{"title":"Suing Texas State Senate Bill 8 Plaintiffs under Federal Law for Violations of Constitutional Rights","authors":"Anthony J. Colangelo","doi":"10.25172/slrf.74.1.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.25172/slrf.74.1.7","url":null,"abstract":"Many people are deriding (or celebrating) the exceptional—and exceptionally deceptive—device of the Texas legislature to so-called “deputize” private individuals as government enforcement agents to carry out a state anti-abortion law that, at present, violates the U.S. Constitution. The law at issue, commonly referred to as Senate Bill 8, is extraordinarily broad, and provides that anyone can sue anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy (including, if read literally, the Uber driver who drove the woman to the clinic). The law awards recovery of no less than $10,000 and makes no exceptions for pregnancies resulting from incest or rape. Actually, the deceptive nature of the law can be subdivided into three devices. I’ll address each in turn with the principal aim of suing someone under federal law for bringing suit under the Texas state law. In this respect, I’ll be going quite a bit further than those who seek simply to spotlight the unconstitutionality of the Texas law. Rather, I’m going after the plaintiff who sues under it.","PeriodicalId":114156,"journal":{"name":"Political Institutions: Federalism & Sub-National Politics eJournal","volume":"93 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121228826","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Shifting Gears: Moving Colorado Away from Criminalizing Vehicle Residency and Towards Safe Parking","authors":"Nantiya Ruan, E. Zwiebel","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3917003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3917003","url":null,"abstract":"Colorado is in the midst of a housing crisis, which has resulted in thousands of people experiencing homelessness. In 2020, the Point in Time survey recorded 9,846 individuals experiencing homelessness in Colorado. Of these individuals, 2,913 – nearly 30% – were unsheltered. Further, given the impending end of COVID-19 protections, such as the federal and state residential eviction moratoria and extended unemployment benefits, the number of those experiencing homelessness in Colorado is likely to rise in 2021 and 2022. Evictions from December 2020 to January 2021 were already on the rise, from 925 filings to 2,011 filings —a 218% increase.In response to the crisis, vehicles have become an affordable housing option for many. However, cities in Colorado have historically struggled to create sustainable solutions to aid those who are experiencing homelessness and living in their vehicles. Whether through misguided efforts to help, or pressure from housed communities and community members, cities too often have adopted new laws and regulations within their municipal codes that criminalize, rather than assist, these populations. This report focuses specifically on municipal ordinances that criminalize vehicle residency. This report undertakes a comprehensive review of the municipal codes in twenty cities selected based on their population and location: Arvada, Aurora, Boulder, Breckenridge, Broomfield, Colorado Springs, Craig, Denver, Durango, Fort Collins, Glenwood Springs, Golden, Grand Junction, Greeley, Lakewood, La Junta, Littleton, Longmont, Pueblo, and Thornton. These cities’ municipal codes were surveyed for key words relevant to vehicle residency and identified ordinances that were separated into five categories: (1) ordinances that prohibit the parking of large vehicles;(2) ordinances the prohibit inoperable, junk, or abandoned vehicles;(3) ordinances that prohibit parking for longer than 72 hours;(4) ordinances that outright prohibit sleeping or living in cars;and (5) regulations found in local zoning codes. Laws that prohibit parking large vehicles on public streets prevent individuals from living in an RV when they lose other forms of housing, which criminalizes vehicle residency. Laws that prohibit and impound junk, inoperable, and abandoned vehicles disallow individuals to create a home from a car that may not currently be operable, which criminalizes vehicle residency. Laws that prohibit parking on public streets for more than 24 to 72 hours force individuals to move locations frequently, which criminalizes vehicle residency. Laws that prohibit sleeping or living in vehicles prevent individuals from legally sleeping or living in their car, which directly criminalizes vehicle residency. Further, zoning codes frequently contain provisions that prohibit land uses not specifically permitted in a particular zone district, which, as may be interpreted, criminalize vehicle residency. This report analyzes identified ordinances from across the ","PeriodicalId":114156,"journal":{"name":"Political Institutions: Federalism & Sub-National Politics eJournal","volume":"44 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115086508","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Youth Homelesness in Philadelphia","authors":"S. Derkach, Sage Robinson, Sagarika Srivastava, L. Thiriveedi, Asmita Malakar, Priyanshi Joshi, Keerthana Kompella, Emily Piao, Anchal Bhardwaj, Eugene Waweru, Aditya Charegaonkar, Chubarenla Longkumer","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3919358","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3919358","url":null,"abstract":"Philadelphia is facing a rise in youth homelessness, with contributing factors including family conflict, abuse, and economic hardship. Though homelessness within Philadelphia, and all of the US, had dramatically improved after the 2008 recession, the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has turned the previous progress into another rise in homelessness, with a significant increase in unemployment and financial struggles for individuals. Youth homelessness also raises a public health concern for the young people as they are not safe, especially during the pandemic. Ultimately, the unaccompanied youth face such influential factors making it nearly impossible for them to overcome homelessness on their own. Knowing the prevalence of homelessness within the US, and more specifically