Legislation Commons^™

Dissecting The State: The Use Of Federal Law To Free State And Local Officials From State Legislatures' Control, Roderick M. Hills Jr.

Michigan Law Review

In discussions about American federalism, it is common to speak of a "state government" as if it were a black box, an individual speaking with a single voice. State governments are, of course, no such thing. Rather, a "state" actually incorporates a bundle of different subdivisions, branches, and agencies controlled by politicians who often compete with each other for electoral success and governmental power. In particular, these institutions compete with each other for the power to control federal funds and implement federal programs. This article explores one aspect of this intrastate competition - the extent to which federal law can …

Customary International Law And Human Rights Treaties Are Law Of The United States, Jordan J. Paust

Michigan Journal of International Law

The Founders clearly expected that the customary law of nations was binding, was supreme law, created (among others) private rights and duties, and would be applicable in United States federal courts. For example, at the time of the formation of the Constitution John Jay had written: "Under the national government… the laws of nations, will always be expounded in one sense… [and there is] wisdom… in committing such questions to the jurisdiction and judgment of courts appointed by and responsible only to one national government...” In 1792, the supremacy of the customary law of nations within the United States was …

The Constitutionality Of Taxing Compensatory Damages For Mental Distress When There Was No Accompanying Physical Injury, Douglas A. Kahn

Articles

Since 1919, statutory tax law has excluded from gross income compensatory damages received on account of a personal injury or sickness.1 The current version of that exclusion is set forth in section 104 (a) (2) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.2 The construction of that exclusion, both by the courts and by the Commissioner, underwent significant alterations over the 80-year period that the provision has existed.3 The statute itself was amended several times, most recently in 1996.4 It is the 1996 amendment that has raised a constitutional issue concerning the validity of a portion of the statute.5

Interpreting Indian Country In State Of Alaska V. Native Village Of Venetie, Kristen A. Carpenter

Publications

According to federal Indian law's canons of construction, statutes enacted for the benefit of American Indians and Alaska Natives must be liberally interpreted in their favor. But a doctrine of statutory interpretation presently challenges certain applications of the Indian canons. Announced by the Supreme Court in Chevron, U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., the doctrine requires that courts defer to administrative agency interpretations of ambiguous language in statutes they are authorized to administer. In instances where agencies construe statutes against Indian interests, Chevron deference and the Indian canons dictate opposite results for a reviewing court. This conflict muddles Indian …

An Original Model Of The Independent Counsel Statute, Ken Gormley

Michigan Law Review

On Friday, October 19, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon took a risky step to de-fang the Watergate investigation that had become a "viper in the bosom" of his Presidency. The U.S. Court of Appeals had just directed him to tum over tape-recordings subpoenaed by Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox; these taperecordings might prove or disprove White House involvement in the Watergate cover-up. Rather than challenge this ruling, the President conceived a new plan. The White House would prepare summaries of the nine tape-recordings in question, which would be verified by Senator John Stennis, a seventy-two-year-old Democrat from Mississippi, working alone …

Section 1: Chicago V. Morales, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

A Response To Professor Rubenfeld, Jonathan D. Hacker

Michigan Law Review

Professor Jed Rubenfeld has offered in these pages an ingenious explanation for why the Supreme Court was right to strike down the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) in City of Boerne v. Flores. Rubenfeld finds in the First Amendment's Establishment Clause a historical and inherent principle he calls "antidisestablishmentarianism": a prohibition on acts of Congress that "disestablish" religion in the several states. Rubenfeld reads the Establishment Clause as proscribing not only congressional acts that "establish" religion but also all congressional acts that "dictate a position on religion for states," including laws designed to ensure that states abide by the requirements …

Reply: Did The Fourteenth Amendment Repeal The First?, Jed Rubenfeld

Michigan Law Review

To get right to the point: Mr. Hacker does not disagree that the Establishment Clause would, in the absence of the Fourteenth Amendment, have prohibited Congress from passing a nationwide religion law like RFRA. He believes, however, that the Fourteenth Amendment has in part repealed the First. Of course, he doesn't want to say repealed. The language of repeal is not pleasant to the ears of those who would like to forget about First Amendment antidisestablishmentarianism. The Fourteenth Amendment did not "repeal any aspect of the text of the [Establishment] Clause," Hacker says, but only "change[d] profoundly the meaning of …

Textualism, The Unknown Ideal?, William N. Eskridge Jr.

Michigan Law Review

In May 1997, the New York Knickerbockers basketball team was poised to reach the finals of its division in the National Basketball Association (NBA). The Knicks led the rival Miami Heat by three games to two and needed one more victory to win the best-of seven semifinal playoff series. Game six would be in New York; with their star center, Patrick Ewing, playing well, victory seemed assured for the Knicks. A fracas during game five changed the odds. During a fight under the basket between Knicks and Heat players, Ewing left the bench and paced in the middle of the …

Judicial Supremacy And The Settlement Function, Robert F. Nagel

Publications

No abstract provided.

