Legislation Commons^™

A Call To Replace The Apa’S Notice-And-Comment Exemption For Guidance Documents, Crystal M. Cummings

Brooklyn Law Review

Section 553 of the APA requires public “notice-and-comment” before a federal agency issues substantive rules and exempts from these procedures guidance documents that merely offer nonbinding insight and assistance on existing law. The problem of federal agencies using the notice-and-comment exemption to issue legislative rules that are legally binding has garnered considerable attention. Congressional efforts to amend the APA in response have failed and, in turn, variations have been offered on a seemingly simple fix—mandate or encourage agencies to solicit public input before issuing guidance documents. This note characterizes these proposals as overlays on the § 553(b)(A) exemption. The note …

Remedies For Government Breach: Lessons From The United States And A Zone Of Appealable Remedies For Southeast Asia, Benjamin D. Black

Brooklyn Law Review

Though international investment treaties may supplant domestic contract law in cross-border government contracts, their limited use in Southeast Asia informs the continued importance of clear remedies for a government breach of contract under domestic law. As investment from China’s Belt and Road Initiative continues to flow into the region, private parties require clear rules and remedies when a government breaches a contract. This note argues that the lack of clear and codified public contract law in Southeast Asia presents a substantial risk to private contractors and that the extreme variance in public contract law is detrimental to both parties involved. …

Community Empowerment In Decarbonization: Nepa’S Role, Wyatt G. Sassman

Washington Law Review

This Article addresses a potential tension between two ambitions for the transition to clean energy: reducing regulatory red-tape to quickly build out renewable energy, and leveraging that build-out to empower low-income communities and communities of color. Each ambition carries a different view of communities’ role in decarbonization. To those focused on rapid build-out of renewable energy infrastructure, communities are a potential threat who could slow or derail renewable energy projects through opposition during the regulatory process. To those focused on leveraging the transition to clean energy to advance racial and economic justice, communities are necessary partners in the key decisions …

The Patient Assistance Problem, Daniel O’Brien Lichtenauer

Journal of Law and Policy

Implemented in January 2006 as a voluntary enrollment supplement to standard Medicare plans, Medicare Part D coverage subsidizes the cost of prescription drugs for participants. However, significant gaps in coverage exist for those suffering from rare diseases that require costly drugs. Pharmaceutical companies seek to remove the powerful market force of patient price sensitivity by directly sponsoring or substantially funding “patient assistance programs” that help cover out-of-pocket costs. While pharmaceutical donors insist that their goal is strictly altruistic, the reality is that many of these programs offer a financial windfall for drug makers because they help funnel patients towards new …

Textual Gerrymandering: The Eclipse Of Republican Government In An Era Of Statutory Populism, William N. Eskridge, Victoria Frances Nourse

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

We have entered the era dominated by a dogmatic textualism—albeit one that is fracturing, as illustrated by the three warring original public meaning opinions in the blockbuster sexual orientation case, Bostock v. Clayton County. This Article provides conceptual tools that allow lawyers and students to understand the deep analytical problems faced and created by the new textualism advanced by Justice Scalia and his heirs. The key is to think about choice of text—why one piece of text rather than another—and choice of context—what materials are relevant to confirm or clarify textual meaning. Professors Eskridge and Nourse apply these concepts …

War & The Constitution: Chemical Agents And The Rights Of Protestors, Yomidalys GüIchardo Morel

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Wholesale Problem With Congress: The Dangerous Decline Of Expertise In The Legislative Process, Rachel E. Barkow

Fordham Law Review

It is no surprise to anyone that Congress has become a hyperpartisan battleground where little effort is expended to promote policies that work for Americans. While Congress has always viewed policy issues through the lens of party politics, the role of nonpartisan expertise in the legislative process is at an all-time low. The disrespect for experts is growing across society, but the decline in their use is particularly troubling in Congress because it exacerbates deficiencies that are inherent to the legislative process. Congress passes laws of general applicability and does not sit in judgment of specific applications of the law. …

