Law Commons^™

State Rejection Of Federal Law, Thomas B. Bennett

Faculty Publications

Sometimes the United States Supreme Court speaks, and states do not follow. For example, in 2003, the Arizona Supreme Court agreed to "reject" a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, because no "sound reasons justif[ied] following" it. Similarly, in 2006, Michigan voters approved a ballot initiative that, according to the legislature that drafted it, sought "at the very least to freeze' the state's ... law to prevent" state courts from following a ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court. Surprising though this language may be, there is nothing nefarious about these cases. Cooper v. Aaron this is not. Unlike more notorious …

The Paradox Of Exclusive State-Court Jurisdiction Over Federal Claims, Thomas B. Bennett

Faculty Publications

Standing doctrine is supposed to ensure the separation of powers and an adversary process of adjudication. But recently, it has begun serving a new and unintended purpose: transferring federal claims from federal to state court. Paradoxically, current standing doctrine assigns a growing class of federal claims - despite Congressional intent to the contrary - to the exclusive jurisdiction of state courts. Even then, only in some states, and only to the extent authorized by state law.

This paradox arises at the intersection of three distinct areas of doctrine:

(1) a newly sharpened requirement of concrete injury under Article III that …

Dual Allegiance: Federal And State Treason Prosecutions, The Treason Clause, And The Fourteenth Amendment, Alexander Gouzoules

Faculty Publications

The Treason Clause creates an individual right at a criminal trial that could have logically been placed within the Fifth Amendment rather than Article III: “No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.” It has effectively prevented expansive uses of the charge at the federal level. But states may also charge citizens with treason against state governments, and many such prosecutions have played important roles in American history.

This article reviews the parallel histories of state and federal treason prosecutions. It then analyzes …

Contumacious Responses To Firearms Legislation (Leosa) Balancing Federalism Concerns, Royce De R. Barondes

Faculty Publications

The Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act (LEOSA) is one of the handful of federal statutes that preempt state firearms regulation. It allows covered individuals (certain current and retired qualified law enforcement personnel) to possess firearms notwithstanding assorted state restrictions-to protect themselves and to supplement local law enforcement efforts.

The act reflects a careful legislative balancing of federalism concerns. Although it relies on states and localities to issue the authorizing credentials, it does not mandate states create a licensing regime out of whole cloth. The act ultimately presents issues requiring a nuanced assessment of the doctrine proscribing federal commandeering of the …

Federalism Implications Of Non-Recognition Of Licensure Reciprocity Under The Gun-Free School Zones Act, Royce De R. Barondes

Faculty Publications

The Gun-Free School Zones Act (GFSZA) criminalizes firearms possession within 1000 feet of an elementary or secondary school in a State unless the possessor "is licensed to do so by the State in which the school zone is located" (or one of a few other exceptions applies). The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has in correspondence opined licensure through reciprocity does not make one so licensed by the State.

School zones covered by the act are ubiquitous. Were the ATF's interpretation adopted, large swaths of many States' non-rural areas would be prohibited zones for non-residents who carry …

Federalism, Diversity, Equality, And Article Iii Judges: Geography, Identity, And Bias , Sharon E. Rush

Missouri Law Review

Each individual has a background, and that background shapes the individual's views about life, creating an inevitable form of bias referred to as "experiential bias." Experiential bias is shaped by many identity traits, including, among others, race, sex, sexual orientation, religion and even geography. The geographic identity of state judges and their potential unfair experiential bias is the common justification for federal court diversity jurisdiction. But experiential bias is inescapable, affecting everyone who's ever had an experience, and is generally not unfair, as demonstrated by most studies regarding the "fairness" justification for diversity jurisdiction. More recently, Justice O'Connor connected racial …

The Supremacy Clause As Structural Safeguard Of Federalism: State Judges And International Law In The Post-Erie Era, Sam F. Halabi

Faculty Publications

Against a backdrop of state constitutional and legislative initiatives aimed at limiting judicial use of international law, this Article argues that state judges have, by and large, interpreted treaties and customary international law so as to narrow their effect on state law-making prerogatives. Where state judges have used international law more liberally, they have done so to give effect to state executive and legislative objectives. Not only does this thesis suggest that the trend among state legislatures to limit state judges' use of international law is self-defeating, it also gives substance to a relatively unexplored structural safeguard of federalism: state …

