Law and Politics Commons^™

Money, Power, And Radical Honesty: A Look At Members Of Congress’ Use Of Information For Financial Gain, Spencer K. Schneider

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

There are many instances of members of Congress profiting after receiving classified information. While the American public remained uninformed as to the true crisis looming as COVID-19 spread, members of Congress received private briefings and quietly sold securities such as travel and hotel related interests, and purchased other securities, such as remote-work software and medical equipment related interests. Many members of Congress also profit from federal money earmarked to increase the value of their personal land deals, from access to IPOs, and from corporate board seats. While corporate executives, members of the executive branch, and ordinary citizens are subject to …

Texas Disenfranchisement Of Felons, Michelle Baker

Quest

Policy Research Project

Research in progress for GOVT 2306: Honors Texas Government

Faculty Mentor: Tiffany Cartwright, Ph.D.

Michelle Baker wrote the following research paper as an assignment for my online GOVT 2306: Honors Texas Government class during the Fall 2020 semester. The class assignment helps students begin to formulate a classic policy paper, in which alternative policy options are discussed and analyzed, ultimately leading to a preferred policy option. Students submitted just a few paragraphs of the paper at a time over the course of the fall semester before finally pulling everything together in one cohesive research paper. As Michelle’s …

The Big Lie Is Undermining Our Democracy. Both Parties Need To Defeat It, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

Tech And Authoritarianism: How The People’S Republic Of China Is Using Data To Control Hong Kong And Why The U.S. Is Vulnerable, Bryce Neary

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

The aim of this article is to analyze and compare current events in the People's Republic of China and the United States to discuss the moral dilemmas that arise when establishing the boundary between national security interests and individual privacy rights. As we continue to intertwine our lives with technology, it has become increasingly important to establish clear privacy rights. The question then becomes: at what point should individuals sacrifice their rights for what the government considers the "greater good" of the country?

Further, this article analyzes the development of U.S. privacy law and its relationship to national security, technology, …

Learning From South Korea’S Covid-19 Response: Why Centralizing The United States Public Health System Is Essential For Future Pandemic Responses, Meghan Ricci

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed stark differences in governmental preparedness across the globe. The United States, once thought of as a global leader in public health, had the theoretical skill and efficiency to handle the pandemic but failed to utilize those skills and resources during an actual health crisis. In the spring of 2020, everyone watched the U.S.’s reaction to the unfolding of the COVID-19 pandemic due to its historic placeholder as a global leader and innovator. However, the performance of the U.S. in response to the global pandemic disappointed both global commentators and U.S. citizens. This paper will compare the …

Personalized Smart Guns: A Futuristic Dream Or A Pragmatic Solution?, Andres Paciuc

Duke Law & Technology Review

No abstract provided.

Sure, Things Seem Bad. But There Are Some Reasons To Be Cheerful In 2022, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

On Controlling The Supreme Court: Is There A Future For American Law?, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals

Black Women And Voter Suppression, Carla Laroche

Scholarly Articles

Black women who are eligible to vote do so at consistently high rates during elections in the United States. For thousands of Black women, however, racism, sexism, and criminal convictions intersect to require them to navigate a maze of laws and policies that keep them from voting. With the alarming rate of convictions and incarceration of Black women, criminal law intersects with civil rights to bar their involvement in the electoral process. This voting ban is known as felony disenfranchisement, but it amounts to voter suppression.

By reconceptualizing voter suppression based on criminal convictions through the experiences of Black women’s …

The War On Drugs And Its Legal Effects On Black Americans, Alexia L. Howard-Mullins

2022 Symposium

The differences in treatment between Black and white Americans in the past fifty years has been a topic of thought in the minds of political and sociological scholars since the inception of the War on Drugs in 1971. These differences in treatment may lead to discrimination legally, resulting in longer prison sentences and a higher proportion of Black Americans in prison. This study analyzes the results of the War on Drugs that led to disproportionate imprisonment of Black Americans, including mandatory sentencing laws, drug classifications, and discrimination within law enforcement and the legal system. This study will use primary sources …

Do Seven Members Of Congress Have Article Iii Standing To Sue The Executive Branch?: Why The D.C. Circuit’S Divided Decision In Maloney V. Murphy Was Wrongly Decided In Light Of Two Prior District Court Decisions And Historical Separation Of Powers Jurisprudence, Bradford Mank

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

The D.C. Circuit’s divided decision in Maloney v. Murphy granting standing to minority party members of the House Oversight Committee appears questionable in light of two prior district court decisions in Waxman and Cummings that had denied standing in similar circumstances. Most importantly, Maloney is inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent regarding standing for individual members of Congress. In Raines v. Byrd, the Supreme Court held that individual members of Congress generally do not have standing to enforce institutional congressional interests such as whether a statute is constitutional, but that one or both Houses of Congress must sue as an institution. …

This Earthly Frame: The Making Of American Secularism, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals.”

