Harvard Law & Policy Review

Zach Luck In the Invention of Money, a Planet Money feature on This American Life last month, the reporters peel back the layers on the terrifyingly crazy fiction called money.  But, in doing so, they are surprisingly quick to uncritically repeat another fiction: the idea that some government agencies somehow aren’t really part of the government.  During his intro to this fascinating piece on the Federal Reserve’s response to the financial crisis, Ira Glass explains that “though the Federal …

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Michael Stephan  The Lewis & Clark Law Review recently published an essay by Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the Ninth Circuit.  The essay discusses the reversal rate of Ninth Circuit cases at the Supreme Court over the past decade.  Judge O’Scannlain, who is considered strongly conservative by some, concludes that “the Ninth Circuit’s record in the Supreme Court has been strikingly poor.” Judge O’Scannlain points out that, in the last ten years, the Ninth Circuit was reversed or vacated in …

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Rachel Lauter A lot has been written about whether or not New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is preparing himself for a presidential run in 2012. His recent advocacy on gun control (including this pretty awesome and brazen undercover sting at an Arizona gun show), and his calls for federal immigration reform, are certainly plays to shape the policy agenda, and might be an effort to garner support from the left-leaning electorate. They are also likely an effort to reaffirm his reputation for …

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Yevgeny Shrago  An interesting paper (gated) by Matthew Kahn and Jonathan Zasloff focuses on the effects that California’s Coastal Boundary Zone regulations  had on housing prices in the area. The authors find (unsurprisingly) that a house located within the Boundary Zone sells for a substantial price premium over a similar house located just over the boundary. This is a fantastic support for the seemingly intuitive but hotly contested thesis that land use regulations are a determinant of high …

Continue Reading about A Progressive Paradox: Environmental Regulations and Affordable Housing →

Smita Ghosh Lawmakers in several states have followed the Oklahoma’s lead in seeking to ban the enforcement of international law in state and federal courts. Say what you will about Oklahomans, they certainly know how to pass a ballot initiative.  Last Fall, Oklahomans voted to make English the “common and unifying language” of the state, allow individuals to opt-out of the individual healthcare mandate and—not surprisingly—to make it easier for advocates to pass more ballot initiatives in the …

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Zach Luck Last week the blogs buzzed with the story of a mother hit with a 10-day jail sentence and a $30,000 fine for misstating where she lived (she used her father’s address) to get her daughters into a better school.  The mother, Kelley Williams-Bolar, is now unable to get an Ohio teaching license despite being only a few credit hours away from her degree due to this felony conviction. There are so many things wrong here its hard to know where to begin.  The heart-wrenching human drama of a …

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