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Articles 91 - 120 of 145

Full-Text Articles in Legislation

Agora: Reflections On Zivotofsky V. Kerry Presidential Signing Statements And Dialogic Constitutionalism, Catherine Powell Jan 2015

Agora: Reflections On Zivotofsky V. Kerry Presidential Signing Statements And Dialogic Constitutionalism, Catherine Powell

Faculty Scholarship

When the Supreme Court held that the executive branch has exclusive authority to recognize foreign sovereigns in the Jerusalem passport case, Zivotojsky v. Kerry (Zivotojsky lI), Jack Goldsmith hailed the decision as a "vindication" of presidential signing statements and executive power. Indeed, in the context of the debate over the treatment of the terror suspects, the New York Times had called such signing statements the "constitutionally ludicrous" work of an overreaching, "imperial presidency." Others in this Symposium and elsewhere have covered what a "bonanza" Zivotojsi II is for foreign relations law, the competing visions of foreign relations at the case's …


Legislation And Regulation In The Core Curriculum: A Virtue Or A Necessity?, James J. Brudney Jan 2015

Legislation And Regulation In The Core Curriculum: A Virtue Or A Necessity?, James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

The first-year curriculum at American law schools has been remarkably stable for more than 100 years. Many would say ossified. At Harvard, the First-Year Course of Instruction in 1879-80 consisted of Real Property, Contracts, Torts, Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure, and Civil Procedure. These five courses-focused heavily on judge-made common law-dominated Harvard's IL curriculum from the law school's founding into the 21st century. The same five subjects have long commanded the primary attention of first-year students at Fordham, founded in 1905, and at virtually every other U.S. law school throughout the 20th century. Starting in the 1990s, however, a growing …


The War On Drugs And Prison Growth: Limited Importance, And Limited Legislative Options, John F. Pfaff Jan 2015

The War On Drugs And Prison Growth: Limited Importance, And Limited Legislative Options, John F. Pfaff

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Who Governs? Delegations In Global Trade Lawmaking, Terence C. Halliday, Josh Pacewicz, Susan Block-Lieb Jan 2013

Who Governs? Delegations In Global Trade Lawmaking, Terence C. Halliday, Josh Pacewicz, Susan Block-Lieb

Faculty Scholarship

Who governs international trade law regimes? Although this question has attracted much research for global regulatory regimes, very little is known about international trade law organizations which function as global legislatures. This paper focuses on hitherto invisible attributes of the inner core of global legislators - the state and non-state delegations and delegations that create global norms for private international trade law through the most prominent global trade legislature, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). Based on ten years of fieldwork, extensive interviews, and unique data on delegation attendance and participation in UNCITRAL’s Working Group on Insolvency, …


The Unjustified Subsidy: Sovereign Wealth Funds The Foreign Sovereign Tax Exemption, Jennifer Bird-Pollan Jan 2012

The Unjustified Subsidy: Sovereign Wealth Funds The Foreign Sovereign Tax Exemption, Jennifer Bird-Pollan

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

The taxation of Sovereign Wealth Funds in the United States is outmoded and due for reconsideration. Offering a tax exemption to the billion dollar investment funds owned by foreign governments is both unfair and ineffective. Founded in the principles of sovereign immunity, the foreign sovereign tax exemption, codified in I.R.C. § 892, fails to satisfy the Congressional goals that motivated its creation. This Article explains the current taxation of foreign sovereigns and, by extension, Sovereign Wealth Funds. It then illustrates that the current exemption is simultaneously too broad, providing a tax exemption for activities that are clearly nongovernmental activities, and …


The End Of The Internal Compliance World As We Know It, Or An Enhancement Of The Effectiveness Of Securities Law Enforcement? Bounty Hunting Under The Dodd-Frank Act's Whistleblower Provision, Justin Blount, Spencer Markel Jan 2012

The End Of The Internal Compliance World As We Know It, Or An Enhancement Of The Effectiveness Of Securities Law Enforcement? Bounty Hunting Under The Dodd-Frank Act's Whistleblower Provision, Justin Blount, Spencer Markel

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

In the wake of Bernard Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme and the recent economic crisis stemming largely from loosely regulated subprime lending and mortgage-backed securities, President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act on July 21, 2010, signaling loudly and clearly that change is coming to Wall Street. But Wall Street is not the only one receiving a message. Buried deep within the 2,319 pages of the Dodd-Frank Act, companies can find Section 922, the whistleblower provision, which provides a bounty for whistleblowers who report securities violations to the Securities and Exchange Commission.These bounty provisions and …


