Public Law and Legal Theory Commons^™

Reform For Realists: The False Promise Of Condorcet Voting, G. Michael Parsons, Rachel Hutchinson

Marquette Law Review

As Americans grow disenchanted with democracy, many scholars suggest that election reforms may offer a path forward. The fastest growing of these reforms is ranked choice voting (RCV). In RCV elections, voters rank candidates in order of preference: first, second, third, and so on. The candidates with the least support are eliminated, and ballots that ranked those candidates count for their next choice instead. This method has over a century of use in public elections and provides proven benefits well-suited to many of the problems facing our country.

Yet some social choice theorists now argue that reformers have backed the …

What Might Contract Theory Be?, Gregory Klass

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Few contract theories begin with so comprehensive a discussion of method as does Stephen Smith’s book, Contract Theory. In the first chapter, “What Is Contract Theory,” Smith describes an interpretive approach guided by four goals: fit with the existing law, internal coherence, moral attractiveness, and transparency to legal actors.

This chapter in Understanding Private Law: Essays in Honour of Stephen A. Smith, does a deep dive into Smith’s description and defense of those goals. Smith pictures the contract theorist as an observer standing outside legal practice, interpreting the law but not participating in it. That picture results in …

Lost Innocence, Mateo Valdivieso

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Human trafficking is defined as involving “force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act” (U.S. Department of Homeland Security). It disproportionately affects vulnerable populations, particularly children within the U.S. welfare system. This research aims to analyze the characteristics of this system that produce vulnerabilities in welfare children that heighten their risk of being trafficked. The study focuses on socio-economic, psychological, and environmental vulnerabilities, examining how these factors, combined with increased internet accessibility, exacerbate the risks of trafficking. Using a qualitative approach, the research uses secondary data from peer-reviewed journal articles, government reports, and reputable …

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

Voting Matters: Materiality Considerations And The Shareholder Vote, Renee M. Jones

Seattle University Law Review

For the shareholder franchise to have meaning, shareholders must have access to relevant information to inform their voting decisions. The securities laws’ disclosure requirements play an essential role in informing the shareholder vote.

This Essay focuses on the question of the materiality of information in the context of shareholder voting. It addresses the question of whether ESG-related information is material, positioning the materiality inquiry within the context of shareholders’ voting decisions. It explores the definition of materiality with a focus on the “reasonable investor” concept embedded within the definition. The Essay argues that the implicit expectations of many commentators that …

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

Understanding The Big Three’S Wavering Support Of Environmental And Social Shareholder Proposals, Jeff Schwartz, Jefferson Jensen

Seattle University Law Review

Because of their substantial equity portfolios, BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street (the Big 3) are central players in corporate governance. It is, therefore, critical to understand how they vote. One puzzle is that their support for shareholder proposals on environmental and social matters appears to waiver. In 2020, for instance, BlackRock supported 11.1% of environmental proposals at S&P 500 firms. In 2021, it seemingly reversed course, supporting 55.2%. It then flipped again, supporting 32.1% in 2022. Such statistics suggest that the Big 3 are constantly changing their views on these topics. This Article seeks to better understand whether this is …

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

Is There A Regulator In The Polish Electronic Delivery Market? The Role Of The President Of Uke, Mateusza Chołodecki

internetowy Kwartalnik Antymonopolowy i Regulacyjny (internet Quarterly on Antitrust and Regulation)

This paper examines the regulatory role of the President of the Office of Electronic Communications (UKE) within the electronic delivery market in Poland, focusing specifically on the statutory competencies granted by the Electronic Delivery Act. The paper identifies significant limitations of the President of UKE’s current regulatory scope, by analysing these competencies and their alignment with Poland’s postal and telecommunications regulatory frameworks. The analysis reveals that the regulatory powers of the President UKE that concern electronic delivery services are narrowly defined, primarily covering oversight over tariffs, T&Cs, and operator designation, without broader supervisory authority or clearly articulated regulatory objectives. Consequently, …

Unequal Ownership, Ofer Eldar, Rory Van Loo

Faculty Scholarship

Market concentration and weak competition do not just lead to lower efficiency but also result in corporate profits flowing primarily to wealthy households that own a disproportionate share of public corporations. We demonstrate that this is a growing distributional problem not only due to familiar reasons in the literature, most notably shifts in market power, but also due to changes in the socio-economic makeup of ownership. Over the past twenty years, households in the bottom 90 percent of wealth have seen their share of stock ownership decline by half. That is, the ownership of corporations has become increasingly concentrated among …

Special-Purpose Governments, Conor Clarke, Henry Hansmann

Scholarship@WashULaw

When one thinks of government, what comes to mind are familiar general-purpose entities like states, counties, and cities. But more than half of the 90,000 governments in the United States are strikingly different: They are “special-purpose” governments that do one thing, such as supply water, fight fire, or pick up the trash. These entities have expanded far more rapidly than any other form of government. Yet they remain understudied, and they present at least two puzzles. First, special-purpose governments are difficult to distinguish from entities that are typically regarded as business organizations—such as consumer cooperatives—and thus underscore the nebulous border …

Foundations For Platform Liability, Kathryn E. Spier, Rory Van Loo

Faculty Scholarship

From spreading misinformation to selling deadly products, bad actors use technology platforms to their advantage while causing devastating harms to privacy, health, and even democracy. Despite their central role in enabling these bad actors, the platforms almost entirely escape liability. This legal immunity is purportedly grounded in economics. From the beginning, courts and legislatures feared that liability would chill innovation, growth, and user access. They also speculated that platforms have sufficient market incentives to voluntarily police bad actors, making liability unnecessary.

