Law and Politics Commons^™

Does It Really Matter?: Making The Case For A Materiality Requirement In False Claims To U.S. Citizenship Under The Immigration And Nationality Act, Elizabeth Montano, Edward F. Ramos

University of Miami Law Review

Materiality plays an important role in limiting the reach of laws that penalize misrepresentations. Laws that include no materiality element punish any covered misrepresentation regardless of its relevance—like lying about hair color on a loan application. By contrast, laws that include a materiality element withhold punishment for immaterial misrepresentations of that kind—in other words, misrepresentations that have no tendency to affect the ultimate decision.
Our immigration laws make it a deportable offense for a noncitizen to “falsely represent” herself as a U.S. citizen for a purpose or benefit under the law. Although this law has been on the books for …

Notice: Aircraft Lien Law In Florida, Timothy M. Ravich

University of Miami Law Review

Establishing (e.g., perfecting) and enforcing a lien presents technical pitfalls and practical problems with which practitioners and courts are often unfamiliar or uncomfortable. After all, the law of liens requires an understanding of many different areas of the law, including the law of contract, bailment, unjust enrichment, and customary law. But among the most fraught with uncertainty are mechanic’s liens, which establish a right in favor of persons—“artisans”—performing or furnishing labor, services, fuel, or material upon personal property. Florida’s mechanic’s lien statute raises particularly challenging legal issues as applied to aircraft.
In Florida, the perfection and enforcement of a mechanic’s …

One Vote, Two Winners: Team-Ticket Gubernatorial Elections And The Need For Further Reform, T. Quinn Yeargain

University of Miami Law Review

Historically, governors and lieutenant governors were elected in separate elections. This frequently meant that governors and lieutenant governors of different parties were elected, undermining the democratic legitimacy of gubernatorial succession. But when New York adopted team tickets in 1953, it ignited a flurry of similar changes nationwide. Today, most states with lieutenant governors elect them on a team ticket with governors. And, since the initial adoption of team tickets, several other trends—specifically, trends away from separate primaries and toward post-primary selection—have emerged in how lieutenant governors are elected. Despite the significance of these changes, however, they remain largely unexplored by …

The Dawn Of A Judicial Takings Doctrine: Stop The Beach Renourishment, Inc. V. Florida Department Of Environmental Protection, Brendan Mackesey

University of Miami Law Review

In Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection, 130 S. Ct. 2592 (2010), the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to determine whether the Florida Supreme Court had violated a group of littoral property owners’ Fifth Amendment rights—or committed a “judicial taking”—by upholding the state of Florida’s Beach and Shore Preservation Act. Under the Act, the State is entitled to ownership of previously submerged land it restores as beach; this is true even though the normal private/state property line, the mean-high water line, is moved seaward, and the affected littoral owner(s) lose their right to have their property …

One Step Forward, Two Steps Backward: An Elastic Products Liability Framework For E-Cigarette Regulation, Evan Robinson

University of Miami Law Review

Societal innovation is frequently triggered by need. Year after year, novel technologies are created by entrepreneurs who seek to find a more effective, efficient, or less dangerous way of accomplishing a specific goal. Oftentimes, these new technologies enter the marketplace bringing with them a host of uncertainties concerning both their performance and effect on consumer activity. Despite these inevitable uncertainties, new technologies play a vital role in advancing society when appropriately controlled. Indeed, while the appropriate levels of control may vary across industries and technologies, one principal remains constant amongst the mall: the obligation to balance risk with reward. The …

Therapeutic Jurisprudence: Foundations, Expansion, And Assessment, David C. Yamada

University of Miami Law Review

Therapeutic Jurisprudence: Foundations, Expansion, and Assessment Founded in 1987 by law professors David Wexler and the late Bruce Winick, therapeutic jurisprudence (“TJ”) is a multidisciplinary school of legal theory and practice that examines the therapeutic and anti-therapeutic properties of law, policy, and legal institutions. In legal events and transactions, TJ inherently favors outcomes that advance human dignity and psychological well-being. Starting with original groundings in mental health and mental disability law, criminal law, and problem-solving courts, and with a geographic focus on the United States, TJ now embraces many aspects of law and policy and presents a strong international orientation. …

The Promotion Of The General Welfare: Using The Spending Clause To End The Criminalization Of Homelessness In America, David Stuzin

University of Miami Law Review

The U.S. is experiencing a homelessness crisis. While the government claims that there are half a million people experiencing homelessness in this country, the actual number is likely much larger than that estimate. Rather than investing in long-term solutions to homelessness, most states and municipalities have responded to this crisis by criminalizing conduct related to homelessness—an expensive approach hat perpetuates the cycle of homelessness and causes many people experiencing homelessness to needlessly suffer as a result. While advocates have fought criminalization in the courts, a problem of this size and scale cannot be solved through litigation alone. This Note advocates …