The New Section 1202 Tax-Free Business Sale: Congress Rewards Small Businesses That Survived The Great Recession, Beckett G. Cantley Jan 2012

The New Section 1202 Tax-Free Business Sale: Congress Rewards Small Businesses That Survived The Great Recession, Beckett G. Cantley

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

On September 27, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Creating Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 (“SBJA”) that contains a temporary amendment to Internal Revenue Code (“IRC”) § 1202. The amendment permits original shareholders of eligible corporation stock to sell the stock without being taxed on the sale. The temporary amendment initially only applied to certain stock acquired after the enactment of the SBJA and before January 1, 2011, but the amendment was extended on December 17, 2010 for another year ending January 1, 2012. With the impending sunset of the 15% capital gains rate at the end of 2012, …


Lessons From The Flash Crash For The Regulation Of High-Frequency Traders, Edgar Ortega Barrales Jan 2012

Lessons From The Flash Crash For The Regulation Of High-Frequency Traders, Edgar Ortega Barrales

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

Are equity markets vulnerable to a sudden collapse if the traders who account for about half of the volume have no regulatory obligations to stabilize prices? After the “Flash Crash” of May 6, 2010, policymakers have resoundingly answered this question in the affirmative. During the worst of the crash, some of the so-called high-frequency trading firms that dominate equity markets stopped trading and prices collapsed, momentarily wiping out almost $1 trillion in market value. In response, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is considering whether high-frequency trading firms should be required to act as the traders of last resort. This …


Distrust And Clarify: Appreciating Congressional Overrides, James J. Brudney Jan 2012

Distrust And Clarify: Appreciating Congressional Overrides, James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

Deborah Widiss continues to make important contributions in an area of statutory interpretation that has been largely neglected: the consequences of congressional overrides. Professor Widiss previously demonstrated how the Supreme Court and lower courts often confine the reach of statutes that purposefully override prior court decisions, thereby reviving aspects of the overridden judicial interpretations as ―shadow precedents.‖ In Undermining Congressional Overrides: The Hydra Problem in Statutory Interpretation, Professor Widiss addresses the Supreme Court‘s further expansion of judicial power in the aftermath of congressional disapproval. Faced with the override of its textual interpretation in one employment discrimination statute, the Court inferred …


Confirmatory Legislative History , James J. Brudney Jan 2010

Confirmatory Legislative History , James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

Textualists and intentionalists regularly lock horns over the proper approach to construing statutory language regarded as inconclusive. The interpretive debate seems less contentious, however, when the words of the law are deemed clear. There may be reasonable disagreement as to whether the text at issue in a particular controversy has a plain meaning, but if it does then that meaning arguably preempts further inquiry. Since 1990, Supreme Court majority opinions are replete with declarations such as: "Given [a] straightforward statutory command, there is no reason to resort to legislative history"; or "we do not resort to legislative history to cloud …


Gathering Moss: The Nrla's Resistance To Legislative Change , James J. Brudney Jan 2010

Gathering Moss: The Nrla's Resistance To Legislative Change , James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

Why has the NLRA been so resistant to legislative change for more than 60 years? How was Congress able to enact two major labor relations laws within a 12-year period (1935 and 1947) but then unable to approve proposed reforms in the years since 1947? In an effort to answer these questions, the article closely examines contemporaneous newspaper accounts from the 1935 and 1947 legislative “successes” as well as from two more recent congressional “failures” in 1978 and 1992. The article’s examination proceeds based on an analytic framework borrowed from political scientist John Kingdon that posits a recurring interplay among …


Administering The Second Amendment: Law, Politics, And Taxonomy , Nicholas J. Johnson Jan 2010

Administering The Second Amendment: Law, Politics, And Taxonomy , Nicholas J. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

This article anticipates the post-McDonald landscape by assessing the right to arms in the context of several state regulations and the arguments that might be employed as challenges to them unfold. So far, the core test for determining the scope of the individual right to arms is the common use standard articulated in District of Columbia v. Heller. Measured against that, standard firearm regulations fit into three categories. The first category contains laws that are easily administered under the common use standard. The second category – and the primary focus of this article – consists of laws that can be …


The Costs Of Consensus In Statutory Construction, Ethan J. Leib, Michael Serota Jan 2010