Ganging Up On Terrorism: Transnational Gangs And Tier Iii Terrorist Organizations, Adam S. Domitz

American University Law Review

The Immigration and Nationality Act sets forth three distinct tiers of terrorist organizations. Unlike Tiers I and II, Tier III does not require official designation in the Federal Register by cabinet level officials. Instead, the tier calls for case-by-case adjudication by executive branch employees such as asylum officers and immigration judges. Noncitizens who engage in certain activities with or who have certain ties to any of the three tiers of organizations are inadmissible to the United States and barred from most forms of immigration relief, subject to limited exceptions. Nevertheless, in recent years, a variety of entities—including the Trump administration—have …

Huawei Strikes Back: Challenging National Security Decisions Before Investment Arbitral Tribunals, Ming Du

Emory International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Citizenship, Race, And Statehood, Kristina M. Campbell

Journal Articles

This Article will discuss the interplay between citizenship, race, and ratification of statehood in the United States, both historically and prospectively. Part II will discuss the development and history of the Insular Cases and the creation of the Territorial Incorporation Doctrine (“TID”), focusing on the Territory of Puerto Rico and how the issues of citizenship, race, and statehood have evolved in shadow of empire as a result. Part III will look back on the admission to the Union of New Mexico and Arizona—the forty-seventh and forty-eighth states—and discuss the substantial difficulties these territories had in getting admitted for statehood due …

Our Silence Will Not Protect Us . . . And Neither Will J. Edgar Hoover: Reclaiming Critical Race Theory Under The New Mccarthyism, Christina Hsu Accomando, Kristin J. Anderson

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

The right-wing attack against critical race theory is the latest manufactured panic designed to whip up supporters of a party beholden to Donald Trump. Since late 2020, hundreds of measures have been introduced across the U.S. to ban antiracism education, critical race theory, the 1619 Project, and any understanding of racism as systemic and embedded in U.S. history and law. While an understandable reaction of educators is to declare that they are not teaching critical race theory, our position is to reclaim critical race theory for the powerful lens it offers in understanding the history of the U.S., the protracted …

Reparations, Or Hush Money?, Christina Glekas

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Disparate Discrimination, Leah M. Litman

Michigan Law Review

This Article explains and analyzes a recent trend in the Supreme Court’s cases regarding unintentional discrimination, where the argument is that a law has the effect of producing a disadvantage on members of a particular group. In religious discrimination cases, the Court has held that a law is presumptively unconstitutional if the law results in a comparable secular activity being treated more favorably than religious activity. Yet in racial discrimination cases, the Court has said the mere fact that a law more severely disadvantages racial minorities as a group does not suffice to establish unlawful discrimination.

The two tracks for …

Twenty-First Annual International Advocate For Peace Award, Honoring William Ury, Samuel Ditchek, Alexandra Sandler, William Ury

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

On March 11, 2022, the Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution presented the twenty-first annual International Advocate for Peace Award to William Ury. The following is a transcript of the event's speeches.

À La Carte Cable: A Regulatory Solution To The Misinformation Subsidy, Christopher R. Terry, Eliezer J. Silberberg, Stephen Schmitz, John Stack, Eve Sando

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

Although “fake news” is as old as mass media itself, concerns over disinformation have reached a fever pitch in our current media environment. Online media outlets’ heavy reliance on user-generated content has altered the traditional gatekeeping functions and professional standards associated with traditional news organizations. The idea of objectivity-focused informational content has primarily been substituted for a realist acceptance of the power and popularity of opinion-driven “news.” This shift is starkly visible now: mainstream news media outlets knowingly spread hoaxes, conspiracy theories, and the like.

This current state of affairs is not some freak accident. The Supreme Court’s First Amendment …