State and Local Government Law Commons^™

The Submerged Constitutional Right To An Absentee Ballot, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

In an attempt to accommodate the growing number of people who cannot be present at the polls on election day, many states and the federal government have enacted statutes that allow voters to cast their ballots in advance of the election either by mail or in person. Eligibility for these absentee ballots is, however, restricted to those voters who fall within the classifications set up by the statute, and occasionally the option is open only to those who wish to vote in general elections. The few court decisions that have reviewed state absentee-ballot legislation, or the lack of such legislation, …

Legislative Restriction Of Creditor Powers And Remedies: A Case Study Of The Negotiation And Drafting Of The Wisconsin Consumer Act, Jeffrey Davis

Michigan Law Review

This Article discusses the background, negotiation, and drafting of selected WCA restrictions on creditor powers and remedies and compares those provisions to the analogous restrictions proposed by other reform measures. In addition to the UCCC, the MCCA and the WCA, two other major works must be considered in any discussion of consumer-credit legislation. First is Working Redraft No. 4 of the UCCC (UCCC Redraft). This proposed revision, published in December 1972, represents a marked change in the UCCC. Many provisions favorable to the consumer have been added, and many of the parallel provisions on sales and loans have been consolidated. …

Enforceability Of Religious Law In Secular Courts--It's Kosher, But Is It Constitutional?, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

In several different contexts-for example, in enforcing contracts that refer to religious law or in enforcing secular laws that use religious terminology-secular courts may be called upon to apply and even to interpret laws established by religious bodies. The limitations imposed by the first amendment on the courts in these areas will be discussed here in the specific context of Judaism. It is the thesis of this Note that the courts may not be as constrained in enforcing laws of religious bodies and in resolving disputes about those laws as would appear at first glance.

An Analysis Of Authorities: Traditional And Multicounty, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Comment will briefly define and describe authorities in general, as well as the new multicounty authorities. Their legal status and practical advantages and disadvantages will be explored. Finally, an attempt will be made to isolate the uses to which multicounty authorities can most profitably be put in light of the conflicting goals of maximum governmental efficiency and public accountability.

Legal Knowledge Of Michigan Citizens, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This empirical study of the legal knowledge of Michigan citizens arose in response to the paucity of research in the area, especially in Michigan, where no such study had previously been conducted, and the contradictory findings of those earlier studies that had been conducted. Its findings may have implications for future efforts to educate the public and may provide some clues as to whether and why certain segments of the population are deficient in legal knowledge.

Constitutional Law--Equal Protection--Minimum Age Requirement For Candidates For Detroit Common Council Violates Equal Protection Clause Of Fourteenth Amendment--Manson V. Edwards*, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Recent Development will discuss the validity and potential impact of the court's selection of the compelling interest test to measure the compliance of Detroit's age restriction on candidacy with the fourteenth amendment. It will also explore the possible state goals sought to be achieved by requiring a minimum age for candidates and examine whether these goals can be viewed as "compelling governmental interests."

The Concurrent State And Local Regulation Of Marijuana: The Validity Of The Ann Arbor Marijuana Ordinance, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The City Council of Ann Arbor, Michigan, has recently amended the City's "marijuana ordinance" so that it prohibits the possession, control, use, giving away, or sale of marijuana, and specifies a five dollar fine as punishment for violations of the ordinance. The State of Michigan has also legislated to prohibit marijuana-related activities, specifying a number of different offenses with penalties ranging as high as four years in prison, or a 2,000 dollar fine, or both. By enacting the ordinance, the City government has minimized the criminal sanctions for an activity it has found essentially benign, pursuant to certain local purposes. …

The Emerging Constitutional Protection Of The Putative Father's Parental Rights, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Comment will first examine whether the equal protection or due process clauses of the Constitution presently proscribe disparate treatment of the putative father, as compared with other parents, in regard to parental privileges. Attention will then be given to an assessment of the potential impact of the proposed "equal rights" amendment on the putative father's rights in relation to his illegitimate child.