The Costs Of Consensus In Statutory Construction, Ethan J. Leib, Michael Serota

Faculty Scholarship

Finding methodological consensus for statutory interpretation cases is all the rage these days.1 Some in the academy sing the praises of a singular judicial approach to questions of statutory interpretation and bemoan the frustrations associated with judges implementing a mélange of interpretive techniques. And now, thanks to Abbe Gluck’s authoritative article, Laboratories of Statutory Interpretation, proponents of interpretive uniformity have evidence that some state courts seem to be applying methodological stare decisis to decide questions of statutory interpretation. After exhaustive reading and analysis of state statutory interpretation cases—cases that have received far less attention than their federal counterparts—Gluck describes several …


Canon Shortfalls And The Virtues Of Political Branch Interpretive Assets Tribute Issue In Honor Of Philip P. Frickey: Festschrift, James J. Brudney Jan 2010

Canon Shortfalls And The Virtues Of Political Branch Interpretive Assets Tribute Issue In Honor Of Philip P. Frickey: Festschrift, James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

As a legislation scholar, Philip Frickey was present at the creation.I Along with his coauthor William Eskridge, Frickey reconceptualized the field of legislation and statutory interpretation. In doing so, he opened the door to an unparalleled period of inquiry and debate about the meaning of statutes, among both judges and academics. The Eskridge and Frickey casebook, published in 1988, was justly hailed by Judge Richard Posner as having "done for legislation what Hart and Sacks did for legal process, or Hart and Wechsler for federal courts: it has demonstrated the existence of a subject." Over the ensuing two decades, Frickey …


The Warp And Woof Of Statutory Interpretation: Comparing Supreme Court Approaches In Tax Law And Workplace Law, James J. Brudney, Corey Distlear Jan 2009

The Warp And Woof Of Statutory Interpretation: Comparing Supreme Court Approaches In Tax Law And Workplace Law, James J. Brudney, Corey Distlear

Faculty Scholarship

Debates about statutory interpretation-and especially about the role of the canons of construction and legislative history-are generally framed in one-size-fits-all terms. Yet federal judges including most Supreme Court Justices-have not approached statutory interpretation from a methodologically uniform perspective. This Article presents the first in-depth examination of interpretive approaches taken in two distinct subject areas over an extended period of time. Professors Brudney and Ditslear compare how the Supreme Court has relied on legislative history and the canons of construction when construing tax statutes and workplace statutes from 1969 to 2008. The authors conclude that the Justices tend to rely on …


Supreme Court As Interstitial Actor: Justice Ginsburg's Eclectic Approach To Statutory Interpretation Symposium: The Jurisprudence Of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg: A Discussion Of Fifteen Years On The U.S. Supreme Court, James J. Brudney Jan 2009

Supreme Court As Interstitial Actor: Justice Ginsburg's Eclectic Approach To Statutory Interpretation Symposium: The Jurisprudence Of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg: A Discussion Of Fifteen Years On The U.S. Supreme Court, James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court is in the midst of an extended debate regarding the proper approach to construing federal statutes. A number of Justices have engaged in heated dialogue addressing the pros and cons of textualism or intentionalism, as well as the virtues and limitations of Chevron deference. Although Justice Ginsburg has not participated in these judicial exchanges, she has adopted her own approach to the challenge of interpreting federal statutes. This Article explores Ginsburg’s approach by focusing on four opinions that construe federal criminal laws and three that interpret labor relations and anti-discrimination laws. The Article’s central thesis is that …


Collateral Conflict: Employer Claims Of Rico Extortion Against Union Comprehensive Campaign , James J. Brudney Jan 2009

Collateral Conflict: Employer Claims Of Rico Extortion Against Union Comprehensive Campaign , James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

The article addresses an important yet largely overlooked issue of statutory meaning and labor relations policy: employers’ aggressive use of civil RICO actions to chill coordinated union efforts in the organizing and bargaining arenas. Over the past 30 years, facing volatile economic conditions and complex corporate relationships, unions have mounted coordinated campaigns (aimed at consumers, public officials, lenders, the media, and the public) in order to help organize new workers and to renew collective bargaining relationships. These often high-profile campaigns have at times been quite successful. In response, employers since the late 1980s have invoked civil RICO’s broad language to …


Slots In The City: A Critical Look At The Balance Of Decision-Making Power In Gaming Legislation, Eric B. Becker Jan 2008

Slots In The City: A Critical Look At The Balance Of Decision-Making Power In Gaming Legislation, Eric B. Becker