Treating Sexual Harassment With Respect, Anita Bernstein

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Tempered "Yes" To The "Exculpatory No", Scott D. Pomfret

Michigan Law Review

What circumstances trigger a person's duty to tell the truth? Immanuel Kant claimed without qualification that all circumstances require truthtelling, even when speaking the truth injures the speaker. John Henry Cardinal Newman made exceptions for lies that achieved some positive end. Hugo Grotius permitted lies to adversaries. The philosophy of twentieth-century common sense largely permits white lies. Perhaps surprisingly, some courts have found that Kant's absolute prohibition of falsehood more accurately characterizes a speaker's duty to tell the truth to the federal government under 18 U.S.C. § 1001 than these other, more relaxed standards. According to this view, the prohibition …

The Path To Habeas Corpus Narrows: Interpreting 28 U.S.C. § 2254(D)(1), Sharad Sushil Khandelwal

Michigan Law Review

The enforcement of the U.S. Constitution within the criminal justice system is an odd subspecies of constitutional law. In areas other than criminal law, federal courts act as the ultimate guarantors of constitutional rights by providing remedies whenever violations occur. Criminal law, however, is different by necessity; the bulk of criminal justice occurs in state courthouses, leaving constitutional compliance largely to state judges. The U.S. Supreme Court, of course, may review these decisions if it chooses, but a writ of certiorari can be elusive, especially given the Court's shrinking docket. After World War II, however, this feature of criminal constitutional …

Equal Protection, Class Legislation, And Colorblindness, Melissa L. Saunders

Michigan Law Review

Scholars and judges have long assumed that the Equal Protection Clause is concerned only with state action that has the effect of singling out certain persons or groups of persons for special benefits or burdens. Under the traditional doctrinal framework, state action that has this purpose and effect bears a certain burden of justification under the clause, a burden whose stringency varies, depending on the criteria used to define the class being singled out for special treatment and the importance of the interest affected. But state action that lacks such a "discriminatory effect" is not, on the traditional understanding, subject …

Restoring Rights To Rites: The Religious Motivation Test And The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Steven C. Seeger

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that the religious motivation test best secures the religious liberty guaranteed by the Constitution and the RFRA. Part I examines the text and legislative history of the Act and establishes that Congress intended to protect religiously motivated practices. Part II argues that the free exercise case law prior to Smith, to which the RFRA explicitly appeals, did not require litigants to prove centrality or compulsion. Part III demonstrates that the religious motivation test protects the full spectrum of religious practices and religious groups, unlike the centrality test and the compulsion test. Part IV illustrates that the motivation …

In Defense Of Language, The Supreme Court And Congress: A Reply To Professor Chemerinsky, Laura B. Bartell

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Doma: An Unconstitutional Establishment Of Fundamentalist Christianity, James M. Donovan

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

According to the text of the Act, DOMA's purposes are "to define and protect the institution of marriage," where marriage is defined to exclude same-sex partners. To be constitutionally valid under the Establishment Clause, this notion that heterosexual marriages require "protection" from gay and lesbian persons must spring from a secular and not religious source. This Article posits that DOMA has crossed this forbidden line between the secular and the religious. DOMA, motivated and supported by fundamentalist Christian ideology, and lacking any genuine secular goals or justifications, betrays the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Strategies For Preserving The Bankruptcy Trustee's Avoidance Power Against States After Seminole Tribe, Edward J. Janger

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

"A Government Of Limited And Enumerated Powers": In Defense Of United States V. Lopez, Steven G. Calabresi

Michigan Law Review

The Supreme Court's recent decision in United States v. Lopez marks a revolutionary and long overdue revival of the doctrine that the federal government is one of limited and enumerated powers. After being "asleep at the constitutional switch" for more than fifty years, the Court's decision to invalidate an Act of Congress on the ground that it exceeded the commerce power must be recognized as an extraordinary event. Even if Lopez produces no progeny and is soon overruled, the opinion has shattered forever the notion that, after fifty years of Commerce Clause precedent, we can never go back to the …

Foreword, Louis H. Pollak

Michigan Law Review

Introduction to the Symposium Reflections on United States v. Lopez

Enumerated Means And Unlimited Ends, H. Jefferson Powell

Michigan Law Review

United States v. Lopez can be read as a fairly mundane disagreement over the application of a long-settled test. The Government defended the statute under review in the case, the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, along familiar lines as a permissible regulation of activity affecting interstate and foreign commerce.