An Analysis Of The Patent Linkage System And Development Of The Biosimilar Industry In Taiwan, Jerry I-H Hsiao

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

In 2019, as an effort to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement (now Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP)), Taiwan has implemented the patent linkage system which covers both small molecule generic drugs and large molecule biosimilar into the Pharmaceutical Affair Act. The system modeled after the U.S.’s patent linkage system designed for small molecule drugs under the Hatch Waxman Act (HWA). Based on the experience of the patent linkage system under the HWA, biosimilar industry representatives in Taiwan contended that the adoption of the patent linkage system will be detrimental to the development of local industry. By …

Prosecuting The Phone Scammer When Extradition Fails And Concurrent Jurisdiction Exists, Michelle Lepkofker

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Advancements in technology allow people to place phone calls half a world away via the internet. This technology has made it easier and cheaper for consumers to communicate, but it has also made it easier for scammers to reach more unsuspecting victims. In 2020, TrueCaller, an app designed to block scam phone calls, successfully blocked, and identified 31.3 billion spam calls in 20 countries. In the same year, Americans alone lost a total of USD $ 29.8 billion to scam calls. This Note argues that phone scams continue to be lucrative, in part, because criminal prosecutions of transnational crimes are …

Copystrikes And Meme Bans: Social Media And Copyright Protections In The Digital Age, Angelina Sanchez

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Social media is a pervasive and ever-present aspect of many peoples’ lives. Its use permeates nearly every aspect of our existence – there truly is an app for everything. Most notably, social media operates internationally both in scope and usage allowing for the creation of an astounding global society that shares cultures and perspectives in a way unprecedented in human history. Never before have societies been as interconnected as they are now. Unfortunately, such interconnectedness comes with the issue of globalizing enforcement of copyright laws. Infringement runs rampant online and forces creators to struggle against a seemingly faceless foe in …

The Case For An International Solution To The Restitution Of Cultural Property: Morality, Legality And Righting Western Wrongs, Ariana Catarisano

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

In 2020, the conversation surrounding the return of cultural property acquired during the colonial era was given new life after the world watched as Black Lives Matter activists exposed systemic racial injustice in the United States. Thousands of objects currently sit in western museums under the guise of sharing these cultures and civilizations with the world, but this brings little comfort to communities suffering the genocidal consequences of colonialism. As formerly colonized nations battle the western world for the return of their cultural property, success is often dictated by a combination of power, money, and the ability to turn the …

The Roberts Court, State Courts, And State Constitutions: Judicial Role Shopping, Ariel L. Bendor, Joshua Segev

Journal of Law and Policy

In this Article we reveal a dual dilemma, both material and institutional, that the Supreme Court in its current composition faces when reviewing liberal state court decisions based on the state constitution. The Article further describes substantive and procedural tactics that the Court adopts to address this dilemma, and illustrates the arguments by analyzing a number of recent Supreme Court decisions. The two dilemmas, the combination of which serve as a “power multiplier,” of sorts, have arisen following the last three appointments to the Supreme Court, which resulted in a solid majority of conservative Justices nominated by Republican presidents. One …

Section 230 And The Problem Of Social Cost, Stanley M. Besen, Philip L. Verveer

Journal of Law and Policy

This Article employs, with certain modifications, the framework developed in Ronald Coase’s classic article, “The Problem of Social Cost,” to analyze the current debate over Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This provision absolves interactive computer services, also known as platforms, from liability when they disseminate materials that cause “harm” to third parties, “harm” that can take the form of compensable damage of a sort found in ordinary tort cases but also can include broader injuries to social order and cohesion in the form of such things as hate speech and misinformation. The Article begins by pointing out that, …

On The Outer Reaches Of The Marketplace Of Ideas: The Weaponization Of Title Vi Against Palestinian College Activists, Gavriella Fried

Journal of Law and Policy

On U.S. college campuses, Palestinian rights activists who are critical of Israel risk legal consequences. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in any program receiving federal funds. Over the past two decades, at least eighteen Title VI complaints have been filed against U.S. colleges and universities, alleging that Palestinian rights activists’ political expression is a form of anti-Semitism. In December 2019, President Trump promulgated Executive Order 13,899, which formally extended Title VI protections to Jews and directed enforcement agencies to investigate allegations of anti-Semitism using guidance that includes …