The Statutory Death Of The Gig Economy: How California Policy Incentivizes The Automation Of Five Million Jobs, Henry Moreno

University of Miami Law Review

With the advent of the gig economy, many have benefited from the availability of flexible work, particularly in the service industry. Since then, whether these workers are independent contractors or employees—entitled to certain rights and benefits—has been intensely debated. This Note examines the different legal approaches used in worker classification and the ramifications an employee designation could have on the estimated five million jobs the gig economy currently supports. Accordingly, this Note advocates the current state of the law is inept as applied to the gig economy and examines a potential framework to align the benefits of the gig economy …

Restorative Retributivism, Brian M. Murray

University of Miami Law Review

The current criminal justice moment is ripe for discussion of first principles. What the criminal law is, what it should do, and why society punishes is as relevant as ever as communities reconsider the reach of the criminal law and forms of punishment like incarceration. One theory recently put forth—reconstructivism—purports to offer a descriptive and normative theory of the criminal law and punishment while critiquing the ills of the American system. It comprehends the criminal law and punishment as functional endeavors, with the particular goal of restitching or “reconstructing” the social fabric that crime disrupts. In particular, reconstructivism is a …

Federalism In The Era Of Globalization: The Exercise Of Foreign Affairs Powers By Subnational Entities, Romney Manassa

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

Partisan Gerrymanders: Upholding Voter Suppression And Choosing Judicial Abdication In Rucho V. Common Cause, Frances R. Hill

University of Miami Law Review

Under the Constitution, voters choose their elected officials. Partisan gerrymanders, however, enable elected officials to choose their voters and, in the process, dilute the votes of citizens who do not support them. From this perspective, partisan gerrymanders undermine the sovereignty of the people and, thereby, undermine the foundation of this democratic republic. In Rucho v. Common Cause, the Supreme Court declared that partisan gerrymandering raises a nonjusticiable political question beyond the competence of the federal courts. This Article asks: How did this happen? How could the Supreme Court abdicate its duty to protect the sovereignty of the people and …

Anti-Science Ideology, Shi-Ling Hsu

University of Miami Law Review

Political attacks against scientists and scientific research are nothing new, though the Trump Administration appears to have increased both the breadth and the depth of such attacks. What is new, it seems, are attacks on science that are not in service of protecting any identifiable regulated industry. Under the Trump Administration, the attacks on science are more systemic, and aimed more at reducing scientific capacity in the federal government, rather than mere one-off policy interventions to help an individual industry.

This Article suggests that the Trump Administration, more than previous administrations, has sought to use science as part of a …

Using Election Forecasts To Understand The Potential Influence Of Campaigns, Media, And The Law In U.S. Presidential Elections, Peter K. Enns, Julius Lagodny

University of Miami Law Review

How do campaigns, media, and voting laws influence the outcome of U.S. Presidential elections? Political scientists often argue that these factors influence outcomes much less than commonly thought. To illustrate this argument, we show that we can predict the presidential vote in each state with a high degree of accuracy. Specifically, between 2004 and 2016, we correctly predict 94% of all state presidential vote outcomes. Our predictions are based on a forecasting model of the Electoral College, based primarily on each state’s approval rating of the incumbent president (using almost 90,000 survey responses from June and July of election years), …

Virus As Foreign Invader: U.S. Voters & The Immigration Debate, Rebecca Sharpless

University of Miami Law Review

Nativist sentiments against classes of immigrants have existed since colonial times. But views about immigration and immigrants drive U.S. electoral politics now more than ever, accounting for a significant number of voters who crossed party lines in the 2016 presidential election. The COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to harden deeply-held beliefs about outsider threats and further entrench the polarization of public views on immigration. During his campaigns and term in office, President Trump popularized nativism, breaking from the received wisdom of the Republican party. Casting the virus as a foreign invader, he built on fears of the contagion to alter …

The Cost Of Free Speech: Combating Fake News Or Upholding The First Amendment?, Brittany Finnegan

University of Miami Law Review

This Note examines the pervasive and evolving “fake news” problem. Specifically, it explores whether the United States government could pass legislation, modeled after a recently passed German law, regulating propagandistic social media posts. The answer to this question, in short, is no. By comparing the German Basic Law and the U.S. Constitution, this Note highlights the stringency of U.S. First Amendment protections and underscores the U.S. government’s inability to combat fake news through legislation. While this Note primarily focuses on the prevalence of fake news in the context of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, related developments and areas of research …

Power To The People: The Supreme Court’S Confirmation Of State Power In The Wake Of Faithless Electors, Gabrielle Engel

