While income inequality has become an increasingly central focus of public policy debate and public law scholarship, systemic inequality and exclusion are produced not just by disparities in income but also by more hidden and pernicious background rules that systematically disadvantage and subordinate certain constituencies. This Essay focuses on a particularly crucial—and often underappreciated—site for the construction and contestation of...
The False Claims Act (FCA) is the primary statute used by the federal government to police fraud in government programs. In addition to providing the government with a means to recover civil penalties and treble damages, the FCA also contains a qui tam provision that allows private citizens—called “relators”—to sue on behalf of the United States and obtain a portion of the judgment. To prevent duplicative relator-filed litigation, Congress—as...
Free speech cannot be progressive. At least it cannot be progressive if we are talking about free speech in the American context, with all the historical, sociological, and philosophical baggage that comes with the modern American free speech right. That is not to say that the right to free speech does not deserve protection. It might serve as an important side constraint on the pursuit of progressive goals and might even proÂtect progressives...
Any progressive agenda for change will require robust exercise of speech and associational rights that law currently restricts for labor unions. Although the Supreme Court’s conservative First Amendment judicial activism has raised doubts about whether constitutional protection for free speech can serve progressive ends, this Essay identifies a silver lining to the deregulatory use of the First Amendment. The Roberts Court’s extension of heightened...
The vision of free expression that characterized much of the twentieth century is inadequate to protect free expression today.
The twentieth century featured a dyadic or dualist model of speech regulation with two basic kinds of players: territorial governments on the one hand, and speakers on the other. The twenty-first-century model is pluralist, with multiple players. It is easiest to think of it as a triangle. On one corner are nation-states...
Over the past decade, the Roberts Court has handed down a series of rulings that demonstrate the degree to which the First Amendment can be used to thwart economic and social welfare regulation—generating widespread accusations that the Court has created a “new Lochner.” This introduction to the Columbia Law Review’s...
Increased use of the cloud and its international scope raise signifiÂcant challenges to traditional legal authorities that permit access to data stored outside the United States. The resulting stakes are high. This area of law affects a wide range of important matters concerning law enforcement, national security, and civil litigation.
Up until now, however, policymakers in this area have failed to fully appreciate the technological distinctions...
Since its inception more than four decades ago, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has transformed from a relatively powerless monitoring body to a major regulatory hurdle for cross-border deals. This shift has been accompanied by increasing conÂcerns from scholars and transacting parties regarding CFIUS’s lack of accountability and transparency. Yet, CFIUS’s scope has only continued to widen, as evidenced by...
The rise of arbitration has been one of the most significant developÂments in civil justice. Many scholars have criticized arbitration for, among other things, “privatizing” or “delegating” the state’s dispute-resolution powers and allowing private parties to abuse those powers with virtual impunity. An implicit assumption underlying this critique is that civil procedure, in contrast to arbitration, does not delegate sigÂnificant state...
Many have argued that the United States’ two major political parties have experienced “asymmetric polarization” in recent decades: The Republican Party has moved significantly further to the right than the Democratic Party has moved to the left. The practice of constiÂtutional hardball, this Essay argues, has followed a similar—and causally related—trajectory. Since at least the mid-1990s, Republican officeÂholders have been more likely...