Educational Financing, Equal Protection Of The Laws, And The Supreme Court, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Recently, state systems of financing public education have been overturned or seriously threatened by several state and federal court cases based on the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment. Rodriguez v. San Antonio Independent School District, which invalidated the Texas system of educational financing, will be argued before the Supreme Court next term. This Comment will examine the doctrinal and policy problems that the Court will confront and the alternative solutions that are available to the Court when it considers the constitutionality of the Texas system, which is typical of the educational financing programs that have generated so …

Representation Of The Public Interest In Michigan Utility Rate Proceedings, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Although the Free Press study centered on political and economic issues, the operation of the Michigan Public Service Commission also raises significant issues regarding the role of public intervenors, agency compliance with statutory requirements, statutory construction, and legislative response to regulatory deficiencies. This Comment will consider the representation of the public interest in Michigan utility proceedings in the context of rate cases involving the state's major utilities. While such an analysis does not reach the breadth of activities performed by the Commission, it is suggestive of the extent to which the Commission is responsive to the public interest generally. Following …

Michigan's Environmental Protection Act Of 1970: A Progress Report, Joseph L. Sax, Roger L. Conner

Michigan Law Review

The Michigan Environmental Protection Act of 1970 (EPA) represents a departure from the long-standing tradition under which control of environmental quality has been left almost exclusively in the hands of regulatory agencies: it gives to ordinary citizens an opportunity to take the initiative in environmental law enforcement.

Wilkins V. Bentley: Getting Out The Student Vote In Michigan, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The right to vote is one of the most precious constitutional rights. The Supreme Court has described it as preservative of all rights, a fundamental matter in a free and democratic society, and a bedrock of our political system. Justice Black once stated, "No right is more precious in a free country than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws under which, as good citizens, we must live." It supports not only the individual's personal interest in self-government, but also the collective societal interest in broadly based consensual representation. The magnitude of these …

Torts--Wrongful Death--Unborn Child--The Estate Of An Unborn Child Has A Cause Of Action For Wrongful Death--O'Neill V. Morse, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The attitude of the law toward the unborn child has differed according to the area involved and its underlying concepts and policy. It has been settled en ventre sa mere be to his benefit. Legal recognition was accorded "for the purpose of providing for and protecting the child, in the hope and expectation that it will be born alive and be capable of enjoying those rights which are thus preserved for it in anticipation." In this context, the live-birth requirement is not surprising. The injustice of depriving a posthumous child of an inheritance is apparent only if the child is …

The Constitutionality Of Candidate Filing Fees, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Early in the twentieth century a "progressive impulse" captured the energies of this country's burgeoning urban middle class. Sickened by the corruption and scandals of the nineteenth century and fearful of the rising influx of European immigration, the so-called Progressives began working for political reform. The emphasis of this reform was primarily structural. Rather than by a remodeling of the citizenry, reform was to be achieved by "a careful and scientific adjustment of the machinery of government for the correction of prevalent evils." Progressives pushed such reforms as initiative, recall, referendum, and frequent elections in the belief that these measures …

The Newsman's Privilege: An Empirical Study, Vince Blasi

Michigan Law Review

Today, the statutory, common-law, and constitutional aspects of the long-dormant problem are being re-examined by many legislators, judges, and academicians. The Supreme Court is scheduled to address the constitutional question some time this term. I propose to enter this fray. In this article, I will report the results of an empirical survey that I have undertaken. In subsequent articles, I will analyze the eighteen state statutes that grant newsmen a privilege, consider whether protection for the reporter-news source relationship is compelled by existing common-law principles, and address the question whether a newsman's privilege is properly to be inferred from the …

Metropolitanization And Land-Use Parochialism--Toward A Judicial Attitude, Michael H. Feiler

