Legislation Commons^™

Bureaucratic Overreach And The Role Of The Courts In Protecting Representative Democracy, Katie Cassady

Liberty University Journal of Statesmanship & Public Policy

The United States bureaucracy began as only four departments and has expanded to address nearly every issue of public life. While these bureaucratic agencies are ostensibly under congressional oversight and the supervision of the President as part of the executive branch, they consistently usurp their discretionary authority and bypass the Founding Fathers’ design of balancing legislative power in a bicameral Congress.

The Supreme Court holds an indispensable role in mitigating the overreach of executive agencies, yet the courts’ inability to hold bureaucrats accountable has diluted voters’ voices. Since the Supreme Court’s 1984 ruling in Chevron, U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense …

Congress's Empty Promises: The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act In The Midst Of Education Crisis, Sarah Jana

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Coordination Of The Uniform Commercial Code And Common Law, Kenneth C. Kettering

University of Cincinnati Law Review

Deciding whether an issue that is in the ambit of a statute should be resolved by reference to the statute alone, or whether other sources of law should be applied, is a common interpretative task. The Uniform Commercial Code ("UCC") contains rules of interpretation that address the subject, and those rules have not been altered since the UCC was first generally enacted. Nevertheless, questions often arise on the subject under the UCC. This paper examines the UCC rules on point. The analysis is germane to the interpretation and drafting of other statutes that codify rules of private law.

Reclaiming Humphrey’S Executor: Expertise And Impartiality In The Ftc, Thomas Smith

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

The commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sit just beyond the president’s removal power, for now. The U.S. Supreme Court has all but overruled Humphrey’s Executor, which declared the constitutionality of the FTC’s statutory protections from at-will presidential removal. Recent rulings in Seila Law, Free Enterprise Fund, and Collins held that restrictions on the president’s removal of various government agency officials are unconstitutional. Despite these cases, the Court has not directly overruled Humphrey’s Executor, and in theory, its precedent still provides the FTC commissioners with protection from the president’s removal power. However, the modern FTC is easily distinguishable from …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

For The Ones Who Endured So That A Nation Might Live: A Plea To The Mississippi Legislature And Judiciary To Amend Miss. Code. Ann. 9-25-1 And Adopt A Mississippi Statewide Veterans Treatment Court, Hannah Grace Eckel

MC Law Review

Veterans provide an invaluable service to protect and defend the ideals of this nation. Today, there are roughly 18 million veterans living in the United States, and Mississippi is home to over 187,000. While many servicemen successfully integrate back into civilian life, trauma and addiction follow others which often leads to confrontations with the criminal justice system. The traditional Mississippi court system is ineffective for many veterans because the underlying issues that led to their incarceration cannot be treated with mere confinement.

Veterans Treatment Courts (VTCs) address the underlying issues that often lead to criminal activity and offer a veteran …

Flourishing, Virtue, And The Common Good Constitutionalism, Lawrence B. Solum

Faculty Scholarship

In Common Good Constitutionalism, Professor Adrian Vermeule articulates a conception of the common good. Vermeule has much to say about the common good, but very little to say about the substantive component of his conception, which he describes as “happiness or flourishing.” This Article articulates a conception of the common good that is grounded in a virtue-centered conception of human flourishing. Humans are rational and social creatures, and therefore, flourishing for humans consists in rational and social activities that express the human excellence or virtues. The common good requires communities that facilitate human flourishing in three ways: (1) by creating …

Constitutional Resilience, Shannon M. Roesler

Washington and Lee Law Review

Since the New Deal era, our system of constitutional governance has relied on expansive federal authority to regulate economic and social problems of national scale. Throughout the twentieth century, Congress passed ambitious federal statutes designed to address these problems. In doing so, it often enlisted states as regulatory partners—creating a system of shared governance that underpins major environmental statutes, such as the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. These governance structures remain important today as we seek to adapt our laws and institutions to the serious disruptions of climate change. But recent Supreme Court decisions challenge this long-established …

Deserving Life: How Judicial Application Of Medical Amnesty Laws Perpetuates Substance Use Stigma, Scott Koven

Washington and Lee Law Review

To combat the continued devastation wrought by the opioid crisis in the United States, forty-eight states have passed medical amnesty (or “Good Samaritan”) laws. These laws provide varying forms of protection from criminal punishment for certain individuals if medical assistance is sought at the scene of an overdose. Thus far, the nascent scholarly conversation on medical amnesty has focused on the types of statutory protections available and the effectiveness of these statutes. To summarize, although medical amnesty laws have helped combat drug overdose, the statutes are replete with arbitrary limitations that cabin their life-saving potential.

