State and Local Government Law Commons^™

Data Sanctuaries: Rethinking Technological Progress To Preserve Federalism, Nathan S. Lee

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

Why are sanctuary states and cities in the present moment largely failing to protect immigrants and other vulnerable people from federal enforcement of an agenda based on mass deportation and fear? While federalism was painted during the Civil Rights Era as a weapon of states to protect policies of discrimination and segregation, federalism was also a powerful tool used by Northern States before the Civil War to resist Southern and federal laws enabling the dehumanizing capture and transport offugitive slaves (or suspected fugitive slaves). What has changed in the passing years to make federalism seem like such a thin concept, …

The Networked City: City Climate Change Networks And U.S. Climate Governance, Caroline G. Cox

American University Law Review

City climate change networks complicate common narratives about the local role in environmental and climate change governance in the United States. These networks—organizations with three or more member cities or representative city staff that share information and resources—are crucial actors in supporting the increasing interest in local climate change mitigation. Building upon prior scholarship addressing mayor-led networks and municipal collaborations, this Article considers how city climate networks challenge notions of local parochialism and rebut some critiques of local climate action. The Article also evaluates the growing importance of these networks in light of changes in federal climate policy, including the …

Politics As Usual: Racial Pay Inequity And The Illusion Of Inclusion In The Rise And Fall Of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, And Accessibility Executive Orders, Francois C. Melville

West Chester University Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Final Projects

This research examines pressing moral policy questions of our time: who determines when the United States of America has fulfilled its broken promise of equality for all, and what constitutes an appropriate measure of reparative justice. It interrogates why the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Executive Orders (EOs) implemented across presidential administrations, intended to advance social equity, were grounded in conflict and symbolic gestures rather than scientifically evidenced issues such as wage inequality directly linked to upward career mobility. Race conscious policy generates cultural clashes centered on the perception that gains made by Black and Brown Americans come at the …

No Justice Without Transparency: The Case For A Broad Presumption Of Public Access To Court Documents, Taylor Quimby

FIU Law Review

This Comment argues that a broad presumption of public access to court  documents is essential to preserving the legitimacy and constitutional values  of the American legal system. Although the principle of public access is  rooted in common law and constitutional tradition, individual states differ in  how they approach transparency in the context of court documents. These  jurisdictional inconsistencies continue to gain significance, as the digital age  has completely transformed the way people consume information. The  increasing digitization of court records has heightened the need for consistent  and constitutionally grounded standards that preserve transparency while  adequately protecting legitimate privacy interests. Florida’s …

When Convenience Compromises Rights: How The European Union And Washington State Confront Facial Recognition Risks, Debora Rodriguez Lugo

FIU Law Review

As facial recognition technology (FRT) becomes increasingly embedded in policing, concerns and controversies over the lack of consent, misidentification, and mass surveillance grow. This Comment compares how the European Union (EU) and Washington State (Washington) regulate law enforcement’s use of FRT to mitigate risks to individual rights. The EU governs FRT use through a robust legal framework, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Law Enforcement Directive (LED), and the Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act), which offer protections against these risks. In contrast, Washington’s pioneering statute, Wash. Rev. Code section 43.386, promotes transparency and limits the use of FRT. …

Challenging Agency Deregulation, Todd S. Aagaard

Faculty Publications

The administrative state is experiencing two seismic shifts. First, in recent years, the Supreme Court has issued a series of decisions that significantly curtailed the powers of administrative agencies. Second, President Donald Trump is using administrative agencies to aggressively deregulate in his second term. The conventional wisdom is that the Supreme Court’s recent precedent will facilitate the Trump Administration’s deregulatory agenda.

This Article argues the opposite. Instead of promoting agency deregulation, recent Supreme Court precedent restraining agency authority provides a potentially powerful basis for challenging agency deregulation as administrative overreach. Time and time again, the Court has taken agencies to …

Oregon’S History Of Using The Law To “Stack The Deck” In Favor Of White Males, Janet Steverson

Lewis & Clark Law Review

The United States has a sordid, racist history that permeates society still today. The State of Oregon has its own racist history, systematically excluding persons of Black African ancestry in its early years. This Essay explains this history and how seemingly historical practices continue to provide advantages to some, while detrimentally impacting others. This history is put in context by providing explanations of particular terms and this Essay further explains why examining these historical laws are critical in moving forward.

Taking Off The “Blindfold”: Exploring Montana’S Public Trust Doctrine And The Right To A Clean And Healthful Environment After Held V. Montana, Lizzy Gazeley

Lewis & Clark Law Review

As global average temperatures continue to rise, the threat of climate change looms closer. To evade climate catastrophe, greenhouse gas emissions will need to be substantially reduced. Despite climate change’s imminent risks, in the United States, both the federal government and states remain resistant to transitioning away from fossil fuel energy sources. To combat this government inaction, some litigants have turned to an ancient doctrine. The public trust doctrine provides that sovereigns must protect natural resources from substantial impairment to ensure the public’s right to use those resources.

In Held v. Montana, youth plaintiffs alleged that the State of Montana …

Immigration Federalism And The Promise Of State Constitutions, Joanne Gottesman

Lewis & Clark Law Review

This Article explores state constitutions’ promises and pitfalls for immigrant rights advocacy. This is a particularly urgent endeavor, given the anti-immigrant measures of President Trump’s second term and a U.S. Supreme Court that is willing to reverse longstanding precedent. Even cases like Plyler v. Doe, with its guarantee of free public education to undocumented children, could be vulnerable. While U.S. Supreme Court opinions protecting immigrant rights are the gold standard because they apply nationwide, state courts and state constitutions provide critical alternative avenues for relief that should not be overlooked.

