Legislation Commons^™

Waste And Duplication In Nasa Programs: The Need To Enhance U.S. Space Program Efficiency, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

The U.S. Government faces acute budgetary deficits and national debt problems in the Obama Administration. These problems have been brought about by decades of unsustainable government spending affecting all agencies including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (NASA). An outgrowth of this fiscal profligacy is the presence of wasteful and duplicative programs within NASA that prevent this agency from achieving its space science and human spaceflight objectives. These problems occur due to mismanagement of these programs from NASA and the creation of these programs by the U.S. Congress and congressional committees. This occurs because congressional appropriators tend to be more …

Conflicting Requirements Of Notice: The Incorporation Of Rule 9(B) Into The False Claims Act's First-To-File Bar, Brian D. Howe

Michigan Law Review

Intended to prevent fraud against the government, the False Claims Act (“FCA”) contains a qui tam provision allowing private individuals, known as relators, to bring suits on behalf of the government and receive a portion of the damages. At the heart of the qui tam provision lies the first-to-file bar, which provides that, once a first relator has filed a complaint, subsequent relators are prohibited from coming forward with complaints based on the facts underlying the first relator’s pending action. A circuit split has recently emerged regarding the incorporation of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b)’s heightened pleading standard into …

The Intracorporate Conspiracy Trap, J. S. Nelson

Cardozo Law Review

In the recent case of Commonwealth v. Lynn, Pennsylvania prosecuted a Roman Catholic priest who had not abused children himself but who, to protect the archdiocese that employed him, covered up information about priests who had abused children and reassigned the priests to new parishes. This case was the first of its kind to bring criminal charges against an official of the Church solely for how he supervised the careers of priests to protect his employer.

Because the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine prohibits it, the state - as is now typical of both state and federal jurisdictions around the country …

Party Polarization And Congressional Committee Consideration Of Constitutional Questions, Neal Devins

Northwestern University Law Review

No abstract provided.

English Labor Law - The 1984 Trade Union Immunities Act And Its Effect On Unions' Legal Status, Bret J. Pangborn

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Third Preference Status (Professionals) On Immigrants As Created By The 1965 Amendment To The Immigration And Nationality Act - Retraction Of Expansion Of Degree Equivalency - Matter Of Portugues Do Atlantico Information Bureau, Inc., Debra A. Egger

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Worker Dislocation Dilemma In The United States And Great Britain: Contrasting Legal Approaches, Peter E. Millspaugh

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

“Camels Agree With Your Throat” And Other Lies: Why Graphic Warnings Are Necessary To Prevent Consumer Deception, Ellen English

Florida Law Review

The government’s latest attempt to protect consumers from the perils of tobacco use is in jeopardy. In 2009, Congress enacted the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which requires cigarette advertisements and packages to bear nine new textual health warnings and gives the FDA authority to regulate tobacco products. In 2011, in compliance with the Act, the FDA issued a regulation, known as the graphic warning requirement, which mandates that a color graphic image accompany each of the nine textual warning statements. The graphic warning requirement now faces challenges from the tobacco industry, and the ambiguities current standards present …

The Paradox Of The Obamacare Decision: How Can The Federal Government Have Limited Unlimited Power?, Robert J. Pushaw Jr.

Florida Law Review

National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, the Supreme Court’s decision upholding the landmark Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA or “Obamacare”), sets forth the most important judicial examination of constitutional power since the New Deal era. The political and media frenzy over the Obamacare case has obscured its actual legal analysis and larger constitutional implications, which warrant more reflective study. This Article seeks to provide such a scholarly perspective.

Pardons And The Theory Of The “Second-Best”, Chad Flanders

Florida Law Review

This Article explains and defends a “second-best” theory of pardons. Pardons are second-best in two ways. First, pardons are second-best because they represent, in part, a response to a failure of justice: the person convicted was not actually guilty, or he or she was punished too harshly, or the punishment no longer fits the crime. In the familiar analogy, pardons act as a “safety valve” on a criminal justice system that doesn’t work as it ideally should. Pardons, in the nonideal world we live in, are sometimes necessary.