This Note extends the dialogue …

Constitutional Confidentiality, Natalie Ram, Jorge L. Contreras, Laura M. Beskow, Leslie E. Wolf

Washington and Lee Law Review

Federal Certificates of Confidentiality (“Certificates”) protect sensitive information about human research subjects from disclosure and use in judicial, administrative, and legislative proceedings at both the state and federal levels. When they were first authorized by Congress in the 1970s, Certificates covered sensitive information collected in research about drug addiction use. Today, however, they extend to virtually all personal information gathered by biomedical research studies. The broad reach of Certificates, coupled with their power to override state subpoenas and warrants issued in the context of law enforcement, abortion regulation, and other police powers typically under state control, beg the question whether …

Adjudicating Algorithms: Accountability In Regulation Of Surveillance, Privacy, And Discrimination, Peter Margulies

Cardozo Law Review

The movement for accountable algorithms has attained critical mass. That momentum includes a range of areas where the collection of data plays a key role, including privacy, online disinformation, surveillance, and screening for credit, housing, employment, and government benefits. For example, the White House has released an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Bill of Rights that outlines standards and recourse for a host of AI applications that touch human needs and endeavors. Assessments, disclosure, and procedures for filing complaints about abuse are frequent features in this turn toward accountability. However, at least in the United States, accountability is still a set of …

Reforming The Mississippi Criminal Code Part Iv: Offenses Against Property; Theft And Related Crimes, Judith J. Johnson

MC Law Review

Clear and fair criminal laws are foundational to criminal justice, and any meaningful reform effort should begin with the criminal laws. The Mississippi Code has been justifiably criticized as often being neither clear nor fair. This article about reforming the theft crimes is the fourth in a series of articles advocating for change to the Mississippi criminal laws. The first article explained why change is needed. Briefly, Mississippi criminal laws have been justifiably criticized because of gross sentencing disparities, vague definitions of the conduct prohibited, as well as confusing or absent definitions of states of mind required to commit the …

Unavoidability In U.S. Privacy Law, Laura M. Moy

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Why is U.S. privacy law structured the way it is, with a series of sectoral laws rather than a cross-sectoral law or laws? Why does U.S. privacy law protect information shared in certain contexts—such as information shared with an attorney, a healthcare provider, or a financial provider—rather than particular types of information? One possibility is that sectoral laws apply to contexts in which people typically share highly “sensitive” information containing intimate secrets or with the potential to harm them financially or psychologically.

But this Article argues that there is something else at play—that in fact, an under-discussed and underappreciated factor …

Japanese Legal Challenges In Rescuing Nationals Abroad, Yurika Ishii

International Law Studies

This article explains Japanese legal challenges in rescuing its nationals abroad and analyzes the mechanisms that limit Japanese Self-Defense Force responses to potential crises. The scope of analysis encompasses Japan’s national security laws, defense policies, and engagement in bilateral and multilateral cooperation. It provides noncombatant evacuation operation case studies to explore collaboration between the rescuing State, the host State, and third parties.

The article outlines Japanese laws and policies regarding the Self Defense Force’s mandate to rescue Japanese nationals abroad. It focuses on details of current legislation that provide authority and limitations for the operation. It will also track the …

Water Quality: Successes, Shortcomings, And The Future, Jaley F. Adkins

The Cardinal Edge

No abstract provided.

The Role Of U.S. Government Regulatioms, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Provides detailed coverage of information resources on U.S. Government information resources for federal regulations. Features historical background on these regulations, details on the Federal Register and Code of Federal Regulations, includes information on individuals can participate in the federal regulatory process by commenting on proposed agency regulations via https://regulations.gov/, describes the role of presidential executive orders, refers to recent and upcoming U.S. Supreme Court cases involving federal regulations, and describes current congressional legislation seeking to give Congress greater involvement in the federal regulatory process.

Recapturing The Orphan Drug Act: An Analysis Of Proposals, Rajdeep Trilokekar

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

The Code Of Life And Death, Braden R. Leach

Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies

Biotechnology is advancing at an astonishing clip, but our safeguards are decades behind. Given new technologies and economies of scale, it is possible for nefarious actors to assemble deadly viruses from scratch using synthetic DNA ordered off the internet. The Select Agents statute helps to prevent malicious actors from acquiring dangerous pathogens, but the Department of Health and Human Services has interpreted it to not cover synthetic DNA. Recognizing the gap, HHS issued guidance recommending that gene synthesis companies verify their customers to ensure their legitimacy and screen genetic sequences for matches to pathogen sequences. Unsurprisingly, voluntary guidance has not …

Lost In Transmission: How To Bring More Clean Energy Onto The Grid, Ryan Block

Student Scholarship

The Inflation Reduction Act and other policies are pushing solar, wind, and other clean energy technologies into the marketplace. But these generators struggle to make the physical connection to the electricity market because interconnection is proving to be a bottleneck; over 2,000 gigawatts of capacity are waiting to connect to the grid. This Article examines the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC’s) regulations that govern the entry of new generation resources onto the grid. It reviews the statutory underpinnings of FERC’s interconnection authority and analyzes key federal regulations, including pending FERC proposals, and finds that current backlogs are the product of …

Wisconsin's Citation Rule: Unpublished Should Not Mean Uncitable, Jacob Lloyd

Marquette Law Review

Wisconsin’s citation rule stands tall, yet unsupported. It injures Wisconsin practitioners, their clients, and judges in all three levels of Wisconsin’s judicial branch. With little tolerance, Wisconsin Statutes section 809.23(3) precludes the citation of (1) unpublished opinions issued before July 1, 2009, and (2) unauthored, unpublished opinions thereafter. You may be surprised to learn that that means approximately half of Wisconsin Court of Appeals opinions issued each year are uncitable—so, too, are significantly more than half of the opinions it issued before July 1, 2009. Without change, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals will continue to miscategorize its opinions; Wisconsin’s case …