Michigan Law Review

The purpose of this Article is to explore those situations in which courts have given meaning to the Euclid caveat in operation, and, from those instances, to attempt to evolve a judicial approach to the problems posed by the conflict between purely local interests on the one hand and more comprehensive regional interests on the other. Four basic premises are herein indulged: (1) that strictly local zoning is unsatisfactory; (2) that new and innovative legislation will not be readily forthcoming; (3) that the burden of mediating these conflict situations will continue to fall upon the judiciary; and (4) that present …

Residential Tenants And Their Leases: An Empirical Study, Warren Mueller

Michigan Law Review

Of particular interest is the application of this theory to residential leases, a classic example of the standard long-form contract. An abundance of traditional legal research and commentary has been devoted to the problem of disparity of bargaining power between the parties to a standard-form residential lease. The commentators have consistently called for reform measures to combat this problem. In order to adopt sensible and effective reform measures, however, it is first necessary to obtain factual data with which to test and clarify the reformers' underlying assumptions. Such data is virtually nonexistent, since, prior to the study described in this …

Constitutional Law--Equal Protection--Zoning--Snob Zoning: Must A Man's Home Be A Castle?, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note will analyze and evaluate the legal theories that may be employed to attack snob zoning in the courts. First, the feasibility of attacking snob zoning via the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment will be examined. The second part of this Note will delineate alternative judicial responses to snob zoning that are couched in more conventional zoning-law terms.

Motor Vehicle Air Pollution: State Authority And Federal Pre-Emption, David P. Currie

Michigan Law Review

The problem of state authority over motor vehicle air pollution was recently highlighted when the Illinois Air Pollution Control Board, for the first time, adopted regulations to deal with vehicle emissions. Those regulations are disappointingly feeble. Except for outlawing visible smoke and for making it unlawful to dismantle pollution control devices, the new rules do nothing but state that the Board may decide to do something in the future about pollution from automobiles.

In attempting to improve upon these regulations, however, one is struck with a sense of considerable futility. Given the present limits of technology and the necessarily legislative …

Jurisdiction--Atomic Energy--Federal Pre-Emption And State Regulation Of Radioactive Air Pollution: Who Is The Master Of The Atomic Genie?, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Pending litigation between the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and Northern States Power Company presents a potential federal-state conflict over the right of a state to impose upon operators of nuclear power plants more exacting pollution control standards than those required by regulations of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). The AEC issued Northern States Power Company a permit to construct a nuclear power generating plant in Monticello, Minnesota. The regulations under which that permit was issued place a ceiling on the amount of radioactive effluents which can be discharged into the air during the course of the plant's operations. But under …

Consumer Protection In Michigan: Current Methods And Some Proposals For Reform, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

During the past decade, a great deal of effort has been expended at all levels of government in the United States to enhance the prosperity of the poor and underprivileged elements of society. Much legislation has been passed-especially at the federal level--but it has been incomplete in that its main thrust has been simply to increase the income levels of poor people without a corresponding effort to ensure that they receive their money's worth as consumers. As a result, the long-standing evil of fraud in the market place has not been significantly reduced, but has contributed to the serious economic …

Collective Bargaining For Public Employees And The Prevention Of Strikes In The Public Sector, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

In recent years, a number of states have enacted legislation providing collective bargaining rights for public employees. Almost invariably these statutes have reaffirmed the traditional prohibition against strikes by government workers. But the strike-or the threat of a strike-has been a key economic weapon for employees in the private sector, and some observers contend that without that weapon the new collective bargaining rights for public employees are illusory.

