Law Commons^™

A History Of Corporate Law Federalism In The Twentieth Century, William W. Bratton

Seattle University Law Review

This Article describes the emergence of corporate law federalism across a long twentieth century. The period begins with New Jersey’s successful initiation of charter competition in 1888 and ends with the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002. The federalism in question describes the interrelation of state and federal regulation of corporate internal affairs. This Article takes a positive approach, pursuing no normative bottom line. It makes six observations: (1) the federalism describes a division of subject matter, with internal affairs regulated by the states and securities issuance and trading regulated by the federal government; (2) the federalism is an …

Enforcing Interstate Compacts In Federal Systems, Michael Osborn

Indiana Journal of Constitutional Design

The central goal of a federal system is for local government units to retain degrees of independence, specifically over matters of importance to that local unit. A logical corollary to that independence is the ability for local units to negotiate and contract with other local units on matters of importance. Therefore, it is not surprising that almost every federal system allows, either implicitly or explicitly, member states to form binding compacts with other states, the union government, or municipalities.1 Some federal democracies even allow member states to compact with foreign governments. Furthermore, almost every federal constitution includes a provision outlining …

Frenemey Federalism, Scott P. Bloomberg

Faculty Publications

This article introduces the concept of Frenemy Federalism. The term “frenemy” is a portmanteau of “friend” and “enemy” that is defined as a person with whom one is friendly despite a fundamental dislike or rivalry. A frenemy relationship develops between the federal and state governments when the governments work together despite having conflicting objectives in an area of policy. In such situations, mutual incentives make cooperation between the governments conducive to achieving their respective goals, allowing what may otherwise be a contentious relationship to find stability. Amidst the growing body of federalism scholarship, I situate Frenemy Federalism as a point …

Presidential Accountability And The Rule Of Law: Can The President Claim Immunity If He Shoots Someone On Fifth Avenue?, Claire Oakes Finkelstein, Richard Painter

All Faculty Scholarship

Can a sitting President be indicted while in office? This critical constitutional question has never been directly answered by any court or legislative body. The prevailing wisdom, however, is that, though he may be investigated, a sitting President is immune from actual prosecution. The concept of presidential immunity, however, has hastened the erosion of checks and balances in the federal government and weakened our ability to rein in renegade Presidents. It has enabled sitting Presidents to impede the enforcement of subpoenas and other tools of investigation by prosecutors, both federal and state, as well as to claim imperviousness to civil …

Polish Road Toward An Illiberal State: Methods And Resistance, Adam Bodnar

Indiana Law Journal

Since 2015, Poland has experienced a backsliding in democratic and rule of law standards. The ruling party, “Law and Justice,” has adopted a series of legislative changes affecting the independence of courts and checks and balances mechanisms. Some reforms were copied from Hungary, which, as the first Member State of the European Union, started the way toward illiberal democracy in contemporary Europe. Despite pressure from international organizations, the process of changes in Poland did not stop. However, it is important to look at methods implemented to dismantling democracy, as they can be used in other countries. This paper also analyzes …

Say “No” To Discrimination, “Yes” To Accommodation: Why States Should Prohibit Discrimination Of Workers Who Use Cannabis For Medical Purposes, Anne Marie Lofaso, Lakyn D. Cecil

Seattle University Law Review

This Article addresses the question of how the law should treat medical cannabis in the employment context. Using Colorado as a primary example, we argue that states such as Colorado should amend their constitutions and legislate to provide employment protections for employees who are registered medical cannabis cardholders or registered caregivers.

Part I briefly traces the legal regulation of cannabis from an unregulated medicine known as cannabis to a highly regulated illicit substance known as marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act. Our travail through this history reveals, unsurprisingly, an increasing demonization of cannabis throughout the twentieth century. That socio-legal demonization …

Is The Supreme Court Disabling The Enabling Act, Or Is Shady Grove Just Another Bad Opera?, Robert J. Condlin

Faculty Scholarship

After seventy years of trying, the Supreme Court has yet to agree on whether the Rules Enabling Act articulates a one or two part standard for determining the validity of a Federal Rule. Is it enough that a Federal Rule regulates “practice and procedure,” or must it also not “abridge substantive rights”? The Enabling Act seems to require both, but the Court is not so sure, and the costs of its uncertainty are real. Among other things, litigants must guess whether the decision to apply a Federal Rule in a given case will depend upon predictable ritual, judicial power grab, …

Taking Care Of Federal Law, Leah Litman

Articles

Article II of the Constitution vests the “executive power” in the President and directs the President to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” But do these provisions mean that only the President may execute federal law? Two lines of Supreme Court precedent suggest conflicting answers to that question. In several prominent separation-of-powers cases, the Court has suggested that only the President may execute federal law: “The Constitution requires that a President chosen by the entire Nation oversee the execution of the laws.” Therefore, the Court has reasoned, Congress may not create private rights of action that allow nonexecutive …

Toward A Fundamental Right To Evade Law? Protecting The Rule Of Unequal Racial And Economic Power In Shelby County And State Farm, Martha T. Mccluskey

Journal Articles

To rationalize its ruling on voting rights, Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder develops a constitutional vision of passivity in the face of institutionalized power to violate the law. This essay compares Shelby County to State Farm Mutual Automobile v. Campbell, a 2003 Supreme Court ruling involving a different subject area, state punitive damage awards. In both, the Court asserts newly articulated judicial power to override other branches, not to protect human rights, but rather to expand institutionalized immunity from those rights. On the surface, the Court’s rejection of state sovereignty in State Farm (protecting multistate corporations from high punitive damages) …

