State and Local Government Law Commons^™

Trust In Immigration Enforcement: State Noncooperation And Sanctuary Cities After Secure Communities, Ming H. Chen

Publications

The conventional wisdom, backed by legitimacy research, is that most people obey most of the laws, most of the time. This turns out to not be the case in a study of state-local participation in immigration law enforcement. Two enforcement programs involving the use of immigration detainers, a vehicle by which the federal government (through ICE) requests that local law enforcement agencies (LEAs) detain immigrants beyond their scheduled release upon suspicion that they are removable, demonstrate the breakdown of conventional wisdom. In the five years following initiation of the Secure Communities program, a significant and growing number of states and …

Equity And Corporate Law, Mark J. Loewenstein

Publications

The article explores the continuing relevance of the 1991 Delaware Supreme Court decision in Schnell v. Chris-Craft Industries, Inc., in particular the extent to which evolving concepts of good faith have, or should, displace the free-wheeling equity doctrine of Schnell.

Administering Section 2 Of The Voting Rights Act After Shelby County, Christopher S. Elmendorf, Douglas M. Spencer

Publications

Until the Supreme Court put an end to it in Shelby County v. Holder, section 5 of the Voting Rights Act was widely regarded as an effective, low-cost tool for blocking potentially discriminatory changes to election laws and administrative practices. The provision the Supreme Court left standing, section 2, is generally seen as expensive, cumbersome, and almost wholly ineffective at blocking changes before they take effect. This Article argues that the courts, in partnership with the Department of Justice, could reform section 2 so that it fills much of the gap left by the Supreme Court's evisceration of section …

Cu Law Library Launches New Resource For Historical Colorado Statutory Research, Robert M. Linz

Publications

No abstract provided.

Immigration And Cooperative Federalism: Toward A Doctrinal Framework, Ming H. Chen

Publications

What can the new federalism teach us about what is happening in immigration law? The changing relationship of federal-state government in the regulation of immigrants has led to the creation of “immigration federalism” as a field of scholarship. Most of this scholarly attention has been directed at resisting restrictionist legislation that encourages vigorous law enforcement against undocumented immigrants. The scholarly tilt is especially pronounced since the Supreme Court recently struck down several provisions of S.B. 1070, Arizona’s restrictive law enforcement legislation. However, law enforcement is only one type of regulation, and the overwhelming focus on it skews the broader debate …

Internships As Invisible Labor, Melissa Hart

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No abstract provided.

The Geography Of Racial Stereotyping: Evidence And Implications For Vra ‘Preclearance’ After Shelby County, Christopher S. Elmendorf, Douglas M. Spencer

Publications

The Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder (2013) effectively enjoined the preclearance regime of the Voting Rights Act. The Court deemed the coverage formula, which determines the jurisdictions subject to preclearance, insufficiently grounded in current conditions. This Article proposes a new, legally defensible approach to coverage based on between-state differences in the proportion of voting age citizens who subscribe to negative stereotypes about racial minorities and who vote accordingly. The new coverage formula could also account for racially polarized voting and minority population size, but, for constitutional reasons, subjective discrimination by voters is the essential criterion. We demonstrate that …

Uelma - Another First For Colorado, Susan Nevelow Mart

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No abstract provided.

Benefit Corporations: A Challenge In Corporate Governance, Mark J. Loewenstein

Publications

Benefit corporations are a new form of business entity that is rapidly being adopted around the country. Though the legislation varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, most statutes are based on a model proposed and promoted by B Lab, itself a nonprofit corporation. The essence of these statutes is that, in making business judgments, the directors of a benefit corporation must consider the impact of their decisions on the environment and society. The model legislation, though, may create serious governance issues for the directors of benefit corporations that operate under these laws. This article analyzes the model legislation and identifies its …

Drone Federalism: Civilian Drones And The Things They Carry, Margot E. Kaminski

Publications

Civilian drones are scheduled to be permitted in the national airspace as early as 2015. Many think Congress should establish the necessary nationwide regulations to govern both law enforcement and civilian drone use. That thinking, however, is wrong. This Essay suggests drone federalism instead: a state-based approach to privacy regulation that governs drone use by civilians, drawing on states’ experience regulating other forms of civilian-on-civilian surveillance. This approach will allow necessary experimentation in how to best balance privacy concerns against First Amendment rights in the imminent era of drone-use democratization. This Essay closes by providing some guidance to states as …