Federalism And Horizontality In International Human Rights , Margaret E. Mcguinness

Missouri Law Review

The advent of the international human rights system is one of the many changes to international law since the time Missouri v. Holland was decided. As other contributions to this symposium note, one of the challenging federalism questions raised by Holland in this new era is the effect of international human rights treaties and emerging customary international human rights law on U.S. states. And just as the creation of the international human rights regime has affected domestic analysis of federalism, the international human rights system has itself adjusted to the processes of federalism. The human rights regime is largely structured …

Foreign Affairs, International Law, And The New Federalism: Lessons From Coordination, Robert B. Ahdieh

Missouri Law Review

Even after the departure of two of its most prominent advocates - Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor - the federalism revolution initiated by the Supreme Court almost twenty years ago continues its onward advance. If recent court decisions and congressional legislation are any indication, in fact, it may have reached a new beachhead in the realm of foreign affairs and international law. The emerging federalism in foreign affairs and international law is of a distinct form, however, with distinct implications for the relationship of sub-national, national, and international institutions and interests. This article draws on the …

Federalism And International Law Through The Lens Of Legal Pluralism, Paul Schiff Berman

Missouri Law Review

In this brief Essay, then, I wish to engage in a thought experiment by looking at both federalism and international law through a pluralist rather than a sovereigntist lens. First, I summarize the pluralist literature and some of its core insights and suggest that scholars interested in international law (and its relationship with domestic law) would do well to consider this literature. Second, I provide a few examples of jurisdictional redundancy operating in the transnational, international, and federalist realm and show how the existence of multiple fora can both empower voices that might otherwise be silenced and effect changes of …

Foreword, Margaret E. Mcguinness

Missouri Law Review

Columbia, Missouri is a fitting venue at which to continue the conversation about Missouri v. Holland and explore the intersection of law-making at the international, national and sub-national levels. This symposium revisits the debate over national and local control over foreign affairs and brings together the constitutional doctrinal discussion and accounts of the globalization of regulation that consider the complexity of influences operating within and between multiple systems of law. Both the factual background of Holland (primarily a case about environmental regulation) and the doctrinal context in which it arose (a Supreme Court poised to move toward constitutional endorsement of …

What Story Got Wrong - Federalism, Localist Opportunism And International Law, Paul B. Stephan

Missouri Law Review

I first explain the theoretical underpinning of the argument against the inevitability of localist opportunism. I then illustrate the general theory with three examples where the international obligations of the United States can be met without the strong federal supervision that Story deemed necessary and that latter-day nationalists embrace. I first discuss the body of law that was the subject of Swift v. Tyson, namely the rules governing negotiable instruments. Story thought that developing a federal common law was necessary to thwart idiosyncratic, and presumably opportunistic, state decisions. Yet both before and after the overthrow of Swift v. Tyson in …

Internationalism Of American Federalism: Missouri And Holland, The, Judith Resnik

Missouri Law Review

This Earl F. Nelson Lecture, given at the University of Missouri School of Law's Symposium, Return to Missouri v. Holland: Federalism and International Law, developed from and overlaps with a series of articles including Ratifying Kyoto at the Local Level: Sovereigntism, Federalism, and Translocal Organizations of Government Actors (TOGAs), 50 ARIZ. L. REV. 709 (2008) (with Joshua Civin and Joseph Frueh); Lessons in Federalism from the 1960s Class Action Rule and the 2005 Class Action Fairness Act: "The Political Safeguards'" ofAggregate Translocal Actions, 156 U. PA. L. REv. 1929 (2008); Law as Affiliation: "Foreign " Law, Democratic Federalism, and the …

Our Federalism Changes Course: The Supreme Court Limits State Sovereign Immunity In Bankruptcy Actions, Benjamin C. Hassebrock

Missouri Law Review

Although sovereign immunity jurisprudence is not the most highly publicized topic of debate in the mainstream media, it has recently become a major source of contention on the Supreme Court. The flurry of sovereign immunity litigation that has reached the high court in the last decade has yielded mostly 5-4 decisions that have expanded the state's ability to assert immunity as a defense. Given this trend, few could have predicted the outcome of the court's decision in Central Virginia Community College v. Katz. In Katz, the 5-4 decision broke the other direction, and the court held that states had waived …

