State and Local Government Law Commons^™

Against Court Packing, Or A Plea To Formally Amend The Constitution, Jill M. Fraley

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

State Joint Employer Liability Laws And Pro Se Back Wage Claims In The Garment Industry: A Federalist Approach To A National Crisis, Andrew Elmore

Faculty Scholarship

The garment industry, one of the largest manufacturing bases in the United States, withholds millions of dollars annually from its employees in unpaid minimum wages. However, courts have not clearly addressed the question of whether the Fair Labor Standards Act, which establishes federal wage and hour laws, makes garment manufacturers and retailers liable for the minimum wage violations of their contractors. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), the federal agency that enforces wage and hour laws, investigates few garment contractors, and collects little of the total owed back wages. Further, the DOL's relationship with the INS compromises its ability to …

Civil Procedure Update 2021: New Mexico Annual Judicial Conclave, Verónica C. Gonzales

Faculty Scholarship

These materials are part of a presentation on civil procedure given to magistrate, district, appellate, and tribal court judges, justices, and staff attorneys in New Mexico courts. These materials include the language of approved and proposed amendments to the state and federal rules of civil procedure as well as summaries of relevant appellate cases issued by the New Mexico Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Supreme Court of the Navajo Nation between May 1, 2021 to September 1, 2021.

Police Use Of Force Laws In Texas, Gerald S. Reamey

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming.

New York’S 2020 Census Victory - How It Happened & What’S Next, Jeffrey M. Wice

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Law In The Shadows Of Confederate Monuments, Deborah R. Gerhardt

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Hundreds of Confederate monuments stand across the United States. In recent years, leading historians have come forward to clarify that these statues were erected not just as memorials but to express white supremacist intimidation in times of racially oppressive conduct. As public support for antiracist action grows, many communities are inclined to remove public symbols that cause emotional harm, create constant security risks and dishonor the values of equality and unity. Finding a lawful path to removal is not always clear and easy. The political power brokers who choose whether monuments will stay or go often do not walk daily …

Legalizing Undocumented Work, Jennifer J. Lee

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Death By Police: When “Protecting And Serving” Goes Wrong, Hesper Mallis

Symposium of Student Scholars

The recent cases of law enforcement using lethal force in the United States have gained massive public attention. My dataset is from the Mapping Police Violence website. The website’s focus was to create a heat map to display where police killings occurred most frequently. The website has a dataset with information on 7,664 deaths of suspects. The variables in the dataset include age, sex and race of the suspect; geographic location; alleged threat level; alleged weapon; cause of death; and criminal charges against the officer. In addition, the variables include whether the individual had a mental illness, was armed or …

A “License To Kale”—Free Speech Challenges To Occupational Licensing Of Nutrition And Dietetics, Taylor J. Newman, Angela E. Surrett

St. Mary's Law Journal

State licensing of medical professions has occurred for over a century. Recently, these licensure statutes have been subject to First Amendment challenges, alleging occupational licensure impermissibly restricts freedom of speech. This Comment addresses these free speech challenges, arguing occupational licensure statutes, at least for medical professions, only incidentally impacts free speech—if at all—by permissibly regulating medical professional conduct necessarily requiring speech. Within, the authors ultimately describe, demonstrate, and recommend a legal framework, the other factor/personal nexus approach. This approach helps determine the point at which speech becomes regulable professional conduct subject to licensing, utilizing the nutrition and dietetics profession, and …

Heads Up! Arkansas Has A New Llc Act, Carol Goforth

Arkansas Law Notes

This past legislative session Senate Bill 601, sponsored by Senator Jonathan Dismang, was enacted into law, becoming Ark. Act 1041 on April 30, 2021. This act repeals the old LLC Act and adopts the Uniform Limited Liability Company Act (“ULLCA”), with minimal changes from the uniform language. This short piece points out some basic information about the Arkansas ULLCA and some of the major changes in Arkansas law applicable to LLCs. While lawyers will obviously need to consult the new statute when actual issues arise, this article should at least provide a “heads up” notice to practitioners with LLCs or …

The Texas Legislature Has Significantly Broadened The Statute Governing Recovery Of Attorney's Fees In Breach Of Contract Cases, Gregory Scott Crespi, West Menefee Bakke

