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Python Patrol: Combatting The Problem of Evasive Non-Native Snakes in Florida
Get PDFThe Florida hotspot of non-native invasive species has long been recognized as a fascinating, yet perplexing environmental issue since the late 1900s. After decades of patchwork efforts by the federal and state government, it has become clear that a more holistic approach must be taken to help eradicate the Burmese Pythons that have overtaken Southern Florida. This article highlights the prior efforts taken federally and state-wide to combat this issue and assesses the current gaps in these efforts and what must be done to achieve a more holistic approach. Other states are used as points of comparison in regard to their legislation and handling of non-native invasive species in order to display effective or ineffective efforts. As it currently stands, the environment and ecosystem of Southern Florida are suffering immense devastation at the hands of this non-native invasive species and something must be done to control, contain, and hopefully eradicate the issue at-hand
A Call for Change: Doing More to Protect Black and Brown Victims of Domestic Violence
Get PDFDomestic violence (“DV”) disproportionately affects Black and Brown women. This article examines the tense history of law enforcement engagement with minority groups, which has caused a strain on that relationship, leaving minority groups more likely to choose to stay in their DV situations than seek out law enforcement help. The divide still impacts these groups today. Additionally, the article highlights several organizations that have formed to address the needs of minority individuals. Other organizations have been around, but their ties to law enforcement create an added barrier for Black and Brown women seeking protection. The article concludes by briefly examining the American Rescue Plan Act which was passed in 2020 and provides funds to create more culturally specific organizations and programs. This article specifically focuses on women, but the author acknowledges that people of all genders experience domestic violence
ERISA’s Fiduciary Fantasy and the Problem of Mass Health Claim Denials
Get PDFOver 100 million Americans face healthcare debt. Most of those in debt have health insurance, with the debt often springing from services people thought were covered. Before and even after receiving care, those seeking coverage must run a gauntlet of obstacles such as excessive pre-authorization requests, burdensome concurrent review of care, and retrospective review, which claws back payment after a treatment is pre-authorized and payment made. Increasingly, this procedural tangle leaves people with unwarranted and unexpected medical bills, quickly spiraling them into debt.
Who polices health insurers’ claims practices? What keeps insurance companies from designing overly burdensome pre-authorization requirements or guidelines that deny legitimate claims on a broad scale? The answers depend on the insurance’s source. Employer-sponsored health benefits—the predominant form of health insurance in the United States—is governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, known as ERISA. ERISA regulates health benefits only lightly, but it supplants all state law claims and remedies, giving in exchange only the barest of federal remedies. Over the decades since ERISA’s enactment, health benefit administrators have exploited this permissive environment, moving from an indemnity model, in which claims are paid nearly without question, to one of active involvement in treatment decisions and cost controls. ERISA’s regulation of health plans has not kept pace.
But employer-sponsored health plans have a feature that other health insurance does not: the plans’ decision-makers are deemed fiduciaries under ERISA, legally bound to place plan participants’ interests above their own. Fiduciaries within health plans wield far-reaching powers. They not only decide individual claims, but they also develop guidelines that affect thousands of others, such as the contours of pre-authorization requirements or the applicable standard of care. These broader fiduciary decisions can result in mass claim denials, and it is these powers—and the lack of consequences for abusing them—that this Article addresses.
Part I lays out the drafters’ goals in imposing fiduciary duties and the crucial role of fiduciary status in ERISA’s overall scheme. Part II describes the problems in claims processing that plan participants face, caused in part by a lack of consequences for largescale fiduciary breaches. Part III examines emerging legal theories and remedies for fiduciary breach, designed to ameliorate the problem of mass claim denials and resulting medical debt
Jepson School of Leadership Studies Dean\u27s Report 2022 - 2023
No full textUniversity of Richmond\u27s Jepson School of Leadership Studies Dean\u27s Report for 2022 - 2023
Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda: How Virginia’s Everchanging Politics Creates (Missed) Opportunities For Major Policy Decisions
Get PDFBenjamin Franklin may have been discussing the new United States
Constitution when he penned this note to his friend, French scientist Jean-
Baptiste Le Roy, but he could easily have been referring to politics in
Virginia. Virginia House of Delegates members and members of the
Congressional House of Representatives serve two-year terms. Members of
the Virginia Senate serve four-year terms. United States Senators serve sixyear
terms. And the Governor, Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General
all serve four-year terms with only the Governor constitutionally limited to a
single four-year term. With all of these terms being staggered across the
various offices, the result is that every single year in the Commonwealth of
Virginia, there is a consequential election which could shift the balance of
power between and within the executive and legislative branches. Death,
taxes and Virginia elections—nothing in this world is more certain.
