Agency Commons^™

What Congress Needs To Break The Immigration Reform Stalemate, Maryam T. Stevenson

Catholic University Law Review

This article provides a policy proposal for an immigration reform package that could be successful in the modern-day Congress. It is the second article of a series that began with an analysis of why immigration reform has been unsuccessful over the past 30 years despite bipartisan support. That article argued that polarization combined with the framing of immigration by the media and political elites has caused the public to view immigration as a one-dimensional policy largely defined by border concerns, when in reality, it is a robust policy area that encompasses a number of various issues (i.e. family immigration, skilled …

Explaining The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Stalemate In Congress, Maryam T. Stevenson

Catholic University Law Review

Historically, congressional policy goals on immigration have vacillated from open to restrictive as various micro and macro level factors have changed both inside and outside the Beltway. While Congress has been subjected to some immigration lobbies over time, it has largely been isolated from a general public opinion on immigration policy until fairly recently. Specifically, while Congress was successful at passing a variety of immigration policies through 1990 without much regard to public opinion, it has since failed even amid bipartisan congressional and presidential support. This article will offer a number of theories in order to explain why Congress has …

Regulatory Takings In Climate Change: Geo- Engineering One’S Way Around The Fifth Amendment, Noah Chase

Fordham Environmental Law Review

Picture yourself as the owner of a small business located in the downtown area of a large city; your business consists of a shop and an adjoining parking lot. A new regulation has just been passed which requires any owner of property within the city limits to paint all roofs and parking areas with a new reflective coating, in order to reduce the heat which is absorbed by such structures. The idea of closing your business down for this time, along with other connected issues, scares you, and you begin to wonder if your local government truly has your best …

Arizona V. Navajo Nation And Systemic Failures In The Tribal Water Allocation Scheme, Jennifer Horkovich

Fordham Environmental Law Review

When the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Arizona v. Navajo Nation was published in June 2023, Indian Country was hardly surprised with the Court’s ruling. There, the Court found that the United States had no affirmative duty to affirmatively protect the Navajo Nation’s water rights under the 1868 Treaty.1 The Court was clear: the treaty is insufficient for the Navajo’s current water needs, but the judiciary is unable to step in to find relief.2 This decision is another in a long series of cases on water allocation and the federal reserved water right, where tribes have been unable to …

Environmental Protection, Sustainability And The Prevention Of Satellite Collisions In Outer Space, Yun Zhao

Fordham Environmental Law Review

With space commercialization and privatization continuing apace, more space objects are expected to be launched and put into operation in the future, adding to the already large number of defunct satellites and space debris present in outer space. Hence, serious study should be devoted to possible mechanisms for dealing with potential collisions in outer space for the purpose of realizing environmental protection and space sustainability. In view of the inadequacy of the existing legal regime, this article explores possible such mechanisms (including a preventive mechanism, avoidance mechanism and compensation mechanism) from the perspective of interdependence theory and puts forward a …

Empirically Assessing Medical Device Innovation, George Horvath

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

The Major Questions Doctrine’S Domain, Todd Phillips, Beau J. Baumann

Brooklyn Law Review

In West Virginia v. EPA, the Supreme Court elevated the major questions doctrine to new heights by reframing it as a substantive canon and clear statement rule rooted in the separation of powers. The academic response has missed two unanswered questions that will determine the extent of the doctrine’s domain. First, how will the Court apply the doctrine to a range of different regulatory schemes? The doctrine has so far only been applied to nationwide legislative rules that are both (1) economically or politically significant and (2) transformative. It is unclear whether the doctrine applies to alternative modes of regulation …

Nationwide Injunctions And The Administrative State, Russell L. Weaver

Brooklyn Law Review

Where an administrative regulation is deemed by a court to be illegal, unconstitutional, or otherwise invalid, courts sometimes issue nationwide injunctions. In other words, instead of holding that the regulation cannot be applied to the individuals before the court, the court prohibits the agency from applying the regulation anywhere in the country, including to others not before the court. This article explores the debate surrounding the appropriateness of nationwide injunctions. While at first glance such injunctions may seem to make sense, they can have serious consequences, including risk of abuse and forum shopping, amplification of erroneous decisions, and the negative …

Agency Deference After Loper: Expertise As A Casualty Of A War Against The “Administrative State”, Michael M. Epstein

Brooklyn Law Review

Chevron deference has been a foundational principle for administrative law for decades. Chevron provided a two-step analysis for determining whether an agency would be given deference in its decision-making. This deferential test finds its legitimacy on the grounds of agency expertise and accountability. However, when the Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari in Loper Bright Enterprise v. Raimondo, it positioned itself to potentially overrule or severely limit Chevron. An overruling of Chevron would place judicial deference to administrative agency decisions in peril by allowing courts to substitute their own views over the informed opinions of agency experts. This …

Foiled Foia: The Excessive Exemption, Edward L. Wilkinson Jr.