In this essay, I do not address the question whether Lopez was an important decision. My concern instead is with the problem that underlies Lopez's particular issue of the scope of the commerce power: Given our commitment to limited national government, in what way is the national legislature actually limited? …

Commerce!, Deborah Jones Merritt

Michigan Law Review

In this article, I explore the Supreme Court's new definition of "Commerce ... among the several States."9 In Part I, I examine three new principles that Lopez announces and that could significantly rework the Court's Commerce Clause jurisprudence. Part II, however, shows that these principles must be understood in the context of almost a dozen factors narrowing the Supreme Court's Lopez decision. Part II also demonstrates that the lower courts have understood the contextual uniqueness of Lopez and already have distinguished the decision in upholding more than half a dozen broad exercises of congressional authority. Part III then shows that …

How To Think About The Federal Commerce Power And Incidentally Rewrite United States V. Lopez, Donald H. Regan

Articles

Almost sixty years after the "revolution" of 1937, we still do not have an adequate theory of the commerce power. The Court was right to abandon the theory of dual federalism epitomized by Carter v. Carter Coal Co.;' and it has got the right results in the major cases decided since then. But our post-1937 theory, whether before or after Lopez, is a mess. On the one hand, we have a collection of doctrinal rules that, if we take them seriously, allow Congress to do anything it wants under the commerce power. On the other hand, we continue to pay …

The United States Supreme Court's Expansive Approach To The Federal Arbitration Act: A Look At The Past, Present, And Future Of Section 2, Preston Douglas Wigner

University of Richmond Law Review

The Federal Arbitration Act ["FAA"] was enacted in 1925 to ensure the validity and enforcement of arbitration agreements in contracts involving maritime transactions or interstate commerce. Intending the Act to be a simple method by which an opportunity would be given to enforce written arbitration agreements, Congress enacted what has become a confusing and controversial statute. Because of the absence of an in-depth discussion regarding the scope and applicability of the Act, Congress placed unintended burdens upon the courts to decipher congressional intent. Of particular concern to the courts was the authority by which Congress enacted the FAA.

Judging Girls: Decision Making In Parental Consent To Abortion Cases, Suellyn Scarnecchia, Julie Kunce Field

Articles

Judges make determinations on a daily basis that profoundly affect people's lives. On March 28, 1991, the Michigan legislature enacted a statute entitled The Parental Rights Restoration Act (hereinafter "the Michigan Act" or "the Act"). This statute delegated to probate court judges the extraordinary task of deciding whether a minor girl may have an abortion without the consent of a parent. Nothing in law school and little in an average judge's experience provide a meaningful framework for making such a decision. Although many commentators, including the authors, argue that decisions about abortion should be left to the woman regardless of …

Taxation Of Damages After Schleier - Where Are We And Where Do We Go From Here?, Douglas A. Kahn

Articles

This article will examine the reasoning of the Schleier decision and speculate as to how taxation of pre-1996 damages will likely apply in light of Schleier. First, the article will set forth a very brief history of the judicial and administrative constructions of the statutory exclusion, and explore tax policy justifications for providing an exclusion from gross income for certain damages. These latter two items (set forth in Parts II and III of this article) are areas that have been extensively addressed previously by several commentators, including the author of this article.' The reason for exploring tax policy issues is …

Divergent Strategies: Union Organizing And Alternative Dispute Resolution, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

The Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations, the so-called "Dunlop Commission," is focusing on three principal subjects: (1) union organizing, (2) worker participation in management decision making, and (3) alternative dispute resolution (ADR). I am going to concentrate on the last, but first I would like to say a few words about union organizing. After all, unionization and collective bargaining - and for that matter, worker participation as well - can fairly be viewed as special forms of alternative dispute resolution.

Taxation Of Punitive Damages Obtained In A Personal Injury Claim, Douglas A. Kahn

Articles

The author explains that in recent court opinions and commentaries concerning whether punitive damages are taxable, considerable weight has been given to a negative inference that appears to lurk in a 1989 amendment to the relevant code provision, section 104(a)(2). To the contrary, he argues, the legislative history of that amendment and the form that the bill had when it was reported out of the Conference Committee establish beyond doubt that no such inference is warranted.

Social Justice And Fundamental Law: A Comment On Sager's Constitution, Terrance Sandalow

Articles

Professor Sager begins his very interesting paper by identifying what he considers a puzzling phenomenon: the Constitution, as interpreted by courts, is not coextensive with "political justice." "This moral shortfall," as he refers to it, represents not merely a failure of achievement, but a failure of aspiration: as customarily interpreted, the Constitution does not even address the full range of issues that are the subject of political justice. Sager regards that failure as surprising-so surprising that, in his words, it "begs for explanation."'

The Meaning Of "Under Color Of" Law, Steven L. Winter

Michigan Law Review

The argument proceeds as follows. In Part I, I examine why the conceptual problem of who or what is "the State" is so intractable. In Part II, I present the historical evidence that establishes beyond doubt the pedigree and meaning of the phrase under color of law. I explain why Frankfurter would have indulged in such an obvious historical error to take the position he did. I suggest that, as was the case with the invention of modem standing doctrine, Frankfurter was here engaged in a stealthy, anachronistic campaign against the jurisprudence of the Lochner era - attempting to …