within Philadelphia, it is important to understand the danger of rising homelessness, especially in youth. This study aims to find the leading factors contributing to the rise in youth homelessness in Philadelphia and ultimately how it is impacting the younger generations. By contacting school district boards, we will be able to gather data on the population of youth homelessness, use R to analyze the data we gather and use Tableau as a tool for data visualization, creating graphs and models to display our data. For our analyses, we will use ANOVA tests, to measure for the p-value, and descriptive models and frequency tables in order to break down and display the data. We intend for our results to find true data on youth homelessness within the area and point to leading factors that could have led to the living situation.","PeriodicalId":114156,"journal":{"name":"Political Institutions: Federalism & Sub-National Politics eJournal","volume":"37 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130913985","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Goldilocks Government","authors":"Jon D. Michaels, E. Tyler","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3894046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3894046","url":null,"abstract":"Those committed to addressing the political and moral crises of the day—voting rights, racial justice, climate change, economic inequality, and the lingering effects of the Covid pandemic—don’t know where to turn. Federal legislative and regulatory pathways are choked off by senators quick to filibuster and by judges eager to strike down agency rules and orders. State pathways, in turn, are compromised by limited capacity, collective action problems, externalities, and scant economies of scale.This Article prescribes a third pathway: interstate agreements and compacts. Such arrangements—largely unnecessary when Washington is not pathologically dysfunctional—have a long and venerable constitutional pedigree and provide a legally sound and politically expedient “just-right” solution. Grouping clusters of states along the Pacific Coast Highway, the Amtrak Corridor, and the Rust Belt, we proffer four major compacts as cornerstones of a Blue New Deal. Beyond detailing these four strategic interventions, this Article makes the affirmative, normative case for interstate agreements and compacts playing a regular and prominent role in twenty-first century American governance—a case that sounds in democratic theory, administrative law, and political economy.","PeriodicalId":114156,"journal":{"name":"Political Institutions: Federalism & Sub-National Politics eJournal","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130324679","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jonas Heese, Gerardo Perez Cavazos, Caspar David Peter
{"title":"When the Local Newspaper Leaves Town: The Effects of Local Newspaper Closures on Corporate Misconduct","authors":"Jonas Heese, Gerardo Perez Cavazos, Caspar David Peter","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3889039","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3889039","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract We examine whether the local press is an effective monitor of corporate misconduct. Specifically, we study the effects of local newspaper closures on violations by local facilities of publicly listed firms. After a local newspaper closure, local facilities increase violations by 1.1% and penalties by 15.2%, indicating that the closures reduce firm monitoring by the press. This effect is not driven by the underlying economic conditions, the underlying local fraud environment, or the underlying firm conditions. Taken together, our findings indicate that local newspapers are an important monitor of firms’ misconduct.","PeriodicalId":114156,"journal":{"name":"Political Institutions: Federalism & Sub-National Politics eJournal","volume":"87 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133606449","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Effect of an Income Shock on Subnational Debt: Micro Evidence from Mexico","authors":"Mariela Dal Borgo","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3855846","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3855846","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines how the borrowing decisions of local governments, often financially constrained, respond to a shock that affects the distribution of revenue from the central government. The shock stems from the discrete updating of population census data that is plausibly uncorrelated with short-term financing needs. For a one-standard-deviation increase in the population shock, I find that federal transfers to Mexican municipalities increase by 2% over the first two post-census years. Using supervisory loan-level data, I show that the probability of municipalities being indebted declines by 0.1 percentage points over the same period. The response is driven by governments with relatively more ownsource revenue, less dependent on transfers, which lenders perceive as more creditworthy. These findings reveal a small capacity to smooth shocks in credit markets, restricted to few governments with a diversified revenue base. In general, there is no evidence of a positive effect of grants on local debt, not even when the lender is a public bank. The additional revenue mostly goes to finance short-term, current expenditures, with limited potential to alter the path of local development.","PeriodicalId":114156,"journal":{"name":"Political Institutions: Federalism & Sub-National Politics eJournal","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128567446","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Impacts of Centralization on the Performance of Local Governance in Afghanistan; A Survey in Nangarhar Province","authors":"A. Momand","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3895589","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3895589","url":null,"abstract":"During the 18th century, Ahmad Shah Durrani has governed Afghanistan based on the devolution of some powers to the local religious people for the implementation of his kingship orders in the local area. From 1919 till the adoption of the 2004 