State and Local Government Law Commons^™

A Mandate With Teeth: Biting Back At The Neglect Of New York's Humane Education Law, Mei Brunson

Animal Law Review

New York passed its compulsory humane education law in 1917, which obligates school districts to provide weekly instruction in the “humane treatment and protection of animals” to all elementary school students. Though this mandate is clear, New York school districts routinely ignore it and deprive students of the humane education that they are statutorily entitled to. To make matters worse, the New York Commissioner of Education has abdicated their responsibility to enforce this minimum educational standard. Over the years, the laudable efforts of advocacy groups, educators, and legislators have brought about some instances of district compliance. Nevertheless, widespread district noncompliance …

Asset Forfeiture As An Animal Welfare Law: A Case Study On South Carolina's Bond-Or-Forfeit Statute, Morgan Mercer

Animal Law Review

This Comment examines South Carolina’s 2024 bond-or-forfeit statute (H.B. 3682) as a case study in the growing trend of extending existing legal frameworks to promote animal welfare. Traditionally, asset forfeiture treats animals purely as property subject to seizure. However, by shifting the costs of caring for seized animals from public agencies to the animals’ owners, H.B. 3682 embeds a concern for animal well-being into a framework historically focused on economic and property interests. This Comment argues that bond-or-forfeit statutes are part of a broader trend toward recognizing animals as sentient beings with welfare interests distinct from their owners’ property rights. …

Home Rule, Dillon’S Rule, And The Legal Shape Of Local Governance, Bradon J. Rothschild

National Policy Consensus Center Publications

Public policy in common law democracies such as the United States is dictated by many factors, which you might call streams or strands. While on the one hand the vox populi may insist on a certain action, governing coalitions of political leaders may deign another direction, or policy researchers may conclude a third option is better yet. All such options, however, are constrained by the legal parameters of governance as defined by constitutional, statutory, and case (jurisprudence, or stare decisis) law. Where these streams meet, public policy actions which are popularly supported, politically advantageous, technically effective, and (importantly) legal may …

Pona V. State, 329 A.3d 485 (R.I. 2025)., Trina Capezza

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sepulveda V. Buffum, 334 A.3d 98 (R.I. 2025)., Jack A. Burum

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Thornton V. State, 332 A.3d 912 (R.I. 2025)., Matthew Alden Zeller

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

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. …

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

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

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 …

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 …

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.