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Note focuses on the ability of local governmental bodies and local actors to become involved when a state seeks to introduce casino-based gaming or license additional casino properties. Traditionally, states retain the power to make most gaming-related decisions, sometimes only allowing simple "yes or no" voter referenda. This note argues that an increased role for local actors in bringing gaming to cities will best protect the interests of the people most affected by casinos. Part I provides a brief background of gambling in America and the key aspects of gaming-enabling legislation in various states. Part II discusses local government …


Liberal Justices' Reliance On Legislative History, James J. Brudney, Corey Distlear Jan 2008

Liberal Justices' Reliance On Legislative History, James J. Brudney, Corey Distlear

Faculty Scholarship

This Article presents a strong case against the conventional wisdom that legislative history is a "politicized'" resource, invoked opportunistically by federal judges. The premise that judges regularly rely on legislative history to promote their preferred policy positions-if true-should find ample support in the majority opinions of liberal Supreme Court Justices construing liberal (pro-employee) labor and civil rights statutes. By analyzing all 320-plus majority opinions in workplace law authored by eight liberal Justices from 1969-2006, the authors establish that legislative history reliance is actually associated with a constraining set of results. When the eight liberal Justices use legislative history as part …


Election Fraud And The Initiative Process: A Study Of The 2006 Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, Jocelyn Friedrichs Benson Jan 2007

Election Fraud And The Initiative Process: A Study Of The 2006 Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, Jocelyn Friedrichs Benson

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Article details and analyzes the allegations of fraud that surrounded the placement of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative on the 2006 Michigan ballot, with an emphasis on the normative concerns that such a phenomenon engenders. It seeks to place the Michigan events in the broader legal and historical context of election fraud and ballot initiatives, and discusses why the events surround the MCRI signature-gathering process are a serious cause for concern. The Article ultimately enumerates three specific state proposals, as well as a federal proposal, for addressing the use of fraud and misrepresentation in gathering signatures to place initiatives …


Below The Surface: Comparing Legislative History Usage By The House Of Lords And The Supreme Court , James J. Brudney Jan 2007

Below The Surface: Comparing Legislative History Usage By The House Of Lords And The Supreme Court , James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

In 1992, the Law Lords (the judicial arm of the House of Lords) overruled more than two centuries of precedent when it decided in Pepper v. Hart that courts could refer to and rely on legislative history to aid in construing enacted laws. The ensuing fourteen years have witnessed a robust debate among British judges and legal scholars as to the scope and propriety of Pepper. This article offers the first empirical and comparative analysis of how Britain's highest court has used previously excluded legislative history materials in its judicial decisions. Although the Law Lords opened the door to reliance …


Intentionalism's Revival , James J. Brudney Jan 2007

Intentionalism's Revival , James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

This essay responds to an article by Professors Boudreau, Lupia, McCubbins, and Rodriguez (hereinafter "BLMRod") that was posted in Legislation and Statutory Interpretation Abstracts on July 26, 2007, (http://ssrn.com/abstract=997924) and that will appear in the San Diego Law Review, vol.44, no.2, 2007. The essay situates BLMRod's article in the context of recent efforts by a number of scholars to reclaim foundational legitimacy for intentionalism as an approach to construing statutes. The essay first applauds BLMRod's use of insights from communication theory to conceptualize statutes as compressed substantive or procedural commands that cannot be adequately understood without an appreciation for the …


Recrafting A Trojan Horse: Thoughts On Workplace Governance In Light Of Recent British Labor Law Developments , James J. Brudney Jan 2006

Recrafting A Trojan Horse: Thoughts On Workplace Governance In Light Of Recent British Labor Law Developments , James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

In June of 2000, Britain established a statutory union recognition procedure applicable to all private and public employers with more than twenty workers.For a country with a history of voluntarism in labor-management relations, the creation of a legal mechanism by which unions could compel recognition from employers was a major change. The Labour Party government modeled its new approach to a considerable extent on our National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).3 Unions seeking statutory recognition must apply through a government agency; disagreements over proposed unit size or scope are to be resolved early by the agency; the union must show majority …


Canons Of Construction And The Elusive Quest For Neutral Reasoning, James J. Brudney, Corey Distlear Jan 2005

Canons Of Construction And The Elusive Quest For Neutral Reasoning, James J. Brudney, Corey Distlear