SMU Law Review Forum

Texas recently enacted amendments that significantly expand the scope of section 38.001 of the Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code, a statute that awards attorney’s fees to successful claimants in breach of contract cases. Under the new amendments, which take effect September 1, 2021, the prevailing party may recover reasonable attorney’s fees from most forms of business organizations, including partnerships and limited liability companies—not just from individuals and corporations, as the statute previously provided. And although there has been some confusion on this point, the amended statute continues to protect governments and governmental agencies from attorney’s fees liability. Additionally, the …

Judicial Application Of Strict Liability Local Ordinances, Guyora Binder, Brenner Fissell

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Personal Data Privacy And Protective Federal Legislation: An Exploration Of Constituent Position On The Need For Legislation To Control Data Reliant Organizations Collecting And Monetizing Internet-Obtained Personal Data, Giovanni De Meo

Dissertations

In the past twenty years, the business of online personal data collection has grown at the same rapid pace as the internet itself, fostering a multibillion-dollar personal data collection and commercialization industry. Unlike many other large industries, there has been no major federal legislation enacted to monitor or control the activities of organizations dealing in this flourishing industry. The combination of these factors together with the lack of prior research encouraged this research designed to understand how much voters know about this topic and whether there is interest in seeing legislation enacted to protect individual personal data privacy.

To address …

23rd Annual Open Government Summit: Attorney General State Of Rhode Island : Access To Public Records Act & Open Meetings Act July 30, 2021, Office Of The Attorney General State Of Rhode Island

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

23rd Annual Open Government Summit: Access To Public Records Act, Open Meetings Act Powerpoint Presentation 07-30-2021, Office Of Attorney General State Of Rhode Island, Peter F. Neronha

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Case Note: Avangrid Networks, Inc. V. Secretary Of State, Grady F. Hogan

Maine Law Review

Citizen initiatives and referendums are important tools for participatory democracy. Because initiatives often concern contentious public policy matters, opponents of pending initiatives have at times turned to the courts to prevent particular initiatives from appearing on upcoming ballots. Courts typically will adjudicate such pre-election challenges when plaintiffs assert the proscribed procedural requirements for voting on an initiative have not been met or when plaintiffs allege an initiative’s subject-matter is outside the constitutionally delineated scope of permissible initiative content. However, because of the ripeness justiciability doctrine that requires a concrete, certain, and immediate legal problem, courts generally will not adjudicate pre-election …

Should The Dead Bind The Living? Perhaps Ask The People: An Examination Of The Debates Over Constitutional Convention Referendums In State Constitutional Conventions, John J. Liolos

Akron Law Review

Should the United States of America have a constitutional convention? Thomas Jefferson would maintain that one is long overdue; James Madison would argue the contrary. These two luminaries of American constitutional thought took sides in a stirring debate on a fundamental question in constitutionalism: should the dead bind the living? Jefferson advocated for recurrent recourse to the people by holding constitutional conventions in each generation. James Madison disagreed, arguing that stability and constitutional veneration, among other factors, were paramount. Most recall Madison as having won the debate. But at least 18 states throughout American history have adopted a Jeffersonian model …

Public Utilities Commission, Madison Orcutt, Rachel Rockwell, Tristan Stidham, R. C. Fellmeth, Bridget Fogarty Gramme

California Regulatory Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Key

California Regulatory Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Masthead

California Regulatory Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Budding Change, Pamela R. Metzger, Victoria Smiegocki, Kristin Meeks

Deason Center Reports

Budding Change explores what happened when Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot (DA Creuzot) radically changed his office’s policies about the prosecution of first-time misdemeanor marijuana cases. The report concludes that DA Creuzot’s 2019 policies were associated with significant reductions in police enforcement of marijuana misdemeanor laws. As a result, marijuana screening caseloads within the District Attorney’s Office declined substantially. Budding Change shows that prosecutorial policies can have a profound impact on policing behaviors.

The Abcs Of Racial Disparity, Pamela R. Metzger, Kristin Meeks, Victoria Smiegocki, Kenitra Brown

Deason Center Reports

Data show that Black and White people use marijuana at roughly equal rates. Yet in 2018, in six of Dallas County's biggest cities, Black people were vastly overrepresented in the enforcement of low-level drug crimes. With a look at enforcement trends before the election of District Attorney John Creuzot, this study launches a series of reports about how his reforms have impacted Dallas County.

Enforcing Outbound Forum Selection Clauses In State Court, John Coyle, Katherine Richardson

Indiana Law Journal

Forum selection clauses are a staple of modern business law. Parties agree, ex ante, on where they can sue one another and then rely on the courts to enforce these agreements. Although the number of contracts containing forum selection clauses has skyrocketed in recent years, there is a dearth of empirical information about enforcement practice at the state level. Are there any states that refuse to enforce them? How frequently are they enforced? Under what circumstances, if any, will these clauses be deemed unenforceable? The existing literature provides few answers to these questions.

