Legislation Commons^™

“Making Bail”: Limiting The Use Of Bail Schedules And Defining The Elusive Meaning Of “Excessive Bail”, James A. Allen

Journal of Law and Policy

Every day in the United States, thousands of people are waiting in jail postarrest prior to any trial or conviction. Once arrested, these individuals frequently face harsh conditions while they are held for their first appearance to be assigned bail. Thousands of individuals wait more than forty-eight hours to first appear in front of a judicial officer who determines their bail conditions. Innocent people––people who have committed no offense except that of being underprivileged––are pressured into accepting plea bargains because they cannot pay bail. Thousands remain in jail unwilling to accept plea bargains or admit guilt but are detained nevertheless …

No “Gift” Giving Here: The Inadequate Gifted Education Programs In New York State And The Need For Gifted Education Reform, Jamie M. Kautz

Journal of Law and Policy

Gifted Education is a topic that is often not at the forefront of educational issues throughout federal and state discussions and legislative actions. However, while there are a large number of students in classrooms across the country who are “gifted,” the number of individual states with comprehensive gifted programs within their public school districts is small. As a result, gifted programming is limited and gifted students are not guaranteed any sort of academic assistance beyond that of a standard classroom curriculum for their designated grade levels. More importantly, in the majority of states, including New York, the legal protections offered …

Copyright Infringement In Sound Recording: How Courts And Legislatures Can Get In Vogue In A Post-Ciccone World, Kristen B. Kennedy

Journal of Law and Policy

Music sampling is a legally complex and ambiguous area, with staggeringly high costs attached for copyright infringers. The legality of sampling frequently depends upon what jurisdiction the inquiry into the sampling takes place in, and has been guided by inconsistently applied doctrines of fair use, de minimis, and copyright infringement. The Ninth Circuit’s decision in VMG Salsoul v. Ciccone has dramatically highlighted these inconsistencies. This note suggests a four-part solution to resolve the tensions in copyrightable sound recordings magnified by the recent circuit split created by VMG Salsoul v. Ciccone. It incorporates elements of de minimis and fair use, a …

Survey Of Legislation: 2017 Arkansas General Assembly, Amie Alexander, Sarah Giammo

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Disability, Universalism, Social Rights, And Citizenship, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Proxy Access And Optimal Standardization In Corporate Governance: An Empirical Analysis, Reilly S. Steel

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

According to the conventional wisdom, “one size does not fit all” in corporate governance. Firms are heterogeneous with respect to their governance needs, implying that the optimal corporate governance structure must also vary from firm to firm. This one-size-does-not-fit-all axiom has featured prominently in arguments against numerous corporate law regulatory initiatives, including the SEC’s failed Rule 14a-11—an attempt to impose mandatory, uniform “proxy access” on all public companies—which the D.C. Circuit struck down for inadequate cost–benefit analysis.

This Article presents an alternative theory as to the role of standardization in corporate governance—in which investors prefer standardized terms—and empirical …

Protecting Whistleblowing (And Not Just Whistleblowers), Evan J. Ballan

Michigan Law Review

When the government contracts with private parties, the risk of fraud runs high. Fraud against the government hurts everyone: taxpayer money is wasted on inferior or nonexistent products and services, and the public bears the burdens attendant to those inadequate goods. To combat fraud, Congress has developed several statutory frameworks to encourage whistleblowers to come forward and report wrongdoing in exchange for a monetary reward. The federal False Claims Act allows whistleblowers to file an action in federal court on behalf of the United States, and to share in any recovery. Under the Dodd- Frank Act, the SEC Office of …

Opening The Gates Of Cow Palace: Regulating Runoff Manure As A Hazardous Waste Under Rcra, Reed J. Mccalib

Michigan Law Review

In 2015, a federal court held for the first time that the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) may regulate runoff manure as a “solid waste” under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (“RCRA”). The holding of Community Ass’n for Restoration of the Environment, Inc. v. Cow Palace, LLC opened the gates to regulation of farms under the nation’s primary toxic waste statute. This Comment argues that, once classified as a “solid waste,” runoff manure fits RCRA’s definition of “hazardous waste” as well. This reclassification would expand EPA’s authority to monitor and respond to the nation’s tragically common groundwater-contamination emergencies.

Regarding Age As A Disability: Conceptualizing Age Discrimination At Work As (Mis)Perception Of Disability Discrimination, Kevin M. Cremin

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Guilty As Charged: Reflections On Tra 17, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The international provisions of TRA 17S are in some ways an improvement over TRA 17H, but they are nevertheless deeply flawed. U.S.-based MNEs have accumulated $ 2.6 trillion of low taxed income offshore. This "guilty" income derives not just from IP developed in the United States, but in many cases (for example, Google, Facebook, and Big Pharma) also from exploiting the U.S. consumer market. This is a classic "round tripping" situation in which both the supply side (production) and the demand side (consumption) are in the United States, and yet both TRA 17H and TRA 17S let the guilty parties …

Educational Equality For Children With Disabilities: The 2016 Term Cases, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Book Chapters