Katrina And The Rhetoric Of Federalism, Christina E. Wells

Faculty Publications

The public's desire to assign blame for government's inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina has largely focused on the federal government's slow and seemingly inept response to the storm. In their own defense, federal officials cast federalism--the system that divides power among federal, state, and local governments--as the main culprit underlying their inadequate response to hurricane victims. Had power and authority not been split among three different units of government, the argument goes, the federal government might have been able to act more quickly to save lives and prevent suffering. In effect, federal authorities claim to have been hamstrung by a …

Misguided Federalism, Peter J. Henning

Missouri Law Review

Federalism has moved to the forefront of constitutional analysis in recent years as a narrow majority of the Supreme Court has begun to rein in congressional assertions of authority to legislate in areas viewed as beyond the constitutional grant of power to the federal government. One means of curtailing congressional authority is by enforcing limits on the Commerce Clause, perhaps the broadest of Congress’s regulatory powers. In United States v. Lopez, the Court sent a “constitutional wake-up call” making clear that it would no longer acquiesce in every congressional enactment purportedly adopted as an exercise of the commerce power when …

Federalism Versus The Greater Good ... Should Powerful Franchisors Be Allowed To Contract For The Home Court Advantage Through Forum Selection Clauses - Kkw Enterprises, Inc. V. Gloria Jean's Gourmet Coffees Franchising Corp., Nathan E. Ross

Journal of Dispute Resolution

When Congress condified the Federal Arbitration Act (F.A.A.), it sought to make arbitration a viable alternative to tradition litigation. Since the enactment of the FAA, the United States Supreme Court has addressed and answered numerous issues regarding the functioning of the FAA. However, the Supreme Court has yet to determine whether the FAA preempts state laws that invalidate forum selection clauses contained in franchise agreements. In Gloria Jean's, the First Circuit Court of Appeals squarely faced this issue and held that the FAA preempts state laws that attempt to negate the terms contained in a forum selection provision of a …

Justices Take The 11th, Richard C. Reuben

Faculty Publications

Until not long ago, the 11th Amendment with its barrier to some citizen suits in federal courts was a largely ignored provision of the U.S. Constitution. Those days may be coming to an end, however, as the Supreme Court has resurrected the dusty old amendment in its steady, if not always consistent, march toward a new federalism or what some scholars are calling the "antifederalist revival."

Finding The Right Target, Richard C. Reuben

Faculty Publications

It is no surprise that the most significant handgun control law passed by Congress has produced a potential blockbuster case before the U.S. Supreme Court. After all, intense debate has been going on for years over the extent of the right to bear arms under

the Second Amendment. Congress took more than a decade to pass the Brady Handgun Control Act of 1993, 18 U.S.C. § 922(s), named for James Brady, the press secretary to President Reagan who was wounded in a 1981 assassination attempt. But while a pair of cases challenging the Brady Act might have been expected to …

The New Federalism, Richard C. Reuben

Faculty Publications

the 10th Amendment was something they noted for the bar exam and then promptly forgot about. But for many conservative lawyers and politicians, the 10th Amendment- which reserves to the states all powers not given to the federal government-has been anything but academic. For them, it embodies the founders' promise for a nation in which the states and federal government are near-equal partners. And they have fought long and hard to give the amendment its proper due. As the rise of House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and his Contract with America attest, their day may have finally come. Today, federalism, …

Conditional Spending And The First Amendment: Maintaining The Commitment To Rational Liberal Dialogue, Donald L. Beschle

Missouri Law Review

Questions concerning the constitutional validity of conditions placed on recipients of government funds have a long history,' but they recently have received greater attention as the types of constitutional concerns have changed. Earlier cases dealt with issues of federalism, and claims that conditions unduly limited states in the exercise of their reserved powers. As courts moved to a generally consistent position of deference to Congressional choices concerning the proper distribution of power between the states and the national government, challenges to conditional spending faded in both their significance and interest.' This Article maintains that the government must take and express …