LAW 6844

State and Local Government

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2016-2017.

State and local governments have long been regarded as "laboratories" for possible solutions to difficult social issues, and as political institutions that are closest to the people. In additional to traditional concerns, state and local governments in recent years have been the primary actors in contentious areas such as health care reform, gay marriage legalization, campaign finance reform, property rights protection, and other issues. This course will examine the powers of and legal restraints on state and local governments in state systems, and as a part of the American constitutional order. Topics will include state constitutions, the rights that they confer, and their methods of interpretation; local government boundary formation and boundary change; state and local service, police, and taxing powers; the emergence of supra-local (regional) government; and the place of state and local governments in the federal system (including commerce clause, privileges and immunities clause, and taxation issues). The final part of the course will consider several areas of recent and future litigation - such as the interstate validity of gay marriages and federal challenges to states' medical and health reforms - as a way to illustrate the difficult issues of conflicting sovereignty that this area of law presents.

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