Tenth Amendment Challenges After Bond V. United States, Scott G. Thompson, Christopher Klimmek

Publications

In its recent decision in Bond v. United States, the Supreme Court explained that because the Tenth Amendment "secures the freedom of the individual," private parties who otherwise satisfy Article III's standing requirements and other prudential requirements may challenge federal laws as violating the Tenth Amendment. In so doing, the Court reversed the majority of circuit courts that have addressed the issue and removed a significant categorical bar to individual Tenth Amendment challenges. This Article explains Bond's holding and explores its implications for future Tenth Amendment challenges by private parties.

Although Bond contains some expansive language regarding the role …

Planetarian Identity Formation And The Relocalization Of Environmental Law, Sarah Krakoff

Publications

Local food, local work, local energy production--all are hallmarks of a resurgence of localism throughout contemporary environmental thought and action. The renaissance of localism might be seen as a retreat from the world's global environmental problems. This Article maintains, however, that some forms of localism are actually expressions, appropriate ones, of a planetary environmental consciousness. This Article's centerpiece is an in-depth evaluation of local climate action initiatives, including interviews with participants, as well as other data and observations about their ethics, attitudes, behaviors, and motivations. The values and identities being forged in these initiatives form the basis for timely conceptions …

Incitement To Riot In The Age Of Flash Mobs, Margot E. Kaminski

Publications

As people increasingly use social media to organize both protests and robberies, government will try to regulate these calls to action. With an eye to this intensifying dynamic, this Article reviews First Amendment jurisprudence on incitement and applies it to existing statutes on incitement to riot at a common law, state, and federal level. The article suggests that First Amendment jurisprudence has a particularly tortuous relationship with regulating speech directed to crowds. It examines current crowd psychology to suggest which crowd behavior, if any, should as a matter of policy be subject to regulation. It concludes that many existing incitement-to-riot …

Fugitive Emissions: The Marcellus Shale And The Clean Air Act, Joseph Minott, Jonathan Skinner

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No abstract provided.

In Defense Of The Substance-Procedure Dichotomy, Jennifer S. Hendricks

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John Hart Ely famously observed, "We were all brought up on sophisticated talk about the fluidity of the line between substance and procedure," but for most of Erie's history, the Supreme Court has answered the question "Does this state law govern in federal court? " with a "yes" or a "no." Beginning, however, with Gasperini v. Center for Humanities, and continuing with Semtek v. Lockheed Martin and the dissenting opinion in Shady Grove v. Allstate, a shifting coalition of justices has pursued a third path. Instead of declaring state law applicable or inapplicable, they have claimed for …

Who Killed The Hybrid Car? State And Local Green Incentive Programs After Metropolitan Taxicab V. City Of New York, Jonathan Skinner

Publications

Unnecessarily broad preemption ruling under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act discourages other states and municipalities from pursuing innovative, environmentally beneficial policies.

The Inefficiencies And Deficiencies Of Waste Coal, Jonathan Skinner, Michael Brown

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No abstract provided.

Colorado Legal Ethics: Guide To Resources, Robert M. Linz

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No abstract provided.

Long Lines At Polling Stations? Observations From An Election Day Field Study, Douglas M. Spencer, Zachary S. Markovits

Publications

This pilot study represents the first systematic attempt to determine how common lines are on Election Day, at what times of day lines are most likely to form, what are the bottlenecks in the voting process, and how long it takes an average citizen to cast his or her ballot. This study highlights the importance of evaluating polling station operations as a three-step process: arrival, check-in, and casting a ballot. We collected data during the 2008 presidential primary election in California, measuring the efficiency of the operational components of 30 polling stations across three counties. We found statistically significant, and …