One of the most longstanding debates in educational policy pits the goal of equality against the goal of adequacy: Should we aim to guarantee that all children receive an equal education? Or simply that they all receive an adequate education? The debate is vexing in part because there are many ways to specify “equality” and “adequacy.” Are we talking about equality of inputs (which inputs?), equality of opportunity (to achieve what?), or equality of results (which results?)? Douglas Rae and his colleagues famously argued that there are no fewer than 108 structurally distinct conceptions of equality. And how do we …

Where Have All The Soldiers Gone Ii: Military Veterans In Congress And The State Of Civil-Military Relations, Donald N. Zillman

Maine Law Review

In a 1997 essay in these pages, I reported on the fact that a declining number of senators and members of the House of Representatives were veterans of military service. At the height of the Vietnam War, roughly 70% of the members of Congress were veterans. By 1991, the Congress that approved the use of force against Iraq in Operation Desert Storm had only slightly more veterans than non-veterans. Three Congresses later, the percentage of veterans had dropped to 32%. The explanation for the decline is almost certainly not that the American voter no longer likes to elect veterans to …

Once More, With Feeling: Tra 17 And Original Intent Of Subpart F, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Nir Fishbien

Articles

For the first time since 1913, Congress is considering abandoning the principle that U.S. residents should be subject to tax on all income “from whatever source derived.” Specifically, the proposed tax reform legislation, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, would completely exempt from U.S. taxation dividends from controlled foreign corporations. This is therefore a good occasion for considering the reasons we tax those dividends in the first place.

A Halachic Perspective On The Parent-Child Privilege, Erica Smith-Klocek

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Trump's "Big-League" Tax Reform: Assessing The Impact Of Corporate Tax Changes, Ryan J. Clements

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

This Article reviews and assesses corporate tax reforms advocated by President Donald Trump during his presidential campaign and signed into law since taking office (the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017), in light of economic theory and the Modigliani-Miller Irrelevance Theorem. The Ar-ticle argues that companies will adapt polcies in light of new taxation mea-sures, thereby impacting the effectiveness of reform. In support of this conclusion, the Article surveys two empirical studies—one in relation to the repatriation efforts of President Bush’s Homeland Investment Act and an-other in relation to unexpected changes to the taxation of Canadian income trusts—to highlight …

Understanding The Consumer Review Fairness Act Of 2016, Eric Goldman

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Consumer reviews are vitally important to our modern economy. Markets become stronger and more efficient when consumers share their marketplace experiences and guide other consumers toward the best vendors and away from poor ones. Businesses recognize the importance of consumer reviews, and many businesses take numerous steps to manage how consumer reviews affect their public image. Unfortunately, in a misguided effort to control consumer reviews, some businesses have deployed contract provisions that ban or inhibit their consumers from reviewing them. I call those provisions “antireview clauses.”

Anti-review clauses distort the marketplace benefits society gets from consumer reviews by suppressing peer …

Paypal Is New Money: Extending Secondary Copyright Liability Safe Harbors To Online Payment Processors, Erika Douglas

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has shaped the Internet as we know it. This legislation shields online service providers from secondary copyright infringement liability in exchange for takedown of infringing content of their users. Yet online payment processors, the backbone of $300 billion in U.S. e-commerce, are completely outside of the DMCA’s protection. This Article uses PayPal, the most popular online payment company in the U.S., to illustrate the growing risk of secondary liability for payment processors. First it looks at jurisprudence that expands secondary copyright liability online, and explains how it might be applied to PayPal. Then it …

The Oversimplification Of Deregulation: A Case Study On Clinical Decision Support Software, Deeva V. Shah

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Until the December 2016 passage of the Cures Act, the FDA had regulatory power over clinical decision support (CDS) software; however, the Act removed a large group of CDS software from the FDA’s statutory authority. Congressional intent was to increase innovation by removing regulatory blockades—such as device testing and certification—from the FDA’s purview. This note argues that the enactment of this specific provision of the Act will instead stymie innovation and overlook the unfortunate safety consequences inherent in its deregulation. CDS software is a burgeoning field ripe for innovation; however, rapid innovation can often lead to a slew of mistakes—mistakes …

Prisoners With Disabilities, Margo Schlanger

Book Chapters

A majority of American prisoners have at least one disability. So how jails and prisons deal with those prisoners’ needs is central to institutional safety and humaneness, and to reentry success or failure. In this chapter, I explain what current law requires of prison and jail officials, focusing on statutory and constitutional law mandating non-discrimination, accommodation, integration, and treatment. Jails and prisons have been very slow to learn the most general lesson of these strictures, which is that officials must individualize their assessment of and response to prisoners with disabilities. In addition, I look past current law to additional policies …

Making Bureaucracies Think Distributively: Reforming The Administrative State With Action-Forcing Distributional Review, Kenta Tsuda

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

This Article proposes that agencies analyze the distributional impacts of major regulatory actions, subject to notice-and-comment procedures and judicial review. The proposal responds to the legitimacy crisis that the administrative state currently faces in a period of widening economic inequality. Other progressive reform proposals emphasize the need for democratization of agencies. But these reforms fail to address the two fundamental pitfalls of bureaucratic governance: the “knowledge problem”—epistemic limitations on centrally coordinated decision making—and the “incentives problem”—the challenge of aligning the incentives of administrative agents and their political principals.

A successful administrative reform must address both problems. Looking to the environmental …