State and Local Government Law Commons^™

When A State Does The "Circuit": State Administrative Discretion At The Jurisdictional Precipice, Steven Ferrey

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

California raised its renewable energy requirement, already the most ambitious of all the contiguous 48 states, to require 50% of all electric power generated by 2030 to be generated from renewable energy. This now is the most aggressive renewable energy standard of any major economy in the world. California's low carbon fuel standard, eventually upheld by the Ninth Circuit with a dissent, appears to be disconnected with the last half century of Supreme Court Commerce Clause jurisprudence. After this decision, as noted by a member of the Ninth Circuit, California may now be given free license to impose carbon tariffs …

From Bail Bondsmen To Risk Assessments: Assessing Kentucky's Pretrial Release Approaches, Ismaila Ceesay

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

As one of only four states that ban bail bond companies, Kentucky is an experiment in the “laboratory of democracy,” which is made even more interesting because the state has tried three different approaches to pretrial release—the Pre-1976 approach, the 1976 to 2011 approach, and the 2011 to present approach. An assessment of these approaches show s how state actions and inaction can affect the right to pretrial release and underscores the importance of adopting appropriate state pretrial release policies.

Managing Unconventional Oil And Gas Development As If Communities Mattered, Mark Squillace

Publications

The advent of horizontal oil and gas drilling into relatively impermeable shale rock, and the companion technological breakthrough of high-pressure, multi-stage fracking that frees hydrocarbons along the substantial length of these horizontal wells, has fundamentally altered the oil and gas industry. The Energy Information Administration has gone so far as to predict that North America could become a net energy exporter as early as 2019, largely as a result of the explosive growth of this “unconventional” oil and gas development. Despite its promise, managing unconventional oil and gas development has proved challenging, and many of the communities that find themselves …

When Fantasy Becomes Reality: Attempts To Regulate The Highly Unregulated Daily Fantasy Sports Industry., Garrett Greene

St. Mary's Law Journal

Legislation is beginning to creep into the once safeguard-devoid sphere of the daily fantasy sports industry. Daily fantasy sports are a subset of traditional season-long fantasy sports and are immensely lucrative, yet there are hardly any standard regulations. Ironically, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) of 2006, which was used to outlaw online poker gambling, paved the way for daily fantasy sports, because it federally exempted fantasy sports from being classified as illegal sports gambling. The UIGEA further protects daily fantasy sports from the Professional and Amateur Sports Prohibition Act (PASPA) of 1992 which prohibits states from sponsoring sports …

Accidents Of Federalism: Ratemaking And Policy Innovation In Public Utility Law, William Boyd, Ann E. Carlson

Publications

Decarbonizing the electric power sector will be central to any serious effort to fight climate change. Many observers have suggested that the congressional failure to enact a uniform system of electricity regulation could stifle the transition to a low-carbon electricity grid. This Article contends that the critique is overstated. In fact, innovation is occurring across different aspects of the electricity system and across different types of states in ways one would not expect to see under a single, national approach. As the Article demonstrates, this innovation stems in part from Congress’s failure to enact a single, national approach to electricity …

Probating Prince’S Estate: Who Will End Up With The Singer’S Substantial Intellectual Property?, J. Gordon Hylton

Cybaris®

No abstract provided.

Issue 2: Table Of Contents

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Incremental Retributive Impact Of A Death Sentence Over Life Without Parole, Michael L. Radelet

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In this paper, the author takes a closer look at retribution, which is the primary justification for the death penalty today in the United States and the main component of the additional punishment imposed by the death penalty over and above life imprisonment without parole (LWOP). While all criminal punishments, to varying degrees, punish both the inmate and his or her family, this paper argues that the death penalty’s added punishment over LWOP often punishes the family just as much as the inmate, and after the execution the full brunt of the punishment falls on the family. This added impact …

