State and Local Government Law Commons^™

Property Rights V. Taxpayer Rights: The Battle Over Tax Foreclosures, Stewart E. Sterk

Articles

No abstract provided.

Rural Solar Rights, Troy A. Rule

BYU Law Review

Utility-scale solar projects on private land—the fastest growing form of energy development in the United States today—generate low-cost, carbon-free electricity and can invigorate rural economies. However, they are also attracting unprecedented local opposition as local governments across the country adopt ordinances prohibiting or severely restricting solar farm development within their jurisdictions. Fortunately, state legislatures have multiple means of preventing municipal governments from unreasonably restricting solar energy. Among other things, states can legislatively preempt excessive local solar siting restrictions, manage more solar project permitting at the state government level, or statutorily require municipalities to classify solar farms as a “permitted use” …

Municipalities, Let The People Have Their Chickens And Eat Them, Too, Cindy Vong

Journal of Food Law & Policy

In the pre-industrial era, before the advent of long-distance transportation or food preservation, human survival necessitated proximity to where food was grown or husbanded. Cities located near agriculturally productive lands and domesticated livestock animals were commonplace within cities. But by the 1920s, the technological innovations of the Second Industrial Revolution left urban areas free of farm animals and farm-related activities. Local governments exercised their powers to codify the separation of residential and agricultural uses within cities and reinforce the idea that food production was not proper in community neighborhoods. Yet, a century later, local governments use those same powers to …

Textualist Reasoning And The Open Fields Doctrine: A Survey Of State-Constitutional Decisions, Ariel Krogue

BYU Law Review

State constitutions can, and often do, provide more extensive individual rights than the Federal Constitution affords. When this occurs, state courts frequently cite textual differences between the Federal Constitution and their own state constitutions to explain their departures from federal norms. But do textual differences between the Federal Constitution and state constitutions actually explain why some states offer more constitutional protection than the federal government does? When it comes to the Fourth Amendment’s open fields doctrine, the answer is no.

This Note provides a fifty-state survey of state-constitutional search and seizure provisions; it also identifies those states that have rejected …

Standing In The Dark, Sharon Brett

BYU Law Review

Demonstrating standing for injunctive relief in § 1983 police misconduct cases is undisputedly difficult for civil rights plaintiffs. Under City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, plaintiffs seeking injunctions must present more than evidence of past misconduct; they must show a significant ongoing risk that they will experience the same misconduct again. Scholarly attention to Lyons has focused primarily on doctrinal errors in the Court’s legal analysis, and for good reason. But the case raises another important yet overlooked question: Can civil rights plaintiffs realistically demonstrate risk of future harm given (a) the limited data kept by law enforcement about their …

A Return To Roots: Guy V. Housing Authority Of Augusta And The Revival Of Common Law Sovereign Immunity, Macyn L. Nasser

Mercer Law Review

In late 2021, a shooting at a housing complex reignited a centuries-old question: when may a municipality claim the sovereign’s shield? In Guy v. Housing Authority of the City of Augusta (“Guy II”), the Supreme Court of Georgia vacated a court of appeals decision that had analogized a housing authority to a state agency and thus found it immune from suit. In its decision, the supreme court explained that such questions must be resolved by examining whether the entity would have been immune under English common law as it existed in 1776. The case was remanded for the lower court …

Local Government, Jacob Stalvey O’Neal, Russell A. Britt, Dana A. King, Jennifer Dorminey Herzog, Nicholas A. Kinsley, M. Blake Walker

Mercer Law Review

Last year’s survey showed that the appellate courts in Georgia were reluctant to rule that a public official had violated a ministerial duty and thus were willing to hold that public officials were entitled to official immunity. This year, however, at least one case showed a swing in the other direction, with the Court of Appeals of Georgia holding that official immunity can be overcome, despite the existence of some discretionary language in a policy.

The Equity Dead Zones: Legal Intersectionality Failure Points In Chapter 13 Bankruptcy, Tearria N. Simmons

The Guardianship Journal

Legal intersectionality failure points describe the systemic fractures that occur where overlapping legal, social, and economic inequalities converge, potentially producing compounded barriers to relief. Each failure point marks a site of marginalization. In what ways do individuals already recognized as vulnerable in Chapter 13 bankruptcy face a heightened risk when multiple forms of disadvantage intersect? When these intersections combine in mutually reinforcing ways—racial, economic, and relational disparities colliding with structural deficiencies in family, property, and bankruptcy law—does it result in pronounced negative outcomes, and, if so, what are those outcomes? Within this convergence, could there be a space where compounded …