Sturm & Whitaker: Implementing A New Constitution: The Michigan Experience, Walter D. De Vries

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Implementing a New Constitution: The Michigan Experience by Albert L. Sturm and Margaret Whitaker

Constitutional Law--Equal Protection--Property Ownership Qualifications On The Right To Vote In Special Municipal Elections--Cipriano V. City Of Houma, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff, a resident of Houma, Louisiana, who owned no real property, brought a class action seeking to prevent the city from issuing utility revenue bonds approved by a vote of the property taxpayers at a special election. He argued that the Louisiana statute restricting the right to vote in such elections to property owners was unconstitutional. Plaintiff relied on Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, in which the Supreme Court declared that Virginia's required payment of poll taxes for voting in general elections was a violation of the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment. Harper, he claimed, …

State And Local Advisory Reports On Public Employment Labor Legislation: A Comparative Analysis, Russell A. Smith

Michigan Law Review

The reports surveyed in this Article will be designated by reference to the state or other governmental unit with which each is associated. The reports are, in chronological order, the Connecticut Report of February 1965, the Minnesota Report of March 1965, the Rhode Island Report of February 1966, the New York ("Taylor Committee") Report of March 1966, the Michigan Report of February 1967, the Illinois Report of March 1967, the New Jersey Report of January 1968, the Pennsylvania Report of June 1968, and the Los Angeles County Report of July 1968. The "findings" made by the National Governors' Conference Task …

Strikes And Impasse Resolution In Public Employment, Arvid Anderson

Michigan Law Review

Experience indicates that in most instances the right to strike is not an essential part of the public employment collective bargaining process.18 Thus, the crucial issue is not really whether strikes should be permitted or prohibited in the public sector, but whether the collective bargaining process itself can be made so effective absent the right to strike that the need for work stoppages will be obviated. It is my conclusion that certain proven impasse resolution procedures--mediation, fact-finding, and in some cases, even arbitration--can be substituted for the strike weapon in public employment without substantial loss in the effectiveness of collective …

The Evolution Of A Collective Bargaining Relationship In Public Education: New York City's Changing Seven-Year History, Ida Klaus

Michigan Law Review

The bargaining relationship between the New York City Board of Education and its teachers had its roots in the social forces of the mid-fifties and its formal origins in the events of the early sixties. The relationship came about without benefit of law or executive policy. No law permitting public employees to bargain collectively was in effect anywhere in those years, and Mayor Wagner's 1958 Executive Order-the culmination of three years of study and public inquiry-did not apply to teachers. Instead, the impetus came directly from the persistent and increasingly powerful drive of the teachers themselves. They demanded a substantial …

The Coming Revolution In Public School Management, Donald H. Wollett

Michigan Law Review

Dr. James Conant has commented on ·what he views as "concurrent educational revolutions"-changes in methods of instruction, in curriculum emphasis, and in public school financing-which portend radical revision in the methods of determining educational policy. However, thus far neither Dr. Conant nor any other observer of similar stature has addressed himself seriously to a fourth educational revolution-in-the-making: the direct involvement of teachers, through structured collective negotiations, in the management of public elementary and secondary school systems. This Article will focus on that coming revolution.

Constraints On Local Governments In Public Employee Bargaining, Charles M. Rehmus

Michigan Law Review

It is to the basic financial and administrative constraints upon the powers of local governing units that this Article is primarily directed. The examples used are taken largely from Michigan experience and Michigan law. The same limitations upon the financial and administrative powers of local government, however, exist in almost all other states. The Michigan experience with public administration and public employee bargaining should provide both a warning and a guide to other states as they cope with the so-called public employee revolution.

Housing Codes, Building Demolition, And Just Compensation: A Rationale For The Exercise Of Public Powers Over Slum Housing, Daniel R. Mandelker

Michigan Law Review

In programs of housing improvement and slum clearance, public agencies must often make difficult choices between the exercise of public powers of land acquisition, which require the payment of compensation, and public powers of noncompensatory regulation, which require no payment of compensation. This Article focuses on three of these programs-building demolition, urban renewal, and housing code enforcement. Public agencies may demolish slum dwellings, one at a time, without compensation. Title to the cleared site is not affected and remains in the owner after the building has been demolished. Under statutory powers of urban renewal, local public agencies may designate entire …