Civil Rights

Nearly a year ago in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization , the Supreme Court eliminated the federal constitutional limits on government interference with access to pre-viability abortion. It is hardly novel to note that “return[ing] the issue of abortion” to the states has hurt pregnant people nationwide—for many of whom, particularly the most marginalized, abortion access was already nearly impossible. Immediately after the Dobbs opinion leaked, all eyes were on th

Rural areas to get $759M in grants for high-speed internet (msn.com) Cities Weigh Value of AI-Powered Gunshot Detection Tech - Bloomberg In California Cities, a New Frontier for Public Financing of Elections | Bolts (boltsmag.org) Private Companies Helped Ruin Jackson’s Water (levernews.com) Black Families Fall Further Behind on Homeownership | The Pew Charitable Trusts (pewtrusts.org) Plus a bonus story: Secretaries of state warn 'independent state legislature theory' would

On September 29, SALPAL hosted a conversation on the Independent State Legislature Theory, which will be considered by the US Supreme Court this term, in the case of Moore v. Harper. Oral argument of the case on North Carolina redistricting will be heard December 7. Professor Richard Pildes, Sudler Family of Law at NYU School of Law provides a preview, commenting on the conversation that featured Carolyn Shapiro, author of an upcoming article on the Independent State Legislat

Murphy Says NYC Congestion Pricing Can’t Burden NJ Taxpayers - Bloomberg California Law to Cut Public Meeting Disruptions - Bloomberg Federal Monitor Investigating How Arsenic Got Into NYCHA’s Water - THE CITY 'It's a disgrace': West Baltimore residents demand action on contaminated water - CBS Baltimore (cbsnews.com) Teddy Bears and Racial Justice: How St. Louis Became a Laboratory for Social Work - The New York Times (nytimes.com) Michigan’s high court puts abortion quest

Durham’s unarmed first responders are making an impact, data shows :: WRAL.com Conservatives’ Federal Case Challenges Immigrant Voting — Using Ex-Council Members’ Own Words - THE CITY NYC's Rise of Low-Level Arrests Worry Critics of 'Broken Windows' Era - Bloomberg New 'Stability' Housing Vouchers for Homeless, At-Risk Families - Bloomberg Lakewood NJ cut down Town Square trees to deter homeless (app.com) Jackson water crisis deepens as state deploys National Guard (msn.

Gavin Newsom signs California gun bill modeled after Texas abortion law - CNNPolitics Nearly half of Oregon’s inmate population included in first class action suit of its kind – Oregon Capital Chronicle Code Snitching: Nashvillians Are Weaponizing Metro Codes Against ‘Undesirable’ Neighbors | Cover Story | nashvillescene.com Ceremony marks official return of Bruce's Beach - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com) A College Town Takes On Exclusionary Zoning - Bloomberg Over 2.5 m

As NYC Slashes School Budgets, Art Teachers Are Feeling the Squeeze (hyperallergic.com) Uvalde Schools’ Police Chief, Criticized Over Mass Shooting Response, Quits City Council - WSJ Is your dishwasher repairman packing heat? The case for ‘no carry’ gun defaults on private property | The Hill New York Moves to Enshrine Abortion Rights in State Constitution - The New York Times (nytimes.com) St. Paul's new basic income project: $12K cash plus college funds (twincities.com)

American influence has a new address on State Street - POLITICO Ellison says MN to protect out-of-state abortions if Roe falls (twincities.com) Justices seem poised to hear elections case pressed by GOP | AP News What a New Chesapeake Bay Bridge Could Really Cost - Bloomberg Supreme Court Gun Ruling 'Frightful In Its Scope': Hochul | Yorktown, NY Patch A Digital Map to Net Zero, Via Upstate New York - Bloomberg North Dakota’s Small Schools Fight for Survival (governing.com)

SRO Housing, Nearly Zoned Out of Existence, Could Re-Emerge (governing.com) As the Great Salt Lake Dries Up, Utah Faces An ‘Environmental Nuclear Bomb’ - The New York Times (nytimes.com) Study: Denver's STAR program reduced crime, costs | FOX31 Denver (kdvr.com) Historic California report on systemic racism in law and policy hailed by slave reparations advocates | PBS NewsHour Is New York City More Dangerous Than Rural America? - Bloomberg And a bonus story from blog fou

