The electric grid is the bedrock of modern society, but recent climate events have highlighted that it may be vulnerable to extreme weather. One possible explanation for the grid’s climate sensitivity is that its vast, interconnected hardware is exposed to the elements and has been built to withstand historical environmental conditions. Due to climate change, however, historical data regarding temperature, precipitation, and extreme weather is...
Vol. 122
Restatements of the Law occupy a unique place in the American legal system. For nearly a century, they have played a prominent and influential role as legal texts that courts routinely rely on in a wide variety of fields. Despite their ubiquitous and pervasive use by courts, Restatements are not formal sources of law. While they resemble statutes in their form and structure, Restatements are produced entirely by a private organization of experts...
This Essay responds to the wide range of commentary on Delegation at the Founding, published previously in the Columbia Law Review. The critics’ arguments deserve thoughtful consideration and a careful response. We’re happy to supply both. As a matter of eighteenth-century legal and political theory, “rulemaking” could not be neatly described as either legislative or executive based on analysis of its scope, subject, or substantive...
International human rights law is often associated with the progressive expansion of justice and freedom. But that link cannot be taken for granted. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is attempting to transform human rights into an instrument of twenty-first century global authoritarianism. This Note seeks to fill a significant lacuna in the literature by focusing on China’s efforts at the regional, national, and subnational levels to socialize...
A classic constitutional parable teaches that our federal system of government allows states to function as “laboratories of democracy.” This tale has been passed down from generation to generation, often to justify constitutional protections for state autonomy from the federal government. But scholars have failed to explain how state governments manage to overcome numerous impediments to experimentation, including resource scarcity, free rider...
COVID-19 has killed over one million Americans, and its massive impact on society is still unfolding. The government’s strategy to combat the disease included an order regulating the wearing of masks on transit. Recently, a federal district court vacated the government’s transit mask order, ruling that the order exceeds the statutory authority of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The district court relied heavily on the statute’s...
As the flaws, injustices, and harmful effects of cash bail systems have come under the spotlight, some plaintiffs have successfully brought § 1983 claims against municipalities in federal court challenging the constitutionality of judicially promulgated bail schedules. Adherence to these bail schedules deprives detainees of individualized bail-setting hearings and results in the detention of those who are unable to pay the prescheduled bail amount....
This Piece argues that Americans need to shed their anti-partyism and take a second look at parties: Political parties are the only civic associations with the capacity to organize at a scale that matters and the only intermediaries that both communicate with voters and govern. The Piece, however, advances a fundamentally different orientation to party reform—one that pushes beyond a view of parties as vehicles for funding elections, policy-demanders,...
Transgender rights discussions often turn on the distinction between “gender identity” and “sex assigned at birth.” Gender identity is a person’s own internal sense of whether they are a man, a woman, or nonbinary. “Sex assigned at birth” means the male or female designation that doctors ascribe to infants based on genitalia and is marked on their birth records. Sex assigned at birth is intended to displace the concept of “biological...
Various forces are driving healthcare providers to pursue integration to reduce prices and improve efficiency. Right now, the dominant payment model for healthcare is fee-for-service, in which a patient is charged for each individual service, test, or visit. An alternative model is value-based care, in which the emphasis is on value as opposed to volume. But to provide value-based care, health systems generally must be integrated enough to connect...