Law

For Thursday, October 21: Schuck, ch. 10

Finding the law:

• Statutes: US Code or state law
• Other legislative documents
• Regulations
• Federal Register
• Code of Federal Regulations
• State law codes
• Other executive documents
• Presidential executive orders, 
• Signing statements
• Gubernatorial executive orders
• "Bill jackets" (New York)
• Court decisions
• US Supreme Court
• Lower federal courts
• State courts

Reasons for administrative regs:

• Statutory ambiguity as a legislative lubricant.
• Recognition of conditions that will change (e.g., the composition of pollutants)

The children of Bill:

The Reg Map 

(Stone:  "Who gains the right to participate in decisions?")

Complexity, Simplicity, and Accountability in Statutes and Regs

Attorney Sam Mazzeo explains the problem with "Plain English" law.

Another reason for complexity:  assuring vertical and horizontal equity.

Centralization, Decentralization, and Discretion

• Local knowledge v. broader view
• Experimentation v. standardization
• Local autonomy v. "grassroots tyranny"

Interia and Finality

Lincoln:

We oppose the Dred Scott decision in a certain way, upon which I ought perhaps to address you a few words. We do not propose that when Dred Scott has been decided to be a slave by the court, we, as a mob, will decide him to be free. We do not propose that, when any other one, or one thousand, shall be decided by that court to be slaves, we will in any violent way disturb the rights of property thus settled, but we nevertheless do oppose that decision as a political rule, which shall be binding on the voter to vote for nobody who thinks it wrong, which shall be binding on the members of Congress or the President to favor no measure that does not actually concur with the principles of that decision. We do not propose to be bound by it as a political rule in that way, because we think it lays the foundation not merely of enlarging and spreading out what we consider an evil, but it lays the foundation for spreading that evil into the States themselves. We propose so resisting it as to have it reversed if we can, and a new judicial rule established upon this subject.