Illinois Law Bans Schools From Fining Children With Tickets. So the Police Are Doing It for Them. Why Don’t We Just Build New Cities? Disney’s special tax district suggests its repeal is illegal Georgia governor sign bills on banning books, transgender sports, and race Federal Appeals Court Rules Local Governments Can sue Oil Companies Over Climate Change

Diverging Paths to Challenging Gerrymanders: Past Results and Possible Outcomes Ohio and New Jersey are far from the only states to have their maps challenged in partisan gerrymanders. In this second installment, I examine other ongoing cases. While two are based on specific prohibitions against partisan gerrymandering, the others are based on state constitutional provisions relating to elections or suffrage. Others still are based on even broader provisions, like equal prot

This week's Swan's Picks spans a range of topics and a number of regions, highlighting interesting and important stories in state and local news. “A Battle Over Building Codes May Be the Most Important Climate Fight You’ve Never Heard Of” High School Students in Florida Walk Out in Protest of the Don’t Say Gay law A School Segregation Lawsuit in New Jersey Returns to Court “What Happened When Oakland Tried to Make Police Pay for Misconduct” A new book about Kiryas Joel The

We're delighted that SLoGLaw partnered with Georgetown's Project on State and Local Government Policy and Law (SALPAL) for a panel featuring three of our Founding Editors--Sheila Foster, David Schleicher and moderator Meryl Chertoff-- together with blog contributor llya Somin and Dean Rose Cuison-Villazor. The January 27 event is particularly resonant this week. Meryl reports. Policy choices that impact mobility will have profound implications for our politics on the local,

“Red states are remaking the civil liberties landscape” Like here, where Texas targets trans kids …and Texas has important District Attorney elections coming up A Tennessee County spends its American Rescue Plan Act relief funds on jails And also in Tennessee, gerrymandering rips Nashville apart “Black City. White Paper.” The Philadelphia Inquirer takes a hard look at itself and how its “coverage has helped maintain discriminatory status quos within the city’s other ins

A few weeks ago Mason, Ohio voted to make itself a new kind of “sanctuary city” by banning abortions and threatening to punish anyone who aids or abets an abortion within the city limits. Mason is not alone—it is part of a growing movement of local governments passing ordinances declaring themselves “sanctuaries for the unborn.” On their face, these ordinances seem almost silly. Towns like Mason or Lubbock, Texas clearly don’t have the legal authority or capacity to co

Montgomery, Alabama, seat of state government, site of the famous Bus Boycott that helped launch the Civil Rights Movement, and home to civil rights warriors like Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and Ralph Abernathy, is in the midst of another struggle, this time over the name of a street. For over half a century , the west side of Montgomery sported the incongruous intersection of Jeff Davis Avenue and Rosa L. Parks Avenue. One street named for the Confederate Presiden

ProPublica recently published a heartbreaking, maddening, and deeply upsetting story about a local juvenile court and justice system in Rutherford County, Tennessee. Make the time to read the article, if you can. I won't attempt to summarize it in detail, but the gist is that a local juvenile court judge, working with police and other local officials, unlawfully abused and jailed children over the course of decades, seemingly in violation of state and federal law, and basic

On November 2, residents of Minneapolis will vote on Question 2 – a proposition to amend the city charter to transform the Police Department into a Department of Public Safety that employs a “comprehensive public health approach to the delivery of functions” related to public safety. While the proposition defers specifics of implementation to subsequent negotiations between the mayor and the city council, the Question contains two explicit changes from the status quo. First,

Bob Hagemann is a partner at Poyner Spruill LLC in Raleigh, NC and served in the Charlotte City Attorney's Office for twenty-four years, the last seven as City Attorney. This post is based on his presentation for the 2021 North Carolina Law Review Symposium "Home Rule in the 21st Century" In 2016, the Charlotte City Council considered joining most other major cities in this country in prohibiting discrimination in places of public accommodation based on sexual orientation, ge

At the end of the legislative session in Florida this past spring, Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law the now infamous HB1 bill. HB1,...