several factors, including largely separate geography, language and social structure; a low-stakes conflict; relatively …

Sharing Governance: Family Law In Congress And The States, Ann Laquer Estin

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

No abstract provided.

The (Misunderstood) Genius Of American Corporate Law, Robert B. Ahdieh

Faculty Scholarship

In this Reply, I respond to comments by Bill Bratton, Larry Cunningham, and Todd Henderson on my recent paper - Trapped in a Metaphor: The Limited Implications of Federalism for Corporate Governance. I begin by reiterating my basic thesis - that state competition should be understood to have little consequence for corporate governance, if (as charter competition's advocates assume) capital-market-driven managerial competition is also at work. I then consider some of the thoughtful critiques of this claim, before suggesting ways in which the comments highlight just the kind of comparative institutional analysis my paper counsels. Rather than a stark choice …

Keep It Local, Michael E. Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn

Criticizes state-imposed limits on local taxation on the ground that state governments have no legitimate interest in setting local tax rates.

How The Dissent Becomes The Majority: Using Federalism To Transform Coalitions In The U.S. Supreme Court, Tonja Jacobi, Vanessa Baird

Tonja Jacobi

This Article proposes that dissenting Supreme Court Justices provide cues in their written opinions about how future litigants can reframe case facts and legal arguments in similar future cases to garner majority support. Questions of federal-state power cut across most other substantive legal issues, and this can provide a mechanism of splitting existing majorities in future cases. Dissenting Justices can ‘signal’ to future litigants when this potential exists, to transform a dissent into a majority in similar future cases.

We undertake an empirical investigation of dissenting opinions where the dissenting Justice suggests that future cases ought to be framed in …

Usery Limits On National Interest, David S. Bogen

David S. Bogen

No abstract provided.

The Market Participant Doctrine And The Clear Statement Rule, David S. Bogen

David S. Bogen

This paper argues that the market participant exception to the dormant commerce clause reflects the same concerns that led to the clear statement doctrine for application of general legislation to the operations of state governments. The genius of the Constitution was to make federal law directly applicable to individuals instead of through state governments – this made enforcement easier and avoided confrontation between the state and nation. Confrontation in which the federal authorities order the state to act in a particular way should be a result of consideration of the need to do so. But the dormant commerce clause by …