St. Mary's Law Journal

The Freedom of Information Act permits requestors access to government information unless an exemption applies. Exemption (b)(3)(B) permits the government to protect information if there is a specific reference to a FOIA exemption in the withholding statute. Congress created this new requirement in 2009 in order to remove decision making power from administrative agencies and courts and reserve the power to disclose or withhold information with the legislative branch. This exemption poses problems to courts when there is a clear intent to protect information in the withholding statute without a clear reference to Exemption (b)(3)(B). As a result, courts have …

How Close Is Close Enough: A Step-By-Step Analysis To Resolve The Circuit Split Created By Misunderstanding The Spokeo Ruling, Cason Shipp

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Radical Administrative Law, Christopher S. Havasy

Vanderbilt Law Review

The administrative state is under attack. Judges and scholars increasingly question why agencies should have such large powers to coerce citizens without adequate democratic accountability. Rather than refuting these critics, this Article accepts that in scrutinizing the massive powers that agencies hold over citizens, these critics have a point. However, their solution—to augment the powers of Congress or the President over agencies to instill indirect democratic accountability—is one step too quick. We should first examine whether direct democratic accountability of agencies by the citizenry is possible.

This Article excavates the nineteenth-century European intellectual history following the rise of the modern …

Searching Govinfo.Gov/, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

This U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) database provides access to information legal, legislative, and regulatory information produced on multiple subjects by the U.S. Government. Content includes congressional bills, congressional committee hearings and prints (studies), reports on legislation, the text of laws, regulations, and executive orders and multiple U.S. Government information resources covering subjects from accounting to zoology.

Barring Judicial Review, Laura E. Dolbow

Vanderbilt Law Review

Whether judicial review is available is one of the most hotly contested issues in administrative law. Recently, laws that prohibit judicial review have sparked debate in the Medicare, immigration, and patent contexts. These debates are continuing in challenges to the recently created Medicare price negotiation program. Yet despite debates about the removal of judicial review, little is known about how often, and in what contexts, Congress has expressly precluded review. This Article provides new insights about express preclusion by conducting an empirical study of the U.S. Code. It creates an original dataset of laws that expressly preclude judicial review of …

Ending Exemption 5 Expansion: Toward A Narrower Interpretation Of Foia’S Exemption For Inter- And Intra-Agency Memorandums, Ryan W. Miller

Fordham Law Review

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) creates a judicially enforceable right to access almost any record that a federal agency creates or obtains. Its crafters aimed to strike a careful balance in promoting disclosure of government records to increase transparency while still protecting the confidentiality of certain information. Although any person can request an agency record, FOIA’s nine exemptions allow agencies to withhold records if certain conditions are met. 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(5) permits agencies to withhold “inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters” that would normally be privileged in civil discovery. Through this exemption, Congress sought to prevent FOIA from …

Medical Board Of California, Emily Powers, Marcus Friedman

California Regulatory Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Respect My Authority: The Past, Present, And Future Of The Public Authority, Tom J. Letourneau

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

This comment synthesizes various historical aspects of motor vehicle infrastructure in the United States. The network of issues at play involves centuries of public policy decisions made at the local, state, and federal level, which twentieth century legal innovations hastened and curdled into the car culture we are all a part of today. The public authority is the paradigm of these legal innovations, but it has outlived its usefulness in the face climate change and burgeoning issues relating to urbanism.

Windward Woes: The Misalignment Of Economic Incentives And Renewable Energy Development Goals, Matthew S. Edwards

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

Energy tax credits have always been a significant driver of renewable energy development, but the recent Inflation Reduction Act in response to new national development goals represents the most significant change in several decades. The Inflation Reduction Act is certainly a step in the right direction, but there are numerous factors that limit the impact on future developments that should be remedied to allow for the nation’s best chance to reach 2030 renewable energy goals.

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 …

Reconciling Disjunct Cryptocurrency Securities Enforcement With Purchaser Expectations, Jacob E. Simmons

Seattle University Law Review

The Southern District of New York’s July 2023 decision in SEC v. Ripple Labs, Inc. has been touted as a monumental win for cryptocurrency purchasers and related businesses. The Ripple court held that, except institutional investor transactions, all sales of Ripple’s XRP token were not investment contracts, a class of security subject to federal securities law. The court’s ruling meant that Ripple could not be held liable for the unregistered trading of XRP beyond its sales to institutional investors. Ripple adds new insights to a pervasive policymaking dilemma addressed in this Note: is the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) regulatory …

Public And Private Fiduciaries: Representation In States, Corporations, Trusts And Agents, Katharine Jackson

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Over the past decade, political and legal theorists began conscripting private fiduciary law to delimit and define the duties of public officials. While enlisting additional legal prophylactics against arbitrary government may have appeared especially appealing during a Trump administration characterized by corruption and racism, this Article argues that straightforwardly applying fiduciary doctrine to political office is risky business. While scholars rightly point out the long, cross-pollinated history of the law of public and private trust, and while they recognize that rules against self-dealing fiduciaries apply equally well to both public and private officials, they occlude an important conceptual difference between …

Stakeholder Capitalism’S Greatest Challenge: Reshaping A Public Consensus To Govern A Global Economy, Leo E. Strine Jr., Michael Klain

Seattle University Law Review

The Berle XIV: Developing a 21st Century Corporate Governance Model Conference asks whether there is a viable 21st Century Stakeholder Governance model. In our conference keynote article, we argue that to answer that question yes requires restoring—to use Berle’s term—a “public consensus” throughout the global economy in favor of the balanced model of New Deal capitalism, within which corporations could operate in a way good for all their stakeholders and society, that Berle himself supported.