Faculty Scholarship

Over the past 15 years, the canons of construction have experienced a remarkable revival in the courts and the legal academy. While the role of this interpretive resource has been heavily theorized, it has until now been under-explored from an empirical standpoint. This article adopts a novel combination of empirical and doctrinal analysis to uncover the Supreme Court's complex patterns of reliance on the canons over a 34-year period. We focus on whether the canons are favored across different time periods, in particular subject matter areas, by individual justices, and in close cases. Our approach - identifying ten different interpretive …


Decline And Fall Of Legislative History - Patterns Of Supreme Court Reliance In The Burger And Rehnquist Eras, The, James J. Brudney, Corey Distlear Jan 2005

Decline And Fall Of Legislative History - Patterns Of Supreme Court Reliance In The Burger And Rehnquist Eras, The, James J. Brudney, Corey Distlear

Faculty Scholarship

Reliance on legislative history in the Court's majority opinions has fallen from nearly 50 percent during the Burger era to less than 30 percent since 1985.


Revenge Of Mullaney V. Wilbur: United States V. Booker And The Reassertion Of Judicial Limits On Legislative Power To Define Crimes, The, Ian Weinstein Jan 2005

Revenge Of Mullaney V. Wilbur: United States V. Booker And The Reassertion Of Judicial Limits On Legislative Power To Define Crimes, The, Ian Weinstein

Faculty Scholarship

This article offers a historically grounded account of the twists and turns in the Supreme Court's sentencing jurisprudence from the end of World War II to the Court's stunning rejection of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. The doctrinal shifts that have roiled this area of the law can best be understood as the Court's effort to respond to the changing political and social landscape of crime in America. In the mid 1970's, legislative activity in the criminal law was largely focused on Model Penal Code influenced recodification. In that era, the Supreme Court took power from an ascendant judiciary and gave …


The Abortion Debate Thirty Years Later: From Choice To Coercion, Maureen Kramlich Jan 2004

The Abortion Debate Thirty Years Later: From Choice To Coercion, Maureen Kramlich

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This article critiques the notion of abortion as a "positive liberty." The author argues that the court's holding in Roe v. Wade created a negative right to abortion, meaning that an individual seeking an abortion is merely protected from government interference. Over time, "pro-abortion" advocates have sought a positive right to access an abortion, including government funding. The author finds this position problematic and outside the scope of Roe, particularly as it erodes religious healthcare providers' right to refuse to perform the procedure.


Saving Roe Is Not Enough: When Religion Controls Healthcare, Susan Berke Fogel, Lourdes A. Rivera Jan 2004

Saving Roe Is Not Enough: When Religion Controls Healthcare, Susan Berke Fogel, Lourdes A. Rivera

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This article advocates for legislative action against the "religious exemptions" or "conscience clauses" used by religiously-affiliated healthcare facilities, particular in the context of refusing abortion, sterilization, and other reproductive health services. Among other recommendations, the authors call for religious exemptions on the individual rather than institutional level; that the religious exemption be disallowed in rural areas or situations where reasonable alternatives are unavailable; and a requirement that complete, medically accurate information be made available regardless of a religious exemption.


Econometric Analyses Of U.S. Abortion Policy: A Critical View, Jonathan Klick Jan 2004

Econometric Analyses Of U.S. Abortion Policy: A Critical View, Jonathan Klick

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This article surveys, in non-technical language, various econometric studies on the correlation between changes in access to abortion (whether through legalization, increased public funding, increased safety, etc.) and social phenomena such as sexual activity, crime, and opportunities for women. It argues that many econometrics-based abortion studies are contentious, often yielding varying results depending on the stakes of those commissioning the studies, and often too technical to be useful to policy-makers. As a result of these shortcomings, the author calls for methodological soundness and publication for a more general audience for those social scientists who want to enter the reproductive rights …


Recalibrating Federal Judicial Independence Symposium: Perspectives On Judicial Independence: Accountability And Separation Of Power Issues, James J. Brudney Jan 2003

Recalibrating Federal Judicial Independence Symposium: Perspectives On Judicial Independence: Accountability And Separation Of Power Issues, James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

It is well settled that independent courts play a vital role in promoting rule-of-law and separation-of-powers norms. At the same time, judicial independence must be reconciled with other values that we also wish to recognize as foundational. Professor Brudney addresses two areas of controversy that are associated with the celebration of judicial autonomy in our legal culture. He first discusses the role of political and personal background factors in shaping judicial selection and influencing judicial outcomes. He explains why both the President and Congress have come to rely increasingly on such background factors when seeking to anticipate the broad contours …