Reforming (But Not Eliminating) The Parental Discipline Defense, Hazel Blum

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note argues that although states should retain the parental discipline defense, their legislators should rewrite their statutes to limit the defense to a specific range of disciplinary methods that social science research has shown to have either net-beneficial or net-neutral effects on children. Part II explores religious and cultural attitudes about corporal punishment, including an overview of traditional American attitudes toward corporal punishment. Specifically, it explores how religious teachings, including Evangelical Christianity, Methodism, and Judaism, affect attitudes towards parental discipline. Additionally, Part II will examine the build-up to and aftermath of Sweden’s ban on corporal punishment—the first nation worldwide …

Immigration Enforcement Reform: Learning From The History Of Fugitive Slave Rendition, Jeffrey M. Schmitt

School of Law Faculty Publications

The United States deports hundreds of thousands of immigrants each year, leaving many of the country’s eleven million undocumented immigrants living in constant fear of being torn from their families and homes. Because Congress has been unable to address this humanitarian crisis with meaningful legislative reform, President Obama recently announced that his administration will consider changes to its enforcement policy. By drawing a parallel to the nation’s experience with fugitive slave rendition, this Essay argues that President Obama should allow the states to work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to moderate the implementation of federal enforcement programs.

Cybersecurity On My Mind: Protecting Georgia Consumers From Data Breaches, Maggie L. Mcmichael

Georgia Law Review

In a world where vast amounts of personal information
are obtained and stored by countless organizations and
businesses in the public and private sector, data breaches,

due to negligence or nefarious hacking, are a far too
common occurrence. The results of a data breach can be
serious and widespread, from public humiliation to
identity theft and national security crises. In an effort to
protect consumers from the potentially devastating effects
of data breaches, the Federal Trade Commission has
begun to take enforcement action against businesses whose
data security practices are alleged to be unfair and
deceptive. Theoretically, states can take …

300 Governments: Understanding Intermunicipal Collaboration In Nassau County, Ny And Policies Of "Forced Efficiency" In New York State, Daniel Chase Fishbein

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Black-Box Immigration Federalism, David S. Rubenstein

Michigan Law Review

In Immigration Outside the Law, Hiroshi Motomura confronts the three hardest questions in immigration today: what to do about our undocumented population, who should decide, and by what legal process. Motomura’s treatment is characteristically visionary, analytically rich, and eminently fair to competing views. The book’s intellectual arc begins with its title: “Immigration Outside the Law.” As the narrative unfolds, however, Motomura explains that undocumented immigrants are “Americans in waiting,” with moral and legal claims to societal integration.

A Review Of University Responses To Informal Queries And Open Records Requests For Aggregate Hiring-Related Data, Sheila Brothers

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Open records (OR) laws ensure that members of the public, including public managers, directors of nonprofit organizations, and individual citizens, have access to the records created by public agencies. Local government and state government agencies are generally recognized to be subject to OR laws, but so are Kentucky’s public universities. The author created a survey to review the responses to both an informal query and a formal open records request made of Kentucky’s eight public, four-year universities (Eastern Kentucky University; Kentucky State University; Morehead State University; Murray State University; Northern Kentucky University; University of Kentucky; University of Louisville; and Western …

The Concept Of The Speech Platform: Walker V. Texas Division, Abner S. Greene

Faculty Scholarship

In Walker, the Court deemed Texas’ specialty license plate program government speech, and thus applied no First Amendment review to the state’s refusal to allow a Confederate battle flag specialty plate, even though the reason for the refusal was that the plate was offensive. The dissent considered this unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination in a limited public forum. This article argues that the Walker result was correct, but for the wrong reason. Government should have the power to forbid hateful or vulgar speech from limited public forums such as specialty or vanity license plates, transit ads, and after-school extracurricular activities, even though …

Better Than Bankruptcy?, Andrew B. Dawson

Articles

According to many in the bankruptcy field, small business debtors are increasingly turning to state debtor-creditors laws as an alternative to federal bankruptcy relief. One particularly popular state law is the assignment for the benefit of creditors. The conventional wisdom is that these procedures provide a state law alternative to liquidate a business.