This Article considers some state constitutional provisions that may help …

Statutory Interpretation In The Oklahoma Supreme Court: Making The Case For Modified Textualism, Mahak H. Merchant

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Brief For Jonathan H. Adler As Amicus Curiae Supporting Respondents And Affirmance, Jonathan Adler

Briefs

Global climate change presents many complex and intractable legal and policy questions. Assuming this Court has jurisdiction, the legal questions in this case are comparatively simple and straightforward. Nothing in federal law, let alone the Constitution, preempts state-law claims seeking relief from injuries allegedly caused or exacerbated by petitioners’ conduct.

At issue in this case is whether allegedly aggrieved parties, including subnational governments, may seek redress under state law from defendants otherwise subject to state court jurisdiction for harms allegedly caused or contributed to by petitioners’ conduct. In order to succeed, respondents will ultimately need to show that the damages …

Species Of State Constitutional Lockstepping, Michael L. Smith

Faculty Articles

When interpreting state constitutional provisions, state courts frequently take a "lockstep" approach by adopting the United States Supreme Court's interpretation of analogous federal constitutional provisions. Critics often portray lockstep interpretation as misguided and have identified varieties of lockstepping, including unreflective, reflective, prospective, and methodological lockstep interpretation. This Article contributes to these discussions by identifying several additional forms of lockstep interpretation that have thus far gone undiscussed: lazy, mandatory, atextual, and sticky lockstepping.

Several of these variations highlight distinct failures of state courts to independently interpret state constitutions. This includes lazy lockstepping, where state courts tend to engage in repeated, thoughtless …

High Stakes And Random Rewards: A Critical Look At Loot Boxes And Illegal Gambling, Brian T. Wersan

Touro Law Review

Since their inception in the mid-2000s, loot boxes have been legal and virtually unregulated in the United States. Ever-growing mountains of evidence demonstrate the harms of loot boxes, but their structure has not yet been found to be in violation of any current U.S. gambling law, leading to a complete lack of recovery for victims. Certainly, if people experience harm, a legal avenue providing justice must exist. While other avenues are referenced, this Note ultimately argues that loot boxes can be interpreted by courts to satisfy the elements of, and thus, violate multiple state gambling laws, revealing a path to …

Stosowanie Rozporządzenia 2022/2560 W Sprawie Subsydiów Zagranicznych Zakłócających Rynek Wewnętrzny W Pierwszych Latach Implementacji, Maria Rudzińska

internetowy Kwartalnik Antymonopolowy i Regulacyjny (internet Quarterly on Antitrust and Regulation)

Artykuł dotyczy stosowania rozporządzenia 2022/2560 dotyczącego subsydiów zagranicznych zakłócających rynek wewnętrzny (dalej jako: FSR) w pierwszych latach obowiązywania regulacji. Celem tekstu jest kompleksowa teoretyczna analiza FSR oraz przedstawienie najważniejszych wyzwań wynikających z dotychczasowej praktyki stosowania, uwzględniając zarówno perspektywę regulacyjną, jak i doświadczenia uczestników rynku. Jako punkt wyjścia dla analizy dokonano charakterystyki kluczowych pojęć oraz mechanizmów działania FSR, w tym „zagranicznego wkładu finansowego”, „korzyści gospodarczej” oraz „zakłócenia na rynku wewnętrznym” oraz procedur w obszarach koncentracji, zamówień publicznych oraz postępowań ex officio.

Następnie, w artykule przeanalizowano w jakim stopniu FSR realizuje zakładane funkcje ochrony konkurencji oraz jakie wyzwania rodzi dla podmiotów …

The Right To Seek Joy, Tyler Rose Clemons

Faculty Publications

Within the past three years, roughly half of American states have restricted access to gender-affirming medical treatment for children. In this article, I argue that these bans violate transgender children’s right to liberty guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. I do so by excavating the Framers’ understanding of liberty as the right to seek joy. Rooted in the philosophies of John Locke and Epicurus, the Framers understood liberty as the right to make important life decisions according to one’s subjective preferences without undue interference from the government. Based on this understanding, I develop a new framework for substantive …

Private Prosecution And The State, Anna Arons

Faculty Publications

The modern family regulation system is paradigmatically public. In the common account, the state plays a monopolistic role. It decides which families to investigate and which to prosecute, which families to surveil and which to separate, and which services and benefits to provision for families entangled in the system. Yet, this public family regulation paradigm obscures the role of private prosecution. Nearly half of states permit private individuals to initiate dependency prosecutions. In these cases, private prosecutors allege that parents have neglected or abused their children and seek state intervention on the fundamental right to family integrity.

This Article surfaces …

Conditional Admission And The Hazards Of Lawyer Assistance Programs Operating Without Transparency Or Oversight, Paula Schaefer

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Oklahoma’S Bible Policy: The Evolving Establishment Clause From Lemon To Kennedy, Carson Douglas Shaw

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Abortion And State Taxes: Unexpected Parallelism, Eric Smith

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Gratuitous Federalism In Gratuities Enforcement: Section 666 And Plugging The Snyder Gap, Justin New

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.