Law Commons^™

The Impacts Of Compulsory Prison Labor Ballot Initiatives On Pregnant & Postpartum Incarcerated Women Of Color, Candace Bond-Theriault

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution purported to abolish the institution of slavery, but it created an exception for compulsory labor performed by people convicted of crimes. In November 2022, voters in Alabama, Vermont, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Oregon will be asked to vote on ballot initiatives that would strike language from their state constitutions that currently allows states to force incarcerated people to perform labor with minimal or no pay.1 This policy brief examines the legal language of these ballot initiatives and evaluates whether each measure, if approved by voters, will actually close the compulsory labor loophole. In …

Constitutional Law—Ballot Initiatives And Direct Democracy—Amendment 100 To The Arkansas Constitution: Constitutional Issues Surrounding Ballot Initiatives And Local Legislation, Michael Stiritz

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fool Me Once... The Need For Federal Legislation To Remedy Fraud And Misrepresentation In Ballot Initiatives That Negatively Affect Minority Communities, Jessica George

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

This Note proposes new federal legislation to provide relief for voters who might be negatively affected by fraud and deception at any phase of a ballot initiative, including the signature-gathering process. Ballot initiatives are a significant part of the democratic process. They must be protected from fraud, especially when those practices result in initiatives that harm specific minority group interests. This legislation will give deceived voters a cause of action to stop the effect of a ballot initiative before it negatively impacts them. Voters can bring a civil action in federal court for preventive relief, including a permanent or …

The Unintended Consequences Of California Proposition 47: Reducing Law Enforcement’S Ability To Solve Serious, Violent Crimes, Shelby Kail

Pepperdine Law Review

For many years, DNA databases have helped solve countless serious, violent crimes by connecting low-level offenders to unsolved crimes. Because the passage of Proposition 47 reduced several low-level crimes to misdemeanors, which do not qualify for DNA sample collection, Proposition 47 has severely limited law enforcement’s ability to solve serious, violent crimes through California’s DNA database and reliable DNA evidence. This powerful law enforcement tool must be preserved to prevent additional crimes from being committed, to exonerate the innocent, and to provide victims with closure through conviction of their assailants or offenders. Proposition 47’s unintended consequences have led to devastating …

Sexual Minority Stigma And System Justification Theory: How Changing The Status Quo Impacts Marriage And Housing Equality, Jordan A. Blenner

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Sexual minorities (i.e. lesbians and gay men) experience systemic discrimination throughout the United States. Prior to the Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), in many states, same-sex couples could not marry and sexual minorities were not protected from sexual orientation housing discrimination (Human Rights Campaign, 2015). The current, two-experiment study applied Jost and Banaji’s (1994) System Justification Theory to marriage and housing discrimination. When sexual minorities question dissimilar treatment, thereby threatening the status quo, members of the heterosexual majority rationalize sexual minority discrimination to maintain their dominant status (Alexander, 2001; Brescoll, Uhlmann, & Newman, 2013; Citizens for Equal …

Declining Controversial Cases: How Marriage Equality Changed The Paradigm, Elena Baylis

Articles

Until recently, state attorneys general defended their states’ laws as a matter of course. However, one attorney general’s decision not to defend his state’s law in a prominent marriage equality case sparked a cascade of attorney general declinations in other marriage equality cases. Declinations have also increased across a range of states and with respect to several other contentious subjects, including abortion and gun control. This Essay evaluates the causes and implications of this recent trend of state attorneys general abstaining from defending controversial laws on the grounds that those laws are unconstitutional, focusing on the marriage equality cases as …

Slides: Colorado Home Rule And Fracking, Richard Collins

Water and Air Quality Issues in Oil and Gas Development: The Evolving Framework of Regulation and Management (Martz Summer Conference, June 5-6)

Presenter: Richard Collins, University of Colorado Law School

33 slides

Reconsidering Arizonans: Proposition 8, Direct Democracy, And The Supreme Court, Frank M. Dickerson Iii, Reid Bolton

