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The Federal Reserve as Agent to Another Principal: Monetary Penalties 1997-2022
Get PDFEnforcement is how agencies make policy, but the Federal Reserve Board, perhaps the country’s most important independent agency, and certainly its most important regulator of banks, does most of its enforcement in secret. This secrecy means that it is difficult for outside observers to see what the Fed is prioritizing. One exception to the secret sanction paradigm is the civil monetary penalty: once the Fed decides to fine a bank or a banker, no matter how small the amount, it must publicize the fine and the basis for it. We read twenty-five years’ worth of civil monetary penalty orders to see what they could tell us about the Fed’s priorities. The results are instructive. The Fed has slowed its sanctions of bankers and increased the number of sanctions on banks, especially beginning in the second term of the Obama Administration. Foreign banks have paid a disproportionate number of penalties, also especially the case recently. Small banks essentially only pay small fines for violations of the National Flood Insurance Program, by far the most common sort of enforcement action. Large banks, even more recently, are more likely to pay large fines for violations of anti-money laundering, bank secrecy, or international sanctions. The data provides some evidence that the Fed does not prefer big banks to small ones, despite the conventional wisdom to the contrary. In each of these categories, the Fed is not really pursuing its own mission to ensure that banks are safe and sound. Instead, it is acting as an agent pursuing the objectives of a different principal, be it improving the financing of the flood insurance program, assisting the national security community, or joining other law enforcement agencies on an anti-fraud campaign. That conclusion in turn suggests that the Fed is more comfortable pursuing its own policy objectives with more opaque forms of enforcement and supervision
Purchasing Population Growth
Get PDFState and local lawmakers compete to attract new populations of workers to purchase homes, grow the tax base, and develop local economies. Even before the pandemic, lawmakers used a variety of tax incentives and other legal levers to attract new residents. Increasingly, in some cases bolstered by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funds, local governments are attracting high-paid, well-skilled, remote workers with cash gifts and other direct economic benefits.
Although cash incentives for remote workers have been increasing in popularity, they remain unproven with respect to intended outcomes and have yet to face legal challenge. The public purpose doctrine, among other legal doctrines, has traditionally been used to limit government spending of scarce tax resources to benefit private individuals. Relatedly, incentives to attract new remote workers exceed the public purpose justifications used in the Supreme Court’s Takings Clause cases, including Kelo v. City of New London.
This is the first law review article to study the unique legal questions posed by, and to analyze the effectiveness of, population attraction efforts for remote workers. Early analysis suggests that only cities already experiencing population inflows during the pandemic may benefit from efforts to attract remote workers. At the same time, the most likely beneficiaries of government incentives to relocate are the relocating workers who, in many cases, would move even without a direct economic incentive. Local lawmakers should reconsider cash payments in favor of law and policy approaches that lower housing costs, such as land use and zoning reform, community land trusts, and other programs that benefit both new and existing residents
Indiana Law Fertility Fraud Expert Participates in Washington, DC Roundtable
Get PDFProfessor Jody Madeira, an internationally recognized expert in fertility fraud, bioethics, and law and medicine, participated this morning (January 26) in a bipartisan roundtable discussion with victims of fertility fraud. The event was facilitated by U.S. Representatives Stephanie Bice (R-OK), Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), Julia Letlow (R-LA), and Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) following the January 23 introduction of their Protecting Families From Fertility Fraud Act, which would—for the first time—make it a federal crime to knowingly misrepresent the source of DNA used in any procedure that involves assisted reproduction
Pregnancy and Work: 50 Years of Legal Theory, Litigation, and Legislation
No full textCombining analyses of feminist legal theory, legal doctrine, and feminist social movements, The Oxford Handbook of Feminism and Law in the United States offers a comprehensive overview of U.S. legal feminism. Contributions by leading feminist thinkers trace the impacts of legal feminism on legal claims and defenses and demonstrate how feminism has altered and transformed understandings of basic legal concepts, from sexual harassment and gender equity in sports to new conceptions of consent and motherhood. Its chapters connect legal feminism to adjacent intellectual discourses, such as masculinities theory and queer theory, and scrutinize criticisms and backlash to feminism from all sides of the political spectrum. Its examination of the prominent brands of feminist legal theory shows the links and divergences among feminist scholars, highlighting the continued relevance of established theories (liberal, dominance, and relational feminism) and the increased importance of new intersectional, sex-positive, and postmodern approaches. Unique in its triple focus on theory, doctrine, and social movements, the Handbook recounts the history of activist struggles to pass the Equal Right Amendment, the Anti-Rape and Battered Movements of the 1970s, the contemporary movements for reproductive justice and against campus sexual assault, as well as the #MeToo movement. The emphasis on theory and feminist practice animates discussions of feminist legal pedagogy and feminist influences on judges and judicial decision making. Chapters on emerging areas of law ripe for feminist analysis explore foundational subjects such as contracts, tax, and tort law, and imagine feminist and social justice approaches to digital privacy and intellectual property law, environmental law, and immigration law. The Handbook provides a broad picture of the intellectual landscape and allows both new and established scholars to gain an in-depth understanding of the full range of feminist influence on U.S. law.
Includes the chapter, Pregnancy and Work: 50 Years of Legal Theory, Litigation, and Legislation by Maurer Professor Deborah Widiss.https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/facbooks/1334/thumbnail.jp
Four pathbreaking women judges to participate in IU conference and public discussion Monday, Sept. 25
Get PDFFour distinguished women judges from the Middle East and North Africa—including the first female judge in Jordanian history—will visit the Indiana University Bloomington campus Sept. 25-26 for a conference titled “Women Judges in Dialogue,” where they will discuss their own experience as women in the judiciary as well as issues surrounding constitutional adjudication in the region. They will be joined by faculty from the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies and the Maurer School of Law.
Sponsored by the Center for the Study of the Middle East (CSME) at HLS and the Center for Constitutional Democracy (CCD) at the Law School, the judges will also participate in a panel discussion, “Her Excellency: A Conversation with Women Judges From the Constitutional Courts in the MENA Region,” on Monday, Sept. 25 at 5:30 p.m. in the DeLaney Moot Court Room. Christiana Ochoa, dean of the Maurer School of Law, will moderate the discussion, which is open to the public.
“In recent years, partly in response to the Arab Spring, a number of countries in the Middle East/North Africa region have created new courts to handle constitutional claims,” said Walter W. Foskett Professor of Law and CCD Director Susan Williams. “At the same time, women judges have been gaining recognition and acceptance in these systems. As a result, there are, for the first time, women judges on many of the highest courts in the region. We’re looking forward to bringing four of these judges together for a conversation about their experiences as women on these courts.
Meet our new faculty: Yvette Butler
Get PDFAssociate Professor Yvette T. Butler joined the Indiana Law faculty this summer. She earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Minnesota, Morris, and her law degree from The George Washington University Law School