University of Miami Law Review

One of the most cherished American liberties is the right to vote. Yet, the Constitution does little to protect the integrity of individual voters. Instead, the Founding Fathers created an Electoral College to represent states’ will. Over time, states enacted laws requiring that electoral votes be cast to reflect the state popular vote. In 2016, several electors voted for candidates who did not win their state’s popular vote, grounding their actions in a believed constitutional right to vote freely and unencumbered by state outcomes. The Supreme Court addressed this issue in Chiafalo v. Washington, holding that states may bind electoral …

International Law Or International Politics? The Guaidó V. Maduro Conundrum At The Inter-American Development Bank, Félix A. Quintero Vollmer

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

Domestic Law Creating International Regimes: How Legal Formalism Is Hobbling U.S. Foreign Policy, Christopher Mirasola

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

International law has always been contested. In recent years, however, competition between States to influence the trajectory of international law has intensified. Unfortunately, most international lawyers and policy makers still employ an impoverished understanding of the way in which international law is created (i.e., through formal international negotiations or as developed through custom). In this article, I argue that this formalist perspective neglects the foundational role of domestic lawmaking and regulation in the development of international law. Indeed, this paper shows that domestic action has historically been a direct causal antecedent to international legal regimes, and concludes that States must …

Inner-City Anti-Poverty Campaigns, Anthony V. Alfieri

Articles

This article offers a defense of outsider, legal-political intervention and community triage in inner-city anti-poverty campaigns under circumstances of widespread urban social disorganization, public and private sector neglect, and nonprofit resource scarcity. In mounting this defense, the Article revisits the roles of lawyers, nonprofit legal services organizations, and university-housed law school clinics in contemporary anti-poverty, civil rights, and social justice movements, in part by chronicling the emergence of a faith-based municipal equity movement in Miami, Florida. The Article proceeds in four parts. Part I introduces the notion of community triage as a means of addressing the impoverished and segregated aftermath …

Modernist Forms Of Thinking And Their Critics In Mid-Twentieth Century America (Book Review), Kunal Parker

Articles

No abstract provided.

Fair Districts Florida: A Meaningful Redistricting Reform?, Jordan Lewis

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

No abstract provided.

Abortion Distortions, Caroline Mala Corbin

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Conventional Option, Gregory Koger, Sergio J. Campos

Articles

The filibuster in the United States Senate effectively imposes a supermajority vote requirement to pass any legislation. Both supporters and critics of the filibuster agree that any filibuster reform would require extraordinary measures. In contrast to this consensus, this Article describes a method we call the "conventional option," which allows the filibuster to be reformed by a simple majority of senators at any time using ordinary Senate procedures. As we show below, a majority of senators using the conventional option (1) cannot be filibustered; (2) can act on any day the Senate is in session (not just at the beginning …

The Geometry Of Inside And Outside, David Abraham

Articles

These are two important books. The Citizen and the Alien provides a rigorous and illuminating scrutiny of the conundrum faced by making out current concept and politics of citizenship work within liberal moral and political philosophy. The Birthright Lottery, a book with many virtues, recasts birthright citizenship in a manner analogous to the end of entailed property transmission brought about by liberal reform. This essay suggests that Bosniak is unduly pessimistic about bounded communities and that Shachar is unduly optimistic about the relationship between property rights and democracy.

Building The Bottom Up From The Top Down, A. Michael Froomkin

Articles

"Bottom up" governance. "Self-organization." These are among the most talismanic virtue-words of modern political discourse. Yet the reality is that in politics, "self-organization" is rare, being hard to initiate and even harder to sustain. As Oscar Wilde once complained about socialism, it "requires too many evenings." Governance as we tend to know it depends primarily on hierarchical institutions, or on close coordination within small groups. True partnerships, conversations among engaged equals, do not seem to scale. Indeed, whether one believes the fundamental problem to be something about the economics of group formation, the iron law of oligarchy, or something in …

Runaway Grand Jury: Activists Attempt To Redefine Obscenity Law In Kansas, Jill Barton

Articles

No abstract provided.

Providing Public Assistance For The Sunshine Law, Jean Manake, Jill Barton

Articles

No abstract provided.

Roundtable Discussion: Visions For The Future, Daniel L. Greenberg (Moderator), Anthony V. Alfieri, Michelle Adams, Edgar S. Cahn, Jennifer Gordon, Luis Garden Acosta, Alan W. Houseman, Errol G. Louis, Esmerelda Simmons, David A. Thomas

Articles

No abstract provided.

Property And Pragmatism: A Critique Of Radin's Theory Of Property And Personhood, Stephen J. Schnably

Articles

No abstract provided.