constitution and the Hamid Karzai’s administration the authority of decision making is exercised by the central government in accordance to the provision of law, the provisions of law is not clearly enumerating the delegation and devolution of power but in practice there are lots of the affairs which taking place from the bottom at administration to the top level in the central government. This study is conducted to identify the Impacts of Centralization on Local Governance in Afghanistan, study of the structure of government and its impacts keep me more interested to find out about centralization and local administration and its challenges in the Afghanistan’s current political, economic, social and security situations. The research will also explore the legal framework of authority and its delegation in the constitutional context. This research survey determines the nature, magnitude, and sensitivity of centralization and decentralization, addressing the Social, Political, Economic and Cultural issues in Afghanistan which are identified in the assessment of research findings, and recommend measures for the development of Delegation, Devolution and Deconcentration of authority to local units.","PeriodicalId":114156,"journal":{"name":"Political Institutions: Federalism & Sub-National Politics eJournal","volume":"173 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121325220","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cross-Border Spillover Effects of State Increases in Minimum Wages","authors":"Chen Huang","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3888842","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3888842","url":null,"abstract":"Many studies that estimate employment effects of state increases in minimum wages do so by comparing employment developments between states where minimum wages increased and states where minimum wages did not change. Simple economic theories, however, indicate that employment developments in the latter “control” states might be “contaminated” by spillovers from neighboring “treatment” states. This is of particular interest in specifications that otherwise lead to estimates of substantial disemployment effects. In such cases, it is important to consider whether the results might be an artifact of spillover bias. This paper studies the spillover issue with county-level restaurant employment data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages between 1990 and 2014. I find that the spillover effects are modest, and that accounting for them has little impact on estimated disemployment effects. While many other methodological issues remain to be resolved in the minimum wage literature, bias from spillover effects need not be one of them.","PeriodicalId":114156,"journal":{"name":"Political Institutions: Federalism & Sub-National Politics eJournal","volume":"90 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126422530","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Dhaval M. Dave, Andrew Friedson, K. Matsuzawa, Drew McNichols, Joseph J. Sabia
{"title":"Are the Effects of Adoption and Termination of Shelter-in-Place Orders Symmetric? Evidence from a Natural Experiment","authors":"Dhaval M. Dave, Andrew Friedson, K. Matsuzawa, Drew McNichols, Joseph J. Sabia","doi":"10.3386/w27322","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3386/w27322","url":null,"abstract":"Policymakers have explicitly linked sustained reductions in COVID-19 case growth to reopening policies, including the lifting of shelter-in-place orders (SIPOs). This “hardwired” policy endogeneity creates challenges in isolating the causal effect of lifting a statewide SIPO on COVID-19. To overcome simultaneity bias, we exploit a unique natural experiment generated by the Wisconsin Supreme Court when it abolished Wisconsin’s “Safer at Home” order on separation-of-powers grounds. We capitalize on this sudden, dramatic, and largely unanticipated termination of a statewide SIPO to estimate its effect on social distancing and COVID-19 case growth. First, using anonymized smartphone data from SafeGraph Inc. and a synthetic control design, we find that SIPO termination had little impact on social distancing. Then, using data on COVID-19 case and mortality rates, we find no evidence that the Wisconsin Supreme Court decision impacted COVID-19 growth up to a month following the repeal. We conclude that the impacts of SIPOs are likely not symmetric across enactment and lifting of orders, and this asymmetry sheds new light on the potential mechanisms underlying the effectiveness of these orders.","PeriodicalId":114156,"journal":{"name":"Political Institutions: Federalism & Sub-National Politics eJournal","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114515048","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Does Fiscal Monitoring Make Better Governments? Evidence from US Municipalities","authors":"Anya Nakhmurina","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3293340","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3293340","url":null,"abstract":"I study the effect of state fiscal monitoring on municipal governance. I focus on governance outcomes related to financial reporting quality, local corruption, political entrenchment, and the financial soundness of municipalities. I exploit the staggered adoption of fiscal monitoring policies, which entail a regular review of municipal financial reporting for signs of fiscal distress. I find that the introduction of monitoring policies is associated with an increase in proxies for reporting quality, a decrease in corruption convictions, and a reduced likelihood of reelection of incumbent politicians. Consistent with the intended purpose of state monitoring, I find evidence consistent with the financial health of municipalities improving following the initiation of state monitoring, as measured with financial statement-based ratios. Collectively, my results are consistent with state fiscal monitoring improving several important aspects of municipal governance.","PeriodicalId":114156,"journal":{"name":"Political Institutions: Federalism & Sub-National Politics eJournal","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116449526","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}