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Federalism

University of Colorado Law School

University of Colorado Law Review

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Unbundling Federalism: Colorado's Legalization Of Marijuana And Federalism's Many Forms, Jessica Bulman-Pozen Jan 2014

Unbundling Federalism: Colorado's Legalization Of Marijuana And Federalism's Many Forms, Jessica Bulman-Pozen

University of Colorado Law Review

This short Essay argues that various attributes we associate with federalism should not be deemed necessary components of federalism as a definitional or normative matter. Using Colorado's recent legalization of marijuana as a case study, it shows how two such attributes-an autonomous realm of state action and independent state officials with distinctive interests-can be pulled apart. State officials often further their interests and effectively oppose federal policy when they participate in the same statutory scheme as federal actors instead of operating in a separate, autonomous sphere. At the same time, state officials frequently rely on the autonomous lawmaking and executive …


The Spending Power And Environmental Law After Sebelius, Erin Ryan Jan 2014

The Spending Power And Environmental Law After Sebelius, Erin Ryan

University of Colorado Law Review

In National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, a plurality of the Supreme Court held that portions of the Affordable Care Act exceeded federal authority under the Spending Clause. With that holding, Sebelius became the first Supreme Court decision since the New Deal to limit an act of Congress on spending-power grounds, rounding out the "New Federalism" limits on federal power first initiated by the Rehnquist Court in the 1990s. The new Sebelius doctrine constrains the federal spending power in contexts involving changes to ongoing intergovernmental partnerships with very large federal grants. However, the decision gives little direction for evaluating …


Immigration And Cooperative Federalism: Toward A Doctrinal Framework, Ming H. Chen Jan 2014

Immigration And Cooperative Federalism: Toward A Doctrinal Framework, Ming H. Chen

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.


Federalism At The Cathedral: Property Rules, Liability Rules, And Inalienability Rules In Tenth Amendment Infrastructure, Erin Ryan Jan 2010

Federalism At The Cathedral: Property Rules, Liability Rules, And Inalienability Rules In Tenth Amendment Infrastructure, Erin Ryan

University of Colorado Law Review

This Article explores the consequences for good governance of poorly constructed legal infrastructure in the Tenth Amendment context, and recommends a simple jurisprudential fix: exchanging a property rule for the inalienability remedy rule that the Supreme Court used to protect the anticommandeering entitlement in New York v. United States. Grounded in a values-based theory of American federalism, it shows how the New York inalienability rule unnecessarily removes tools for resolving interjurisdictional quagmiresexemplified by the radioactive waste capacity problem at the heart of the New York litigation-by prohibiting novel forms of state-federal bargaining. In New York, the Court held that Congress …


Climate Change, Regulatory Fragmentation, And Water Triage, Robin Kundis Craig Jan 2008

Climate Change, Regulatory Fragmentation, And Water Triage, Robin Kundis Craig

University of Colorado Law Review

Viewed from a watershed perspective, we are unconsciously sacrificing many marine ecosystems because upstream fresh water is a regulatorily fragmented resource. That is, water is subject to multiple assertions of regulatory authority and to multiple types of use-right claims that those authorities regulate. As freshwater supplies become increasingly unequal to the task of meeting the multiple demands for both consumptive and in situ use, and as consumptive and in situ uses of water come increasingly into irreconcilable conflict, the various regulatory schemes governing water use have also increasingly come into legal conflict. These courtroom battles have revealed many tensions, overlaps, …