Is The Supreme Court Disabling The Enabling Act, Or Is Shady Grove Just Another Bad Opera?, Robert J. Condlin

Robert J. Condlin

After seventy years of trying, the Supreme Court has yet to agree on whether the Rules Enabling Act articulates a one or two part standard for determining the validity of a Federal Rule. Is it enough that a Federal Rule regulates “practice and procedure,” or must it also not “abridge substantive rights”? The Enabling Act seems to require both, but the Court is not so sure, and the costs of its uncertainty are real. Among other things, litigants must guess whether the decision to apply a Federal Rule in a given case will depend upon predictable ritual, judicial power grab, …

Public Lands And The Federal Government’S Compact-Based “Duty To Dispose”: A Case Study Of Utah’S H.B. 148 – The Transfer Of Public Lands Act, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Recent legislation passed in March 2012 in the State of Utah — the “Transfer of Public Lands Act and Related Study,” (“TPLA”) also commonly referred to as House Bill 148 (“H.B. 148”) — has demanded that the federal government, by December 31, 2014, “extinguish title” to certain public lands that the federal government currently holds (totaling an estimated more than 20 million acres). It also calls for the transfer of such acreage to the State and establishes procedures for the development of a management regime for this increased state portfolio of land holdings resulting from the transfer. The State of …

Substance And Method In The Year 2000, Akhil Reed Amar

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Treaties And The Separation Of Powers In The United States: A Reassessment After Medellin V. Texas, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

This article considers Chief Justice Roberts' majority opinion in the case of Medellin v. Texas. Like much of the commentary on this case, the article considers the international law implications of the opinion and its consideration of the doctrine of self-executing treaties. The primary focus here, however, consistent with the symposium in which this paper was presented, is on the opinion's implications for the separation of powers and for federalism. While the opinion's discussion of international law and treaty implementation can be considered dicta, the separation of powers and federalism portions may be seen as more directly necessary to …

Emergency Federalism: Calling On The States In Perilous Times, Adam M. Giuliano

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The attacks of September 11 prompted a historic debate concerning terrorism and domestic emergency response. This ongoing dialogue has driven policy decisions touching upon both liberty and security concerns. Yet despite the enormous effort that has gone into the national response, the role of the sovereign states, and with it federalism, has received comparatively little attention. This Article explores the relevance of federalism within the context of the "War on Terror" and in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Acknowledging that theories of federalism developed elsewhere are insufficient, he outlines a doctrine of 'emergency federalism.' The author argues that the Framers …

Population Changes And Constitutional Amendments: Federalism Versus Democracy, Peter Suber

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

To amend the federal Constitution, we need the assent of two-thirds of each house of Congress and three-fourths of the states. This Article focuses on the three-fourths requirement for the states. This threshold is particularly high, and it suggests that constitutional amendment is very difficult. In fact, amendment is difficult in different degrees for different constituencies, depending not on their numbers but on where they live.

Socialism And Federation, John N. Hazard

Michigan Law Review

Federal structures are often established by national founders to manage intractable problems created over generations, if not centuries, by the migration of peoples. Military and economic pressures may stimulate union to assure survival, but ethnic, racial or religious tensions sometimes hamper draftsmen who sense the need for unity. Federation has often been the modem solution to the conflict between the need for unity and the desire for autonomy felt by groups fearing the loss of identity.

Socialist Federation--A Legal Means To The Solution Of The Nationality Problem: A Comparative Study, Viktor Knapp

Michigan Law Review

The history of federations is both long and short. It is long in that the federation originated with the Swiss Confederation, which dates back to the 1291 defense confederacy of the cantons of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden; it is short because the second federation in world history, one that has become a model for many others, did not come into being until almost five centuries later in America.

Constitutional Interpretation, Terrance Sandalow

Articles

"[We] must never forget," Chief Justice Marshall admonished us in a statement pregnant with more than one meaning, "that it is a constitution we are expounding."' Marshall meant that the Constitution should be read as a document "intended to endure for ages.to come, and, consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs."'2 But he meant also that the construction placed upon the document must have regard for its "great outlines" and "important objects."'3 Limits are implied by the very nature of the task. There is not the same freedom in construing the Constitution as in constructing a …

Local Government In Sweden, Terrance Sandalow

Articles

Ever since the publication of Marquis Childs' The Middle Way, Americans of liberal persuasion have tended to point to Sweden as a model, a nation which simultaneously has achieved rapid economic growth, eliminated poverty, and maintained individual and political freedom. Swedish cities, and especially Stockholm, are reputed to be among the best planned in the world. Yet, for all the admiration that has been expressed, there has been surprisingly little investigation by Americans of the legal and governmental framework within which the Swedes have accomplished so much. The modest aim of this paper is to report the major outlines of …

The Constitutions Of West Germany And The United States: A Comparative Study, Paul G. Kauper

Michigan Law Review

The purpose of this article is to present a descriptive overall picture of the fundamental features of the system established by the Basic Law and at the same time point up significant comparisons and contrasts by reference to the Constitution. Eleven years have now elapsed since the Basic Law went into effect, and significant decisions of the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht ) noted at the appropriate points, serve to illuminate the working of the system established by it.

Leach & Sugg, Jr.: The Administration Of Interstate Compacts, Joseph E. Kallenbach

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Administration of Interstate Compacts. By Richard H. Leach and Redding S. Sugg, Jr.

The Guarantee Of Order And Republican Government In The States, Thomas M. Cooley

Articles

A short time ago, the whole country was plunged into a condition of anxiety and excitement by the conflicting claims to the executive authority in one of the States, and by the preparations made, and measures set on foot, to support them.