This article reports the results of an original empirical study that challenges this conventional wisdom. Gathering data from every assignment for the benefit of creditors in a major metropolitan area over a three-year period, this study shows that debtors and their secured creditors are using these procedures …

Practice-Driven Changes To Constitutional Structures Of Governance, James A. Gardner

Journal Articles

Among the methods of informal constitutional change, perhaps the least studied or understood is change resulting from alterations in the way governance is practiced. Such changes, typically initiated by political actors in the executive and legislative branches, is probably the most common kind of constitutional change, and is almost certainly the most common source of informal change to structural provisions. In the United States, the best known instances of practice-driven changes to constitutional structure come from the federal level – the rise of a formal party system, for example, or the dramatic twentieth-century expansion of presidential power. Yet by far …

Private Dollars For Public Litigation: An Introduction, Anthony J. Sebok

Articles

The article argues that litigation investment—where third-party funders provide capital for lawsuits in exchange for a share of potential recoveries—should be extended to public litigation. It contends that the economic rationale for litigation investment applies equally to public entities, such as state Attorneys General, as it does to private litigants. The author highlights the funding gap in public litigation, particularly in large-scale cases against well-resourced defendants, and suggests that litigation investment could address this gap more effectively than contingent fee arrangements with private attorneys.

The Firing Squad As "A Known And Available Alternative Method Of Execution" Post-Glossip, Deborah W. Denno

Faculty Scholarship

This Article does not address the medical debate surrounding the role of midazolam in executions; the problems associated with using the drug have been persuasively argued elsewhere. Nor does it question the soundness of the Glossip Court’s “alternative method of execution” requirement. Rather, this Article’s proposed reform is a constitutionally acceptable alternative that meets the Glossip Court’s standard, rendering moot—at least for the purposes of the following discussion—very real concerns regarding the validity of that dictate. Part I of this Article pinpoints several areas where the Glossip Court goes wrong in glaringly inaccurate or misleading ways, given the vast history …

Retirement In The Land Of Lincoln: The Illinois Secure Choice Savings Program Act, Edward A. Zelinsky

Articles

In 2015, Illinois became the first state to enact a state-mandated and state-operated retirement system for private sector employers: The Illinois Secure Choice Savings Program Act. The Illinois program resembles a system approved by the California legislature—a system that has not yet been enacted since it is conditioned on an additional vote by the legislature. Illinois’ program and the one proposed in California have notable differences in that (1) the Illinois retirement accounts will qualify as individual retirement accounts (“IRAs”) under the Internal Revenue Code (“Code”); (2) the Illinois IRAs will be Roth IRAs; (3) the California program requires participation …

Single Payer And The Rising Cost Of Health Care, Brianna Paolicelli

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

The New York Health Act proposes a single-payer healthcare system aimed at providing universal coverage by eliminating private insurers and reducing administrative costs. The Act, persistently advocated by Assemblyman Richard Gottfried since 1992, passed the State Assembly in 2015 but faces opposition, particularly from the insurance industry and the Republican Senate. Despite challenges, the Act is supported by economic research indicating significant cost savings and improved efficiency, drawing on international successes like Canada and Taiwan. It addresses historical and contemporary healthcare issues, offering a comprehensive solution to the state's healthcare needs.

The Freedom To Pursue A Common Calling: Applying Intermediate Scrutiny To Occupational Licensing Statutes (Note), Alexandra L. Klein

Faculty Articles

After the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the monks at St. Joseph Abbey in Louisiana sought a new source of income. They began producing simple wooden coffins priced at much lower rates than caskets sold in funeral homes. After the Abbey had made a large investment in its business, St. Joseph Woodworks, the Louisiana State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors ordered it to close. Although the monks did not provide funeral or embalming services, a Louisiana statute regulating the funeral industry prohibited the monks from selling coffins.