This Article aims to fill that gap. …

Rules Of The Road: The Struggle For Safety And The Unmet Promise Of Federalism, Sara C. Bronin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

American streets have become increasingly dangerous. 2020 saw the highest year-over-year increase in roadway death rates in 96 years, and the last year for which we have data on non-drivers, 2018, was the was the deadliest year for pedestrians and cyclists in three decades. Though this resurgence of road violence has many complex causes, what makes American roads uniquely deadly are laws that lock in two interrelated design problems: unfriendly streets and unsafe vehicles.

Design standards articulate how streets and vehicles look and function. As they have been enshrined in law, they favor drivers and their passengers over any other …

Evolution Of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (Mpos) Into Multi-Functional Regional Roles, Janice C. Griffith

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

In the United States, all three levels of government, federal, state, and local, are engaged in coordinating the movement of goods and people. Recognizing the importance of an inter-connected transportation system, Congress enacted legislation in the mid-twentieth century that conditioned federal transportation funding upon continuing, comprehensive, and coordinated (“3-C”) transportation planning linking cities and suburbs. Thereafter, Congress mandated that the states create Metropolitan Planning Organizations (“MPOs”) to undertake 3-C planning on a metropolitan scale. Congress has now expanded the scope of transportation planning criteria to include environmental protections, energy conservation, local planned growth, economic development patterns, mitigation of storm water …

Reclaiming The Streets, Vanessa Casado-Pérez

Faculty Scholarship

Pedestrians have been getting the short end of the stick in street policies and regulations. Drivers and cars dominate our streets even though automobiles’ externalities kill thousands of people every year. Given the environmental, health, safety, and community effects of cars, municipalities should embrace a policy that puts pedestrians at the center and produces more miles of wider, well-maintained sidewalks. Sidewalks make communities greener, healthier, safer, more socially connected, and even, wealthier. COVID-19 lockdowns have shown both the relevance of sidewalks, as well as the possibility of pedestrians regaining space currently allocated to cars by widening sidewalks.

This Essay identifies, …

Guns In The Sky: Nevada's Firearm Laws, 1 October, And Next Steps, Dylan Lawter, Anya Sanko

Nevada Law Journal Forum

With incidences of high-profile mass shootings as well as daily gun violence continuing to rise throughout the United States, Nevada residents cannot help but wonder what the state is doing to stop and to prevent future incidents. Nevada has historically had permissive gun laws, being part of the “Wild West,” but in modern days, particularly since the 1 October shooting, Nevada legislators have enacted more gun laws. Additionally, judges and justices in Nevada courts have had to interpret new and old gun laws in novel ways, due to living in the modern era where gun violence seems to be the …

Green Energy V. The Constitution: New York State’S Battle With Home Rule Provisions In The Age Of Environmentalism, Alexa L. Archambault

Buffalo Law Review

In the era of metal straws, reusable grocery bags, and glass water bottles, there is no doubt society is becoming more and more environmentally conscious. This ecological ethos has manifested itself inhuge policy shifts away from traditional fossil fuel energy and toward renewable energy, such as wind and solar power. Lawmakers throughoutthe world are making agreements and commitments aimed at decreasingreliance on fossil fuels. In the United States, New York State has taken a leading role in the quest toward renewable energy. With New York State’s ambitious climate goals, though, have come serious encroachments on powers traditionally held by local …

Executive Unilateralism And Individual Rights In A Federalist System, Meredith Mclain, Sharece Thrower

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Presidents have a wide array of tools at their disposal to unilaterally influence public policy, without the direct approval of Congress or the courts. These unilateral actions have the potential to affect a variety of individual rights, either profitably or adversely. Governors too can employ unilateral directives for similar purposes, often impacting an even wider range of rights. In this Article, we collect all executive orders and memoranda related to individual rights issued between 1981 and 2018 at the federal level, and across the U.S. states, to analyze their use over time. We find that chief executives of all kinds …

Appeal No. 0992: Ll&N Headwater Ii, L.P. V. Division Of Oil & Gas Resources Management, Ohio Oil & Gas Commission

Ohio Oil & Gas Commission Decisions

Review of Chief's Orders 2020-287; Crawford B Unit (Eclipse Resources I, LP)