
Zachary Price
- Jan 27
- 5 min
The Fifty States' Varied Laws on Prosecutorial Nonenforcement
Prosecutorial discretion has become a political battleground in state and local government. Among other initiatives, reform prosecutors...

Meryl Chertoff
- Jan 26
- 6 min
SCOTUS Decision in OSHA Case: Without Incremental Agency Strategy, Bad Law and Worse Opinions
Some of the Justices at SCOTUS have been reading author (and Sixth Circuit Chief Judge) Jeffrey Sutton. The Court’s per curiam decision...

Clay Gillette
- Jan 19
- 4 min
In "Foxconned" A Cautionary Tale of Economic Development Incentives
In some academic circles, the phrase “local economic development incentives” has become an oxymoron along the lines of “military music”...

David J. Toscano
- Jan 13
- 5 min
The Legislatures Strike Back: The Pandemic and Balances of Power
We are delighted to share this post from a former Virginia legislative leader, David J. Toscano. This is the latest in our Field...

Vanessa Casado Pérez
- Jan 12
- 4 min
Ignored Sidewalk Policy
The pandemic lockdowns shed light on the state and relevance of our sidewalks. When we could go nowhere, we could walk, exercise, play,...

Meryl Chertoff
- Jan 6
- 5 min
Harrisburg COVID-19 Response Is No Model
Omicron notwithstanding, rising COVID-19 vaccination rates in the US means that an end at least to the acute phase of the pandemic may...

Paul Diller
- Jan 4
- 4 min
Taking a Jab at the Legal Issues for Vaccine Passports
Following a practice that originated in Israel and Denmark before spreading more widely through Europe, several big “blue” cities in the...

Slog Law Blog
- Dec 23, 2021
- 1 min
Relax
SLoGLaw Blog, and its human capital, will take a brief hiatus, now to January 4. We'll let half the country nurse mild COVID-19 omicron...

Laura Napoli Coordes
- Dec 20, 2021
- 4 min
What’s So Special About Special Districts?
Recently, I’ve become fascinated by special districts, independent government units created for a specific, limited purpose. These...

Ilya Somin
- Dec 13, 2021
- 4 min
Texas State Court Rules SB 8 Enforcement Mechanism is Unconstitutional
The ruling is mostly based on the Texas state constitution and probably will not affect the federal case challenging SB 8, currently...

Daniel Farbman
- Dec 9, 2021
- 5 min
Sanctuary, Abolitionism, and the Role of Local Governments in Resistance Movements
A few weeks ago Mason, Ohio voted to make itself a new kind of “sanctuary city” by banning abortions and threatening to punish anyone...
davidschleicher
- Dec 7, 2021
- 8 min
"Only the Rich Can Play" and Place-Based Policies
Cross Posted at the Niskanen Center This book review is about people v. place-based policies at the federal level (and Congress) but,...

Meryl Chertoff
- Dec 6, 2021
- 5 min
Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Case in CA Highlights Industry Role in Escalating Punitive Preemption
We’ve lifted up the work of SLoGLaw Blog contributors Rich Briffault and Erin Scharff on punitive pre-emption in earlier posts of this...

Darrell A.H. Miller
- Dec 3, 2021
- 3 min
Montgomery Facing Litigation for Renaming Street after Civil Rights Leader
Montgomery, Alabama, seat of state government, site of the famous Bus Boycott that helped launch the Civil Rights Movement, and home to...

Christopher S. Elmendorf & Tim Duncheon
- Dec 2, 2021
- 11 min
Calibrating Environmental Review to the Scope of Municipal Discretion Under the HAA
This is the last in a four part series. SLoGLaw thanks Chris Elmendorf and Tim Duncheon for this timely treatment of the important issue...
Christopher S. Elmendorf & Tim Duncheon
- Dec 1, 2021
- 16 min
Does the HAA (or anything else) Provide a Remedy CEQA-Laundered Project Denials?
Here is Part 3 or this four-part series: The HAA prevents cities from denying or reducing the density of housing projects, but it doesn’t...

Christopher S. Elmendorf & Tim Duncheon
- Nov 30, 2021
- 9 min
How CEQA and the HAA Became “Super”
In yesterday’s post, we asserted that the recent denial of a downtown housing project in San Francisco portends a generational clash of...

Christopher S. Elmendorf & Tim Duncheon
- Nov 29, 2021
- 5 min
A Seismic Shift in Land Use Law?
Late last month, observers erupted in fury when San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors voted down a proposal to build nearly 500 new homes...

Roderick M. Hills
- Nov 24, 2021
- 5 min
Canonizing Local Governments
This last July, the Michigan Supreme Court dusted off an obscure canon of statutory construction to resolve a high-profile case involving...

Sarah Fox
- Nov 22, 2021
- 4 min
What Does it Take for a City to Decarbonize its Buildings?
Ithaca, New York made headlines recently with its announcement that it would fully decarbonize its buildings. The city’s Energy...

Justin Weinstein-Tull
- Nov 10, 2021
- 3 min
Looking for Local Courts
ProPublica recently published a heartbreaking, maddening, and deeply upsetting story about a local juvenile court and justice system in...

Jonathan L. Marshfield and Anthony Schutz
- Nov 10, 2021
- 4 min
Upcoming Symposium on Direct Democracy and State Constitutionalism, Featuring Judge Jeff Sutton
James Madison is famous for many things, but chief among them was his distaste of direct democracy. Madison believed that popular...

Ran Hirschl
- Nov 9, 2021
- 7 min
Hirschl Symposium: Author Reply on Urban Agglomeration and Constitutionalism As Global Imperative
I thank the editors of SLoG Law Blog and of course my interlocutors for their spirited engagement with the arguments put forth in my...

Kristin R. Good
- Nov 5, 2021
- 5 min
Hirschl Symposium: Municipalities & Subnational Constitutions: What Creature of the Provinces Means
Ran Hirschl’s City, State identifies a silence among constitutional law experts in Western countries with respect to the implications of...