Whereas many scholars have argued that platform immunity is blind to justice, this Article shows that it is also …

Property And Information, Jeanne L. Schroeder, David G. Carlson

Articles

The article proceeds as follows. As the information theory is a reaction to legal realism, Part I explores its antecedents in the work of Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld and Ronald H. Coase. Part II presents the information theory as arising from Professor Smith’s interpretation of the Coase theorem.11 In the imaginary world of TC0, we are supposedly indifferent to organizing by property and organizing by contract. Property eclipses contract as the organon of the economy because property reduces the cost of delineation and processing—of speaking and comprehending. We show that this theory is founded on a misunderstanding of Coase. Part III …

Urgensi Pembentukan Lembaga Pengawas Data Pribadi Sebagai Upaya Preventif Kebocoran Data Pribadi, Salsa Hardafi

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

The rapid advancement of information technology has intensified the risks of personal data breaches and violations of privacy rights. Although Law Number 27 of 2022 on Personal Data Protection (PDP Law) has established a comprehensive legal framework for personal data protection in Indonesia, its effective implementation remains constrained by the absence of the Personal Data Protection Supervisory Authority (PDP Authority). This institutional absence creates a structural authority vacuum that weakens preventive measures, law enforcement mechanisms, and alternative dispute resolution in personal data protection. Through normative legal analysis using Hans Kelsen’s Stufenbau Theory, Nonet and Selznick’s Responsive Law Theory, and Satjipto …

Carceral Bonds, Tyler E. Dougherty

Lewis & Clark Law Review

Over the past 50 years, the U.S. financed a massive physical and fiscal expansion of prisons via the municipal bond market—with devastating results. This project is the first to shine a light on the role of municipal debt in state-level carceral decision making, spotlighting the ways that the municipal bond market affects states’ capacities to incarcerate.

This Article argues that the two primary controls of states’ use of the carceral bond market—(1) market discipline and (2) states’ fiscal constitutions—are particularly ineffective at limiting states’ spending on prisons. This failure to restrain states’ spending through the carceral bond market enables private …

Prefatory Matter

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

No abstract provided.

Letter From The Editor, Nick Kaye

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

No abstract provided.

An Analysis Of Charity Care Policy In Virginia And Recommendations For The Future, Victoria Richardson

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

Virginia’s uninsured rate has dropped significantly since Medicaid expansion, but statewide gaps in coverage remain, especially among communities of color and for those transitioning from Medicaid to Medicare at age sixty-five. Accordingly, greater utilization of charity care is necessary to prevent the most vulnerable Virginians from experiencing crippling medical debt—debt they may by unable to pay due to limited resources.

Unfortunately, charity care requirements for providers suffer from a lack of clarity and accountability at both the state and federal level. This article surveys the current laws and regulations that govern charity care in Virginia and highlights problems that prevent …

New Dominion, Old Tricks: A Review Of Virginia's 2024 General Assembly Session, Ryan Pokorny, Tucker Weiser

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

The 2024 General Assembly session followed a transformative election cycle. Democrats regained full control of the General Assembly after two years of split legislative power, thwarting Governor Glenn Youngkin’s efforts to secure a Republican trifecta. Redistricting drove unprecedented turnover, with more than one-third of lawmakers joining their respective chambers as newcomers in 2024. The remade General Assembly was the youngest in recent memory and the most diverse in Virginia history. These changes brought uncertainty and promises of cooperation, but the session soon descended into familiar partisan polarization. Governor Youngkin vetoed a record number of bills, while Democrats voted down many …

The General Assembly's Consideration Of The Data Center Industry's Growth In Virginia, L. Preston Bryant Jr.

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

Virginia has a decades-long history with the data center industry’s growth and development, which has been critical to the nation’s—and world’s—increasingly digital economy. The industry also has brought extraordinary benefits to state and local economies, including hundreds of billions of dollars in capital investments and tax revenues as well as tens of thousands of jobs. Yet this historic success, according to many, comes at a high cost to local communities. Data center facilities can be imposing and take up a lot of land; they require a significant amount of additional energy generation and often more transmission infrastructure; and they use …

The State Of Record Clearance In The Commonwealth Of Virginia, Rob Poggenklass

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

One in three American adults has a criminal record, which can create significant barriers to finding suitable employment and housing. In Virginia, even arrest records are public and can last a lifetime unless someone navigates the complex process of expungement. For people with criminal convictions, the outlook has been even more bleak—Virginia is one of just a handful of states where no relief is available for conviction records.