But pardons are also second-best because they can represent deviations from other …

The Rostrum Principle: Why The Boundaries Of The Public Forum Matter To Statutory Interpretation, Amy Widman

Florida Law Review

This Article explores a normative proposal for statutory interpretation in light of this media-saturated age. The proposal, referred to in this Article as the Rostrum Principle, encourages the Court to interpret ambiguous terms in legislation with a presumption toward the way the legislation was “sold” to the public. This Article further explores the shifting public forum—away from the Congressional Record and formal legal frameworks to include cable news television, newspaper op-eds, and even Twitter. The explosion of popular and social media and politicians’ increasingly sophisticated use of these forms of communication goes far toward setting the debate regarding pending legislation. …

Predicting The Fallout From King V. Burwell - Exchanges And The Aca, Nicholas Bagley, David K. Jones, Timothy Stoltzfus Jost

Articles

The U.S. Supreme Court's surprise announcement on November 7 that it would hear King v. Burwell struck fear in the hearts of supporters of the Affordable Cara Act (ACA). At stake is the legality of an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rule extending tax credits to the 4.5 million people who bought their health plans in the 34 states that declined to establish their own health insurance exchanges under the ACA. The case hinges on enigmatic statutory language that seems to link the amount of tax credits to a health plan purchased "through an Exchange established by the State." According to …

Price Gouging: A Gray Area, Mathis Mateus

Common Reading Essay Contest Winners

Second Place

Essay Prompt: In Justice, Sandel discusses a number of contemporary political issues (e.g. price gouging during the 2004 Hurricane, the 2008-9 financial meltdown, the volunteer army, pregnancy surrogates, executive pay, slavery reparations, immigration, and gay marriage). Take a position on one of the issues discussed in the book and make the best case that you can for why this position is the most just. You may include evidence from the book, your prior studies, your own experience, and/or outside research. (Outside research is not required.)

Big Storms, Big Debt, And Biggert-Waters: Navigating Florida's Uncertain Flood Insurance Future, Loren M. Vazquez

Student Works

The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) began with good intentions. It was first enacted for the purpose of making flood insurance reasonably affordable while protecting against losses after disasters. However,

Congress failed to accurately update the program in the face of climate change and new coastal development. Because of this oversight, the overall risk associated with the program outgrew the collection of premiums, which led to an enormous debt to be incurred by the federal government. Once changes did finally come, they led to massive increases in insurance rates and a massive public outrage. Residents of states like Florida faced …

Guidelines For Avoiding Pitfalls When Drafting Juvenile Curfew Laws: A Legal Analysis, Elyse R. Grossman, Kathleen S. Hoke

Faculty Scholarship

Curfew laws seek to provide general protection to youth and adults by restricting the times that children of certain ages are allowed to occupy public places or streets. These laws often contain exemptions for youth accompanied by an adult, responding to an emergency, or traveling to or from school, work, or a religious service, among others. However, the actual language used and exemptions included vary by locality. As a result, courts have reached different results—several courts upheld curfew laws as constitutional, while others overturned these laws. Although not the original reason behind juvenile curfew enactment, several studies have found that …

Model All-Payer Claims Database Legislation, Lucy Hodder, Jo Porter, Ashley Peters

Law Faculty Scholarship

With support from the Gary and Mary West Health Policy Center, the APCD Council has developed model legislation guidance for states to develop all-payer claims database legislation.

Retaliation And The Reasonable Person, Sandra F. Sperino

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

When a worker complains about discrimination, federal law is supposed to protect that worker from later retaliation. Recent scholarly attention focuses on how courts limit retaliation claims by narrowly framing the causation inquiry. A larger threat to retaliation law is developing in the lower courts. Courts are declaring a wide swath of conduct as insufficiently serious to constitute retaliation.

Many courts hold that it is legal for an employer to threaten to fire a worker, to place the worker on administrative leave, or to negatively evaluate the worker because she complained about discriminatory conduct. Even if the worker has evidence …

The Intratextual Independent "Legislature" And The Elections Clause, Michael T. Morley

Scholarly Publications

Many states have delegated substantial authority to regulate federal elections to entities other than their institutional legislatures, such as independent redistricting commissions empowered to determine the boundaries of congressional districts. Article I’s Elections Clause and Article II’s Presidential Electors Clause, however, confer authority to regulate federal elections specifically upon State “legislatures,” rather than granting it to States as a whole. An intratextual analysis of the Constitution reveals that the term “legislature” is best understood as referring solely to the entity within each state comprised of representatives that has the general authority to pass laws. Thus, state constitutional provisions or laws …

Disaggregated Classes, Benjamin P. Edwards

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Reading Statutes In The Common Law Tradition, Jeffrey A. Pojanowski

Journal Articles

There is wide agreement in American law and scholarship about the role the common law tradition plays in statutory interpretation. Jurists and scholars of various stripes concur that the common law points away from formalist interpretive approaches like textualism and toward a more creative, independent role for courts. They simply differ over whether the common law tradition is worth preserving. Dynamic and strongly purposive interpreters claim the Anglo-American common law heritage in support of their approach to statutory interpretation, while arguing that formalism is an unjustified break from that tradition. Formalists reply that the common law mindset and methods are …