But with the certainty of constant elections also comes constant change.
Every January, the Virginia General Assembly convenes to debate and pass
the Commonwealth’s laws. The frequency of state elections can result in
whiplash policy changes from year to year as the two dominant political
parties trade majority rule. Only once in the past ten years has one party
managed to control the Governor’s office and both chambers of the General
Assembly when the Democrats accomplished this short-lived feat in 2019.
The Democrats quickly proceeded to pass a number of initiatives they had
long favored, including: criminal justice reform, the decriminalization of
marijuana, the creation of the Cannabis Control Authority, expansion of rights for
LGBTQIA+, and the Clean Economy Act, among others. But the rapid
advancement of so many initiatives in such a short period of time led
to significant pushback against the party; in 2021, Republicans regained
control of the House of Delegates and swept all three statewide offices for
Governor, Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General. The Democrats
retained control of the Senate, setting up another electoral showdown for
control of the General Assembly in the November 2023 elections.
This article will discuss some of the policy initiatives introduced during
the 2023 legislative session in advance of the fall elections. It will examine
what happened with some key initiatives such as campaign finance reform,
ratepayer reform and the establishment of a cannabis retail market. It will
then analyze what should have happened in these areas and look to the 2024
session for what new initiatives we can expect to see introduced
Douglass, Lincoln, and Douglas Before Dred Scott: A Few Thoughts on Freedom, Equality, and Affirmative Action
Get PDFIn 1854, Senator Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, and Frederick Douglass delivered speeches about the newly passed Kansas-Nebraska Act. That law opened the Kansas and Nebraska Territories to slavery by extending popular sovereignty, the practice of letting territorial majorities decide whether to allow slavery in a territory, to them. Given before Dred Scott v. Sandford, the infamous case in which the Supreme Court ruled that Black Americans—whether freeborn, freed, or enslaved—could not be citizens of the United States absent congressional action or constitutional amendment, the speeches are worth revisiting. They focus on whether or how slavery should be limited, reflecting three different visions regarding slavery, freedom, equality, and the rights Black Americans might or might not enjoy if slavery were abolished. They are surprisingly relevant to the Supreme Court’s recent affirmative action decision.
The view expressed by Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln of a Constitution (and an America) that tolerated slavery and would allow a limited vision of rights for free Black Americans won over Frederick Douglass’s vision of a Constitution that fundamentally rejected slavery and requires full equality for all. The result, even in the wake of the Reconstruction Amendments’ guarantee of freedom and citizenship for Black Americans, was a society in which race mattered and in which a person’s life experiences would often depend significantly on the person’s race or color. The Reconstruction Amendments guaranteed freedom, but not full equality. That led to differing levels of inequality for citizens based in part on race. That past has resulted in the continued salience of race in American society, which is relevant to how the Supreme Court analyzes today’s race-inflected issues, such as affirmative action in university admissions.
This Essay briefly explores how the discussions of slavery, race, and equality in the Douglas, Lincoln, and Douglass 1854 speeches can help illuminate current discussions of affirmative action. The Essay considers how each 1854 speech addresses freedom and equality. It then considers how the speeches reflect each orator’s vision of the 1854 constitutional order and may help explain why race remains salient in American society. Last, it notes how the continued salience of race relates to life experiences Black and multiracial people often have, an issue especially important in how the Supreme Court recently addressed affirmative action in university admissions
Patriotism and Democratic Education
Get PDFWhether patriotism has a valuable part to play in the educational system of a democratic society is now a highly contentious matter. This chapter argues that it does, principally because such a society is a kind of cooperative practice that requires its members to enact, enforce, and – in most cases – obey the laws that govern their self-governing polity. Democracies rely on rules, and especially the rule of law, to provide the reasonably clear expectations necessary to coordinate public activities and to overcome collective-action problems. By encouraging citizens to set aside personal advantage and play a cooperative part in democratic life, patriotism contributes to the public spirit essential to democracy. For that reason, promoting patriotic attitudes is a worthy aim of democratic education
e-Museletter: February 2023
Get PDFThis Issue:
Director\u27s Message
Library News
Featured Resources
Materials Update
Things to Consider
Student Services Cornerhttps://scholarship.richmond.edu/museletter/1179/thumbnail.jp
Criminal Law and Procedure
Get PDFIt has been another busy year in the General Assembly and in the appellate courts of Virginia, especially with the recently expanded Court of Appeals. Areas in which the General Assembly made significant changes are now filtering to the appellate courts for interpretation. There have been a number of significant opinions in retroactivity of statutes, probation violations, and mental health