But this is all about to change. On July 1, 2025, a record sealing law passed by the General Assembly in 2021 and signed by the previous governor, Ralph Northam, will take …

Reconsidering Griswold: Amid Post-Dobbs Threats To Reproductive Freedom, Youngkin Vetoes The Virginia Right To Contraception Act, Katie Baker, Christopher Fleming

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

In its 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the United States Supreme Court found that there is no constitutional right to an abortion, overturning nearly fifty years of precedent set by Roe v. Wade.

In his concurrence in Dobbs, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the Court “should reconsider” its past decision in Griswold v. Connecticut. The 1965 case found that married people have a constitutional right to contraception, which Eisenstadt v. Baird extended to unmarried individuals in 1972.

In response to Thomas’ words and to growing threats to reproductive freedom post-Dobbs, …

The General Assembly Must Act To Protect Victims Of Sexual Abuse Following The Supreme Court Of Virginia's Recent And Significant Circumscription Of Vicarious Liability, Mark D. Dix, Robert C.T. Reed

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

Few doctrines are as ingrained in the American civil justice system as that of vicarious liability: holding a principal liable for an agent’s tortious conduct. Public policy, further bolstered now by modern economic theory, provides the foundation for this doctrine. With respect to a principal’s liability for an agent’s intentional tort, the modern view has been to hold a principal just as liable for such an act as a negligent one. Virginia had largely been in step with this trend. However, beginning in 2018, the Supreme Court of Virginia reversed the Commonwealth’s course, particularly with respect to cases of sexual …

A Review Of Virginia's 2024 Economic Development Legislation And The Legacy Of The Commonwealth's Economic Policies, Margaret C. Rockwell

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

In 2024, CNBC designated Virginia as the nation’s “Top State for Business,” marking a record sixth win for the Commonwealth in receiving this annual designation. CNBC’s annual rankings measure states’ success in creating friendly, supportive environments for businesses and workers by analyzing ten key categories of competitiveness. Numerous sources substantiate the Commonwealth’s recent achievements across these categories, with notable accomplishments in education, wage growth, infrastructure, and commerce and trade. In light of Virginia’s most recent win, this article examines the initiatives that have successfully advanced economic development in Virginia over many years.

This article introduces key economic development initiatives through …

Common Law Sovereign Immunity And The Maine Tort Claims Act: A Rose By Another Name, R. Michael Martin

Maine Law Review

On October 12, 1976, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court allowed a Bath homeowner to sue the city for damage to her property resulting from the city's negligence. The case was Davies v. City of Bath and its significance was twofold. First, for decades before the Davies decision the Maine Supreme Judicial Court had routinely refused to consider such suits because of the doctrine of sovereign immunity. Fifteen years before Davies the court had expressed dissatisfaction with the doctrine, but until 1976 had repeatedly refused to abrogate it. Second, the Davies decision was significant because the Maine Legislature, under the guiding …

In Re Debra B.: The Best Interest Standard In Court-Authorized Sterilization Of The Mentally Retarded, Sheila M. Donahue

Maine Law Review

Pursuant to the Due Process in Sterilization Act of 1982, Maine courts may hear petitions for sterilization of the mentally retarded. In In re Debra B., a mother petitioned to have her mentally retarded daughter sterilized. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, vacated the order granting the petition. In a unanimous opinion, the court held that a finding of procreative capability is a sine qua non for determining whether sterilization is in an incompetent person's best interest. Through its holding, the court thereby extended the statute's clear and convincing standard of proof to a factor not …

Selecting Lower Court Judges In The Senate Lame Duck Session, Carl W. Tobias

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

When Congress reconvened in November, Donald Trump had won a second term in the White House and Republicans had secured a majority in the upper chamber. The federal judiciary thus became a salient point of contention in the Senate lame duck session. During Trump’s initial four years as chief executive, he and the Republican chamber majority rejected or substantially deemphasized longstanding requirements and customs of judicial selection to fill all the levels of the federal courts with young, highly conservative jurists, including thirteen whom they seated after Trump had lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden. These phenomena threatened …

Data Scraping For Generative Ai—To What Extent?, Jae Yeon Cecilia Kim

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Generative AI platforms are developed by scraping data from other platforms. This raises complex copyright infringement issues that are yet to be resolved. Courts have attempted to address these problems using the fair use doctrine, which evaluates four factors to determine whether a use infringes on copyright: (1) the purpose and character of the use, (2) the nature of the use, (3) the amount and substantiality of the copyrighted work’s use, and (4) the impact of the use on the market for the original work. Despite efforts to apply this long-established doctrine, challenges persist, including difficulties in identifying the copyright …

A Call For Statutory Reform: Online Marketplaces That Profit From Product Sales Should Be Held Strictly Liable As Sellers, Mark Anderson

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Today, Americans purchase roughly 16% of all consumer goods through online marketplaces such as Amazon. While traditional brick-and-mortar retailers that sell defective products are strictly liable for harm caused by those products, online marketplace retailers, which serve analogous roles in defective product sales, can often evade liability entirely. Amazon, for instance, is immune from liability for product defects in more than 60% of sales conducted on its website in almost every state. This Note explains why online marketplaces that profit from defective product sales should be strictly liable for harm those products cause, and why courts often refuse to hold …