Big Dreams And Pyramid Schemes: The Ftc’S Path To Improving Multi-Level Marketing Consumer Protections In Light Of Amg Capital Management And The 2016 Herbalife Settlement, Camille H. Mangiaratti

Journal of Law and Policy

Multi-level marketing, also known as “MLM,” is a type of sales business that relies on both sales to consumers and recruitment of sellers into the company’s tiered commission structure. MLMs are wildly and enduringly popular, especially because they claim to be a flexible and easy source of income for people who need it most. However, almost everyone who joins an MLM will lose money, and many MLMs are illegal pyramid schemes. Millions of Americans are harmed by MLMs every year. Despite this, the government does very little to punish MLMs who lie to prospective participants about their odds of success. …

Uncovering The Legislative Histories Of The Early Mail Fraud Statutes: The Origin Of Federal Auxiliary Crimes Jurisdiction, Norman Abrams

Utah Law Review

The federal crime of mail fraud is generally viewed as the original federal auxiliary jurisdiction crime, that is, a crime that does not protect direct federal interests against harm. Rather, it functions as an auxiliary to state crime enforcement. In the almost 150 years since Congress enacted the mail fraud statute, federal auxiliary crimes have proliferated and have become the most important part of federal criminal jurisdiction—so that, today, they largely duplicate state crimes. It is important to know how this form of federal criminal jurisdiction originated.

Mail fraud is a crime that scholars, judges, and lawyers have viewed as …

The Legislative Recipe: Syntax For Machine-Readable Legislation, Megan Ma, Bryan Wilson

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

Legal interpretation is a linguistic venture. In judicial opinions, for example, courts are often asked to interpret the text of statutes and legislation. As time has shown, this is not always as easy as it sounds. Matters can hinge on vague or inconsistent language and, under the surface, human biases can impact the decision-making of judges. This raises an important question: what if there was a method of extracting the meaning of statutes consistently? That is, what if it were possible to use machines to encode legislation in a mathematically precise form that would permit clearer responses to legal questions? …

Welcoming Families With Children To Csusb: Making An Intergenerational Difference, Leslie Leach

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Coming back to school after a gap in your education can be a daunting task. For students with children (SWC), the undertaking has different challenges than their classmates. Providing resources geared towards their success plays a significant role in the student's ability to complete their education. It also allows the SWC to feel a sense of belonging within their institution of higher learning. This project analyzes other California State Universities' family housing programs to advocate a similar program at California State University, San Bernardino. Using the Communication Theory of Identity (CTI) and Organizational Identity (OI), I can illustrate how resources …

Evaluating Nebraska Ems Providers' Ability And Willingness To Respond To Bioterrorism Emergencies, Ryan Houser

Capstone Experience: Master of Public Health

Previous studies have found that public health systems within the United States are inadequately prepared for an act of biological terrorism. This study utilized an Internet-based survey to assess the level of preparedness and willingness to respond to a bioterrorism attack, and identify factors that predict preparedness and willingness among Nebraska Emergency Medical Service providers, who are key to resilience in the face of an attack. The survey was available for one month in 2021 during which 190 EMS providers responded to the survey. The subjects included Registered Nurses, doctors, EMTs, and paramedics. Only 10% of the respondents are both …

Title 42, Asylum, And Politicising Public Health, Michael Ulrich, Sondra S. Crosby

Faculty Scholarship

President Biden has continued the controversial immigration policy of the Trump era known as Title 42, which has caused harm and suffering to scores of asylum seekers under the guise of public health.1 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ordered the policy in March 2020 with the stated purpose of limiting the spread of the coronavirus into the U.S.; though, CDC and public health officials have admitted this policy has no scientific basis and there is no evidence it has protected the public.2,3 Instead, the impetus behind the policy appears to be a desire to keep out or …