Diplomacy Derailed: Discrimination’S Detour On Route 40, Gage A. Kivlen

Masters Theses, 2020-current

The 1961 Route 40 campaign in Maryland became a critical battleground where three competing approaches to addressing racial segregation revealed deep contradictions in Cold War America. Route 40, a major highway between Washington D.C. and New York, became an international embarrassment when African diplomats from newly independent nations were repeatedly refused service at restaurants and hotels. This crisis prompted responses from three distinct actors: the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), which employed grassroots organizing and direct action; the State Department's Special Protocol Service Section (SPSS), which pursued top-down diplomatic solutions; and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which conducted extensive …

Law School News: Passionate Changemakers: Rwu Law Students Address Rhode Island's Housing Crisis 12-11-2025, Matthew Milotakis

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

How “Cooling Off” Periods Endanger The Vulnerable: A 50-State Study Of Mandatory Separation Periods In No-Fault Divorce, Melody Mostow

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

Mandatory separation periods in no-fault divorce neither advance their stated policy goals nor comport with contemporary understandings of marital dynamics, domestic abuse, or child welfare. Although mandatory separation periods are held out as tools to promote reconciliation and deter impulsive divorces, such rationales lack empirical support. Because family law in the United States is determined at the state level, this Article examines state laws that require couples to live apart in varying restrictive capacities before obtaining a no-fault divorce. To that end, this Article presents the first comprehensive 50-state study of such requirements. Research demonstrates that these laws do not …

“Sport-Extortion:” Causes, Consequences, And Solutions, Jack Berger

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

The modern U.S. stadium-development model enables “sport-extortion,” a phenomenon in which franchise owners leverage artificial scarcity, antitrust carve-outs, and credible relocation threats to extract public subsidies that deliver negligible public benefits. Owners use the league’s monopoly power and superior negotiating leverage to pit cities against one another and extract public money for new stadiums or upgrades to their existing stadiums. The owners and community leaders who support using public money to finance these projects promise huge economic returns and development for their communities. However, a survey of the empirical literature and examination of recently approved stadium projects reveal that these …

Greenhat’S Greenlight To The Cftc: The Case For A Jurisdictional Shift Of Financial Transmission Rights From The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission To The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Timothy K. Shaw Ii

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

Regional Transmission Organizations and Independent System Operators are a relatively new platform to buy and sell wholesale electricity and transmission service of that electricity. These groundbreaking organizations have been around since 1996 after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) issued Order 888. FERC regulates the physical electricity wholesale sale and transmission service market managed by a Regional Transmission Organization (“RTO”) or Independent System Operator (“ISO”),through its Federal Power Act mandate. Many RTOs and ISOs offer a product called a Financial Transmission Right (“FTR”). Traditionally, FTRs assist the holder by providing price certainty, or a hedge, in the capacity market. This …

Choosing The Best Entity For Investments Trading After Understanding The Tax Limitations And Restrictions, Ray A. Knight, Joseph Lakatos

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

The trading of various securities is subject to market rules. However, when securities trading is completed within a business entity, the entity is subject to tax limitations and restrictions. The tax benefits cannot be the dominant purpose for the entity structure; economic substance including profit motive and business purpose for each transaction must be able to be shown.

The trading of investment securities must be housed in the right entity to gain the best economic results as well as to minimize the tax burden. The entity selection process must first consider the characteristics and nature of the securities (e.g., currencies, …

Volume 23 - Front Matter

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Appeal No.1049: Gaia Exploration, Llc. V. Division Of Oil & Gas Resources Management, Ohio Oil & Gas Commission

Ohio Oil & Gas Commission Decisions

Appeal of Chief's Order 2025-205

Appeal No.1045: Renee Beem Caughey V. Division Of Oil & Gas Resources Management & Eog Resources, Inc., Ohio Oil & Gas Commission

Ohio Oil & Gas Commission Decisions

Appeal of Chief's 2025=123

Appeal No.1050: Big M. Petroleum Corporation V. Division Of Oil & Gas Resources Management, Ohio Oil & Gas Commission

Ohio Oil & Gas Commission Decisions

Appeal of Chief's Orders 2015-250, 2025-251, 2025-252, and 2025-253

Appeal No.1051: Big M. Petroleum Corporation V. Division Of Oil & Gas Resources Management, Ohio Oil & Gas Commission

Ohio Oil & Gas Commission Decisions

Appeal of Chief's Orders 2015-250, 2025-251, 2025-252, and 2025-253

Appeal No.1052: Big M. Petroleum Corporation V. Division Of Oil & Gas Resources Management, Ohio Oil & Gas Commission

Ohio Oil & Gas Commission Decisions

Appeal of Chief's Orders 2015-250, 2025-251, 2025-252, and 2025-253