Frank M. Dickerson III

The most interesting issue raised by the Proposition 8 litigation in California is the question of standing for ballot-initiative sponsors in defensive litigation and how courts should deal with these unique public “representatives”. This Article argues that ballot-initiative sponsors such as ProtectMarriage.com meet the relevant Article III standing criteria and should be allowed to appeal a district court’s judgments against the proposition. Standing for ballot-initiative sponsors is consistent with both the Constitutional and the prudential concerns underlying the doctrine of standing and allows the proper party to defend an initiative when the government chooses not to. Ballot initiative sponsors play …

Standing In The Age Of Citizen Revolt: Legislative Standing, Direct Democracy, And The Supreme Court, Frank M. Dickerson Iii, Reid M. Bolton

Frank M. Dickerson III

One of the most interesting questions raised by California’s Proposition 8 is the question of standing for ballot-initiative supporters in defensive litigation. This Article addresses the question raised in the Proposition 8 case and the issue of standing for ballot initiative supporters to defend their initiative on appeal more generally. It suggests that such standing for ballot-initiative sponsors is consistent with both prior Supreme Court precedent and the Constitutional and prudential concerns underlying the doctrine of standing.

Note, Making Ballot Initiatives Work: Some Assembly Required, Portia Pedro

Faculty Scholarship

For over one hundred years, the ballot initiative or proposition has been touted as a solution to some of the problems in the representative system of democracy in the United States. Depending on a state’s ballot initiative system, this mechanism enables citizens to make laws, to create or eliminate rights, or to amend the state’s constitution through a popular vote. Popular initiatives were initially intended to allow ordinary citizens to intervene in the democratic process when their representative officials were not carrying out their wishes. These proposition processes were supposed to create a space for public deliberation. By allowing the …

Slides: The Trust For Public Land: Conserving Land For People, Ernest Cook

Community-Owned Forests: Possibilities, Experiences, and Lessons Learned (June 16-19)

Presenter: Ernest Cook, Senior Vice President, Conservation Finance Program, The Trust for Public Land, Boston, MA

19 slides

State Ballot Initiatives In The Federal Preemption Equation: A Medical Marijuana Case Study, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

As with the political reform initiatives, this second type of ballot initiative represents a category for which the initiative process is especially appropriate: issues requiring experimentation in the area of health, traditionally a topic of strong concern at the state level. Furthermore, this category of initiative does not suffer from the ills that detractors note in other contexts. These initiatives expand personal rights and do not infringe on others' rights, and they address elemental issues, so citizens can be sufficiently informed to cast votes representing their convictions. These types of initiatives, however, confront a significant problem. They frequently involve areas …

The Failure Of Ohio's Drug Treatment Initiative, Tamara Karel

Cleveland State Law Review

In the summer of 2002, proponents of Issue 1 "The Ohio Drug Treatment Initiative," (hereafter referred to as the Initiative) succeeded in getting the proposal on the November ballot. The Initiative proposed an amendment to the Ohio Constitution that would have required courts to approve requests for treatment when made by eligible nonviolent drug offenders. The Amendment sought to (1) allocate a fixed amount of the state's General Revenue Fund to pay for the opening and operating of new treatment centers, (2) limit prison sentences for users and possessors to ninety days, and (3) provide for the sealing and expungement …

Betting On Open Space: The Great Outdoors Colorado Trust Fund, Will Shafroth, Rick Hum, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

Betting on Open Space: The Great Outdoors Colorado Trust Fund (February 9)

17 pages.

Includes illustrations, maps, and biographical information for Will Shafroth and Rick Hum.

In 1992 Colorado voters approved the dedication of a portion of lottery proceeds to a trust fund for parks, wildlife, trails and open spaces. The fund will produce over $30 million during the next five years, and $35 million annually thereafter that will be dedicated to these purposes. Will Shafroth, Director, State Board of the Great Outdoors Colorado Trust Fund, will discuss the first 18 months of GOCO and future challenges. Rick Hum, Summit County Commissioner, will comment on the program from the perspective of local …