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Climate Entrenchment in Unstable Legal Regimes
No full textAmerican climate law is the subject of serious and ongoing debate, and policy change is part of the ordinary process of democratic governance. However, in recent years some policymakers have deliberately undermined climate action by injecting legal instability into American climate law. This Essay addresses a simple question: how can Americans build necessary climate infrastructure in the face of an unstable political and legal regime?
Some readers may be shocked by this question. Indeed, this framing is intentionally provocative. However, this Essay recognizes a simple fact: not all American polities, and not all American policymakers, are trustworthy and predictable partners for climate infrastructure projects. Further, American climate law contains significant sources of instability which can be exacerbated by political sabotage. Actions that undermine public climate commitments create a genuine risk for both the legitimacy of American governance and the material well-being of Americans in the face of the global climate crisis.
This Essay proposes a tool kit for protecting climate infrastructure from political interference. Part I identifies sources of legal instability in America’s response to the climate crisis, places it in a theoretical context, and discusses the costs of this political instability. Part II discusses the ethical issues involved in preempting political instability in a democracy and concludes that addressing climate change aligns with historical ethical justifications for entrenchment in American law. Finally, Part III outlines doctrinal, contractual, and political techniques to entrench climate policy and protect climate infrastructure from political interference
International Foundation for Electoral Systems in Washington, D.C.
No full textMark Wilson will intern with IFES’ Center for Anti-Corruption and Democratic Trust, which works with partners worldwide to combat corruption, support democratic renewal, and build trust in democratic processes, systems, and institutions by strengthening the efforts of public officials, independent institutions, and civil society to promote good governance
Solo en Inglés : Using Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act to Combat Modern Literacy Tests
No full textThis Note asserts that section 208 of the VRA [Voting Rights Act] plays a vital role in protecting equitable access for limited English proficient (LEP) voters to cast their ballot. It does so by (1) providing background on protections in the VRA for LEP voters, (2) proposing that section 208 fills the gap left by other provisions of the VRA, and (3) offering recommendations for using section 208 effectively. These recommendations will include (1) amending section 208, (2) furthering education, and (3) increasing individual state actions. Lastly, this Note will argue that section 208 should serve as a model for Congress in striking a balance to protect specific interests while being narrowly tailored enough to withstand frequent challenges.
This abstract has been taken from the author\u27s introduction
Laundering Police Lies
Get PDFPolice officers—like ordinary people—are regularly dishonest. Officers lie under oath (testilying), on police reports (reportilying), and in a myriad of other situations. Despite decades of evidence about police lies, the U.S. Supreme Court regularly believes police stories that are utterly implausible. Either because the Court is gullible, willfully blind, or complicit, the justices have simply rubber-stamped police lies in numerous high-profile cases. For instance, the Court has accepted police claims that a suspect had bags of cocaine displayed in his lap at the end of a police chase (Whren v. United States), that officers saw marijuana through a covered greenhouse from a moving helicopter hundreds of feet in the air (Florida v. Riley), and that a secretive drug dealer just happened to be standing on the front porch holding a bag of drugs at the moment the police showed up (United States v. Santana). In the famous case of Terry v. Ohio, the Court ignored the fact that the officer changed his story multiple times. And in less-famous cases like Ornelas v. United States, the Court has been unfazed when police officers were caught lying about the appearance of crucial evidence.
This Article explores the prevalence of police lying and examines the U.S. Supreme Court’s unquestioning acceptance of police lies. In addition to identifying the Court’s gullibility and possible complicity, this Article examines criminal procedure doctrines that enable police to bake lies into cases at an early stage. This Article recognizes that the Court cannot eradicate police dishonesty, but advocates for heightened judicial alertness for police lies and an increased willingness to reverse convictions based on them. The Court should additionally utilize its educational function to signal to lower courts, police departments, and the general public—which is more attuned to police misconduct than ever before—that police lying is present and will not be tolerated
The Trump Impeachments: Lessons for the Constitution, Presidents, Congress, Justice, Lawyers, and the Public
Get PDFThe conventional wisdom is that the two impeachments of Donald Trump demonstrated the ineffectiveness of impeachment as a remedy for serious presidential misconduct. Meeting the constitutional threshold for conviction and removal requiring at least two-thirds approval of the Senate is practically impossible so long as the members of the President’s party in Congress control at least a third of the seats in the Senate and are united in opposition to his impeachment and conviction. This Article challenges this conventional wisdom and argues instead that the two Trump impeachments have enduring effects on Trump’s political future and legacy, especially in light of the fact that the vast majority of senators condemned his actions in his second trial and the voluminous records of his misconduct serving as the basis for his first impeachment. The Article also assesses the lessons the trials have taught about the effectiveness of various safeguards against the misconduct of presidents and the lawyers who enable their corruption
Discovering eBay\u27s Impact on Copyright Injunctions Through Empirical Evidence
Get PDFThis Article reports on new empirical evidence discrediting the widely held view that judges have resisted applying the Supreme Court’s teachings in eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C. about injunctive relief in copyright cases. That 2006 patent law decision ruled that courts should not automatically issue injunctions upon a finding of infringement; instead, plaintiffs must prove their entitlement to injunctive relief. eBay had a seismic impact on patent litigation and greatly reduced the threat that small infringements could be leveraged into billion-dollar settlements. Yet prior empirical work, at least one major copyright law treatise, and many articles assert that eBay had little or no effect on the neighboring arena of copyright law. They assert that eBay was rarely cited and infrequently applied.
By examining a longer timeline of cases and more carefully distinguishing between default judgments and contested cases, we find substantial evidence that eBay has become profoundly important in copyright injunction cases. The decision’s true impact becomes apparent by looking at citations to eBay and related cases as well as the language judges have been using to discuss the need to balance hardships to plaintiffs and defendants when considering whether to grant copyright injunctions. We also find evidence suggesting that injunctions have become more difficult to obtain in the aftermath of eBay. Our data suggest that the early impression that eBay had little impact in copyright cases was a product of hysteresis—a time lag between cause and effect—as lower courts initially resisted, but eventually embraced, eBay
Which Came First: the Chicken or the Chick\u27n? An FDA Amendment Proposal to Reconcile Conflicting Interests in Plant-Based Meat Labeling
Get PDF“The issue is, what is chicken?” As the market for plant-based meats grows, state legislators are left with the question of what the words “chicken” and “burger” mean on food labels. In response to lobbying from the traditional meat industries, states followed suit with the dairy industry and created regulations and restrictions that carve out a meat industry monopoly on meat-related terms. Commercial speech restrictions such as these are guided by the Central Hudson test. Using that test, this Note will argue that while certain state regulations pass constitutional muster, others impose unconstitutional speech restrictions. This Note will draw particularly from the analysis employed by courts within the Ninth Circuit by addressing similar dairy regulations, commentary from interest groups, and FDA history. Finally, this Note will propose an FDA amendment and final notice that would create independent plant-based standards of identification and labeling guidance. An FDA amendment is necessary because, as demonstrated by the case studies, district courts have shied away from engaging in a thorough Central Hudson analysis. This separate regulation would allow plant-based food producers to use traditional meat language with the appropriate modifiers, as well as stand-alone “vegan terminology.”
This abstract has been taken from the author\u27s introduction