The world now faces problems caused in large part by the enormous international power of corporations and the institutional investors who dominate their governance. These …

Foreseeability And Duty In Washington Negligence Law: Leaving The Road Less Traveled By, Leo Linder

Seattle University Law Review

Washington negligence law is a confusing labyrinth of foreseeability that not even Ariadne’s string could guide plaintiffs out of. Foreseeability is implicated in four distinct analyses, several of which overlap considerably. Doctrines that were once questions of law are now questions of fact, and vice versa. Something needs to change.

Washington has taken the novel approach of bifurcating the duty element into two parts—duty’s mere existence, which is a question of law for the court to determine; and duty’s scope, which is a question of fact handed off to the jury to determine. Foreseeability impacts both of these assessments, but …

Henderson And The Objective Observer Standard: The Future Of Race-Conscious Standards Post-Students For Fair Admissions, Gabriela Dionisio

Seattle University Law Review

On June 29, 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Students for Fair Admissions v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, which struck down race-conscious admissions policies. Within just a year after its ruling, Students for Fair Admissions has already had a sweeping impact, reaching beyond higher education. Although the Supreme Court did not indicate whether Students for Fair Admissions applies to sectors beyond higher education, law firms, and other employers have already modified their diversity policies and initiatives, erasing race and company diversity considerations. Given those dramatic changes, there is growing fear that Students for Fair Admissions …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Same Crime, Different Time: Sentencing Disparities In The Deep South & A Path Forward Under The Fourteenth Amendment, Hailey M. Donovan

Seattle University Law Review

The United States has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. The American obsession with crime and punishment can be tracked over the last half-century, as the nation’s incarceration rate has risen astronomically. Since 1970, the number of incarcerated people in the United States has increased more than sevenfold to over 2.3 million, outpacing both crime and population growth considerably. While the rise itself is undoubtedly bleak, a more troubling truth lies just below the surface. Not all states contribute equally to American mass incarceration. Rather, states have vastly different incarceration rates. Unlike at the federal level, …

Ai, New Technologies, And Corporate Governance: Three Phenomena, Martin Petrin

Seattle University Law Review

Artificial intelligence (AI) and other new technologies are increasingly influencing the operations, business models, and structures of companies. This Article focuses on three emerging phenomena that impact significant aspects of corporate governance and regulation: (1) perforation and blurring of firm boundaries through the ubiquitous use of externally provided AI services; (2) businesses engaging in strategic access and leveraging of critical resources held by third parties without owning them; and (3) the unusual hybrid role of online platforms between market facilitators and markets themselves. The Article explores how these phenomena challenge traditional views of firms as separate units, with technology leading …

A Blueprint To Reclaim Legal Education From External Rankers, Scott Rempell

Seattle University Law Review

The U.S. News & World Report (U.S. News) law school rankings have impacted the perceptions and behaviors of everyone in the rankings ecosystem for decades. Commentators have almost universally condemned these ordinal rankings, yet they continue to influence the legal education market, often in highly detrimental ways.

The influence of these rankings stems from legitimate market demands, for reasons that the psychology of choice literature makes clear. People want (or need) to efficiently acquire and digest information that could help them make consequential decisions. At a time when consumers of law school information did not have such choice-making assistance, U.S. …

Real-World Consequences For Online Actions: The Case For Expanding Employee Harassment Protection Via Employers’ Rights Of Action, Alexander Barnes

Seattle University Law Review

This Note argues for expanding employers’ access to legal remedies that allow them to recoup the costs of protecting their employees from swatting, doxing, and other online harassment arising from their employees’ professional activity. Part I provides a brief description and history of the online harassment problem and its potentially deadly dangers. Part II describes employers’ legal responsibility to take action to protect their employees from harassment aimed at their employees within the scope of their employment. Part III explores common legal remedies that are currently available to employers, using the state of Washington as an example. Part III also …

A New Era Of Accountability? The Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act’S Pursuit Of Regulatory Equality, Robert Ruelas

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

This paper discusses the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act (HFCAA) as a response to the long-standing regulatory disparities between U.S. and foreign firms listed on U.S. stock exchanges, with particular regard to foreign firms from China. The HFCAA requires that any firms listed on U.S. stock exchanges be subject to inspections by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) or face delisting, aiming to eliminate historic regulatory disparities. The paper begins by highlighting the historic regulatory gap in oversight resulting from China’s lack of cooperation with U.S. regulators and continues by discussing the investor harm from various scandals that could …