Under the statute, "funeral directing" included "any service whatsoever connected with... the purchase …

Collective Bargaining In Rent Stabilized Buildings: How New York City's Rent Regulated Market Can Benefit From The Fundamentals Of Labor Law, Stephanie Gorin

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

There is an evident imbalance of power between the two parties, which is often exasperated by the costs, timing and intimidation of Housing Court. This Note will seek to explore how a "tenant group" should be formed. Although many tenants living in rent-regulated buildings are surrounded by fellow tenants in similar circumstances, many other rent regulated tenants are the sole tenant remaining in their building, still under the auspices of rent regulation. This Note will further seek to explore how sole rent regulated tenants can form and join tenant groups. Next, it proposes a system in which mediation, and, if …

Katherine Heigl V. Duane Reade: The Predicted Outcome And Insight Into New York Publicity Rights, Amy Delauter

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Ethics Of Inter Partes Review Before The Uspto., Dorian Ojemen

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract Forthcoming.

Texas's Excessive Demand Doctrine Impacts Recoveries In Litigation., Stephanie M. Green

St. Mary's Law Journal

A party demanding money they are not entitled to becomes subject to the excessive demand doctrine. Because the excessive demand doctrine is an affirmative defense, a defending party must allege its claim of excessive demand in its pleadings. A party must “plead it, prove it, and obtain findings of fact on its essential elements.” To obtain findings on the issue, both the pleadings and the evidence are required to put a question or instruction before the jury. Ensuring that the evidence is enough depends upon the trial court—whose judgment will only be overturned upon a showing of an abuse of …

Customary International Law: A Reconceptualization, Roozbeh (Rudy) B. Baker

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

The current state of international law is one of deep confusion over the role of state practice and opinio juris within the customary element. The debate between adherents of “modern custom” versus those of “traditional custom” has resulted in deep uncertainty and confusion. New theories of customary international law have proved inadequate in clarifying the current state of the field. Confusions over the meanings and relationships between state practice and opinio juris aside, current approaches are all also flawed due to a heavily state-centric bias that fails to take into account the very real affects that norm-generating transnational actors have …

A Tribute To Judge Kaye, Nicholas W. Allard

Brooklyn Law Review

This collection of remarks from scholars, practitioners, and judges serves as a tribute to the life of the beloved and esteemed Judge Kaye and her commitment to the New York State Constitution. The collection culminates with Judge Kaye’s final essay, written for the Brooklyn Law Review, with her reflections on opportunity in life and law and New York’s State Constitution.

Switch Hitters: How League Involvement In Daily Fantasy Sports Could End The Prohibition Of Sports Gambling, Jordan Meddy

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Whether in the form of lotto tickets or casino table games, gambling is legally permitted in some way in virtually every U.S. state. Yet, in all but a handful of jurisdictions, federal law prohibits wagering on sporting events or professional athletes in any form. Several economically challenged states, particularly New Jersey, have been trying to authorize sports gambling within their borders as a way to raise tax revenues and support their local gambling industries. While these attempts have thus far been unsuccessful, Daily Fantasy Sports have simultaneously experienced a meteoric rise, becoming a multi-billion dollar industry. This Note examines the …

Share And Share Dislike: The Rise Of Uber And Airbnb And How New York City Should Play Nice, Alexandra Jonas

Journal of Law and Policy

Uber and Airbnb are two companies in the emerging “sharing economy” that provide individuals with a means to become entrepreneurs and benefit from a laissez-faire business model. The problem, however, is that while the benefits to users are great, so too are the risks. The dangers of operating without restraint and circumventing existing law are not only potentially harmful to unapprised users, but also adversely affect the continued use of these businesses. Every aggrieved user complaint has the potential for a lawsuit and every violation creates an opportunity for penalties. Left over are attempts by the courts and city government …