Keeping Current-Property Incollection
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Darryl Wilson, Keeping Current-Property, 35 Probate and Property 16 (2021)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
2021
The Constitution of Black Abolitionism: Reframing the Second Founding Article
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James W. Fox, The Constitution of Black Abolitionism: Reframing the Second Founding, 23 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 267 (2021)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
Eric Foner has observed that historians of the Thirteenth Amendment have struggled “to find ways to get the voice of African Americans into discussions of the Amendment’s original meaning, scope, and limitation.” This article is part of a project to answer Professor Foner’s challenge to recover nineteenth-century African American constitutionalism. While there are many sources for accessing the views of African American writers, speakers, and activists, this article focuses on the rich contributions of the Black Convention Movement. Despite its importance in helping to set the terms for Reconstruction, the Black Convention Movement and the Black public sphere more generally have been under-utilized and under-studied as a part of our constitutional history. The documents from the state and national conventions of African Americans that took place from 1831 through the 1860s provide evidence of how African Americans understood constitutional ideals, principles, interpretations, and text in the period of time when significant constitutional change was about to take place. As we will see, the conventions included debates and statements about a range of constitutional ideas, from the meaning of freedom in a society infused with slavery and race prejudice, to complex views about the meaning of national citizenship, to fundamental questions about the validity and morality of the constitution itself.By the 1860s, as the Civil War revealed the possibility of an America freed from slavery, African American Conventions began to present a broad vision of civil society where constitutionally protected freedom and citizenship encompassed everything from suffrage to employment to property to education. This vision, while shared intermittently by some white abolitionist allies, was both more insistent and more encompassing than those ideas of freedom most often articulated in the white public sphere. This vision, I argue, is the lost meaning of African American constitutionalism and is one well worth exploring as we consider how and whether American constitutionalism in the twenty-first century can speak to us
From Carrie Buck to Britney Spears: Strategies for Disrupting the Ongoing Reproductive Oppression of Disabled People Article (Online)
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Robyn Powell, From Carrie Buck to Britney Spears: Strategies for Disrupting the Ongoing Reproductive Oppression of Disabled People (2021)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
In June 2021, Britney Spears made news headlines when she testified to a judge that she was being prevented from having children because her conservator would not allow her to stop using contraception. Britney Spears’ dreadful experiences are a glaring reminder that nearly 100 years after the infamous Buck v. Bell decision, reproduction is still weaponized to subjugate people with disabilities. Indeed, the reproductive oppression experienced by Britney Spears and other people with actual or perceived disabilities is deeply entrenched in our laws, in our policies, and in our collective conscience. Confronting these persistent inequities will require us to radically transform our laws and policies. This Essay responds to the ongoing reproductive injustice experienced by disabled people by proposing a vision to assist activists, legal professionals, scholars, and policymakers conceive of and articulate the basic contours of a paradigm shift that supports the coalescence of the reproductive justice and disability justice movements. The guiding principles set forth herein are intended to advance a long-overdue conversation about reproductive justice for people with disabilities by providing a starting point for activists, scholars, legal professionals, and policymakers to use, critique, and improve upon. The need for action could not be more timely or clear.
A Provisional Definition of Legal Writing Scholarship Article (Online)
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Kirsten K. Davis, A Provisional Definition of Legal Writing Scholarship, in 2University of Oregon Proceedings: Online Journal of Legal Writing Conference Presentations (2021)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
CISG Article
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Kristen David Adams and Candace Zierdt, CISG, 76 Bus. Law. 1407 (2021)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
Designing the Tax Supermajority Requirement Article
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Andrew D. Appleby, Designing the Tax Supermajority Requirement, 71 Syracuse L. Rev. 959 (2021)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
States are rekindling the trend of broad constitutional amendments that require supermajority approval to create or increase taxes. This trend may inadvertently harm states' already precarious fiscal footing, particularly with several new imminent expenditure demands. States can minimize negative economic consequences, however, through proper supermajority requirement design.
This article makes three contributions. First, it examines broad constitutional tax supermajority requirements' history, asserted justifications, and effectiveness. This examination concludes that the motivations underlying the first and second supermajority waves differ importantly from those underlying the possible third wave. Recognizing this novel motivation-signaling low-tax competitive advantage-allows this article to present optimal supermajority provision design principles.
Second, this article investigates several new sources that can generate immense tax revenue for states, but that will likely be obstructed by tax supermajority provisions if not designed properly. This article also identifies several expenditure demands that are unlikely to be satisfied without new or increased taxes.
Finally, this article presents tax supermajority requirement design principles that achieve a strong low-tax signaling function while allowing flexibility to maintain a low-tax competitive advantage. Fundamentally, the constitutional tax supermajority requirement should expressly encompass personal income tax, business taxes, and fees, while excluding transaction taxes. If a state decides to pursue a broad tax supermajority requirement, these design principles will best position a state to attract businesses and wealthy individuals while also achieving fiscal stability.
Reply to Bridgewater (2021), “Response to Davies et al., ‘Towards a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Wetlands’” Article
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Gillian T. Davies et al., Reply to Bridgewater (2021), “Response to Davies et al., ‘Towards a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Wetlands’”, 72 Marine and Freshwater Research 1401 (2021)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
We reply to the main concerns raised by Bridgewater (2021) in his response to Davies et al. (2021a), ‘Towards a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Wetlands’. We appreciate the contribution of Bridgewater (2021) to this emerging conversation and, although we disagree with some of his assessments and statements, we do not find his points to be incompatible with support for the Declaration of the Rights of Wetlands (ROW). This reply focuses on four areas of concern raised by Bridgewater (2021). First, we describe why a wetlands-specific declaration will add important value to other Rights of Nature declarations. Second, we discuss how the ROW does not detract from, but rather can contribute to and complement, existing conservation and management approaches and mechanisms. Third, we agree on the importance of weaving Indigenous and local knowledge with other knowledges and emphasise that the ROW should not be confused with or misused to undermine the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities. Finally, we explain how legal rights can and have been granted to non-humans, including elements of Nature, such as wetlands.
Systematic Injustice: The Need for Disaster and Pandemic Preparedness Legislation Article
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Christine E. Cerniglia, Systematic Injustice: The Need for Disaster and Pandemic Preparedness Legislation, 99 U. Det. Mercy L. Rev. 53 (2021)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
Law & Poetry: Promises from the Preamble Book
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Kristen David Adams, Law & Poetry: Promises from the Preamble (American Bar Association, 2021)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
Is there a connection between law and poetry? This anthology suggests the answer is "yes." A case or code helps to reveal what the law is. A treatise or law review article helps to reveal what the law should be. Poetry about the law, however, may be the single most effective way to connect with the human experience of the law--what it feels like to be the judge, juror, the attorney, the witness, or even the accused. In this anthology of poems, you will discover new connections between law and poetry. The anthology includes 56 poems--one for each state, the District of Columbia, and five U.S. territories. Many are written by famous poets, while others may be unfamiliar.
This anthology was inspired by Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address in 1861 where he states, "Continue to exercise all the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever. . . ." As Editor Kristen Adams notes, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was "to form a more perfect Union." With this goal in mind, this anthology uses the language from the Preamble to the Constitution as a structure and framework. The collection is separated into sections using language and themes from the Preamble. Each section seeks to challenge the reader to consider how the promises and ideals of the Preamble might be fulfilled by "the better angels of our nature," and to illuminate opportunities for changes that might assist in reaching those ideals.
Keeping Current-Property Incollection
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Darryl Wilson, Keeping Current-Property, 35 Probate and Property 20 (2021)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.