Shining A Light On Democracy's Dark Lagoon, Helen Norton

Publications

Written for a symposium examining the Fourth Circuit’s jurisprudential tradition, this short essay explores the Fourth Circuit’s approach to the emerging government speech doctrine, under which the government’s own speech is exempt from free speech clause scrutiny. In developing this doctrine, the Supreme Court has been too quick to defer to public entities’ assertion that contested speech is their own; indeed, it has yet to deny the government’s claim to expression in the face of a competing private claim – at significant cost to the public’s ability to hold government politically accountable for its expressive choices. The Fourth Circuit, in …

The Subprime Crisis And The Link Between Consumer Financial Protection And Systemic Risk, Erik F. Gerding

Publications

This Article argues that the current global financial crisis, which was first called the “subprime crisis,” demonstrates the need to revisit the division between financial regulations designed to protect consumers from excessively risky loans and safety-and-soundness regulations intended to protect financial markets from the collapse of financial institutions. Consumer financial protection can, and must, serve a role not only in protecting individuals from excessive risk, but also in protecting markets from systemic risk. Economic studies indicate it is not merely high rates of defaults on consumer loans, but also unpredictable and highly correlated defaults that create risks for both lenders …

The Traveling Librarian: Extending Library Services To A Statewide Judiciary, Robert M. Linz

Publications

When patrons can't come to the library, sometimes the librarian must go to the patrons. That is exactly what happened this past year in the state of Colorado.

The Diverging Meaning Of Good Faith, Mark J. Loewenstein

Publications

This article explores the meaning of "good faith" in the context of corporations and unincorporated entities. The courts, particularly in Delaware, have developed two different approaches. In the corporate arena, the courts are fashioning a notion of good faith that seems to require an examination of director motivations. In the unincorporated arena, good faith has a meaning grounded in contract law. These are two different concepts and reflect the fundamental differences between corporations and unincorporated entities, with the former based on fiduciary duties and the latter on contract. There are, however, indications that this "divergence" is starting to disappear, and …

Researching Colorado Local Government Law, Robert M. Linz

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No abstract provided.

The Expanding Use Of The Res Gestae Doctrine, H. Patrick Furman, Ann England

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This article provides a brief history of the doctrine of res gestae and an analysis of its current usage in both Colorado state and federal courts.

Book Review, Richard B. Collins

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No abstract provided.

Telluride's Tale Of Eminent Domain, Home Rule, And Retroactivity, Richard B. Collins

Publications

Telluride, Colorado, won an eminent domain battle with San Diego billionaire Neal Blue, but only after paying his price and his attorney's fees. The town passed a condemnation ordinance by popular initiative to take 572 acres adjacent to the town. The landowner obtained a state statute intended to forbid the town's action. The trial judge held the statute invalid under Colorado's constitutional home rule amendment. Town officials negotiated a compromise with the landowner, but its voters rejected it. The valuation trial was moved to a neighboring county much more favorable to the landowner, and the jury gave him his full …

Delivering User-Centric Services At The Colorado Supreme Court Library, Robert M. Linz

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No abstract provided.

The Intriguing Federalist Future Of Reproductive Rights, Scott A. Moss, Douglas M. Raines

Publications

As the decline of Roe v. Wade inspires renewed efforts to restrict federal constitutional abortion rights, the serious shortcomings of abortion rights advocates' strategies for preserving such rights will become increasingly apparent. Continued reliance on Roe is likely to fail with an increasingly unsympathetic Supreme Court. Even abortion rights supporters have begun to criticize the decision for weak reasoning, which is difficult to remedy at this late stage of federal abortion jurisprudence. Moreover, although autonomy and gender equality arguments for abortion rights would improve upon Roe's privacy rationale, such arguments would require abrogating substantial precedent and are, therefore, of limited …

The Measure Of Government Speech: Identifying Expression's Source, Helen Norton

Publications

States and other governmental bodies increasingly invoke the government speech defense to First Amendment challenges by private parties who seek to alter or join what the government contends is its own expression. These disputes involve competing claims to the same speech: a private party maintains that a certain means of expression reflects (or should be allowed to reflect) her own views, while a public entity claims that same speech as its own, along with the ability to control its content.

In suggesting a framework for approaching these problems, this Article starts by examining the theoretical and practical justifications for insulating …