She’s homeless and likes it that way – latimes.com

She’s homeless and likes it that way – latimes.com.

How Payday Lenders Prey Upon the Poor — and the Courts Don’t Help – NYTimes.com

How Payday Lenders Prey Upon the Poor — and the Courts Don’t Help – NYTimes.com.

Interesting Op-Ed: The Piketty Panic – NYTimes.com

Interesting Op-Ed: The Piketty Panic – NYTimes.com.  [Includes nice links and is convincing that Capital in the Twenty-First Century is well worth reading.]

New Article: “A Court for the One Percent: How the Supreme Court Contributes to Economic Inequality”

New Article: Michele E. Gilman, A Court for the One Percent: How the Supreme Court Contributes to Economic Inequality, Utah L. Rev. (forthcoming 2014).  Abstract below:

This Article explores the United States Supreme Court’s role in furthering economic inequality. The Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011 not only highlighted growing income and wealth inequality in the United States, but also pointed the blame at governmental policies that favor business interests and the wealthy due to their outsized influence on politicians. Numerous economists and political scientists agree with this thesis. However, in focusing ire on the political branches and big business, these critiques have largely overlooked the role of the judiciary in fostering economic inequality. The Court’s doctrine touches each of the major causes of economic inequality, which includes systemic failures of our educational system, a frayed social safety net, probusiness policies at the expense of consumers and employees, and the growing influence of money in politics. In each of these areas, the Court’s deference to legislative judgments is highly selective and driven by a class-blind view of the law that presumes that market-based results are natural, inevitable, and beneficial. For instance, the Court rejects government attempts to voluntarily desegregate schools, while deferring to laws that create unequal financing for poor school districts. The end result is that poor children receive subpar educations, dooming many of them to the bottom of the economic spectrum. Similarly, the Court overturned Congress’s attempt to rein in campaign financing, while upholding state voter identification laws that suppress the votes of the poor. These decisions distort the electoral process in favor of the wealthy. In short, the Court tends to defer to laws that create economic inequality, while striking down legislative attempts to level the playing field. While a popular conception of the Court is that it is designed to protect vulnerable minorities from majoritarian impulse, the Court, instead, is helping to protect a very powerful minority at the expense of the majority. This Article is one step toward understanding how law intertwines with politics and economics to create economic inequality.

From the Clinical Law Prof Blog: “But How Do I Teach…?: Poverty”

From the Clinical Law Prof Blog: Carrie Hagan, “But How Do I Teach…?: Poverty,” April. 22, 2014.

50 Years Into the War on Poverty, Hardship Hits Back – NYTimes.com

50 Years Into the War on Poverty, Hardship Hits Back – NYTimes.com.

New Article: “Reviving the Excessive Fines Clause”

New Article: Beth A. Colgan, Reviving the Excessive Fines Clause, 102 Calif. L. Rev. 277 (2014).  Abstract below:

Millions of American adults and children struggle with debt stemming from economic sanctions issued by the criminal and juvenile courts. For those unable to pay, the consequences — including incarceration, exclusion from public benefits, and persistent poverty — can be draconian and perpetual. The Supreme Court has nevertheless concluded that many of these concerns lie outside the scope of the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause. In interpreting the Clause, the Court relied upon a limited set of historical sources to restrict “fines” to sanctions that are punitive in nature and paid exclusively to the government, and to define “excessive” as referring to — either exclusively or primarily — the proportionality between the crime’s gravity and the amount of the fine.

This Article takes the Court at its word by assuming history is constitutionally relevant, but it challenges the Court’s limited use of history by providing the first detailed analysis of colonial and early American statutory and court records regarding fines. This robust historical analysis belies the Court’s use of history to announce historical “truths” to limit the scope of the Clause, by showing significant evidence that contradicts those limitations. The Article uses the historical record to identify questions regarding the Clause’s meaning, to assess the quality of the historical evidence suggesting an answer to such questions, and then to consider that evidence — according to its value — within a debate that incorporates contemporary understandings of just punishment. Under the resulting interpretation, the historical evidence articulated in this Article would support an understanding of a “fine” as a deprivation of anything of economic value in response to a public offense. “Excessive,” in turn, would be assessed through a broad understanding of proportionality that takes account of both offense and offender characteristics, as well as the effect of the fine on the individual. The proposed interpretation more faithfully reflects the history and its limitations, and broadens the Clause’s scope to provide greater individual protections.

Living Apart: How the Government Betrayed a Landmark Civil Rights Law – ProPublica

Living Apart: How the Government Betrayed a Landmark Civil Rights Law – ProPublica. [Includes a good graphic.]

News Article: The 1% wants to ban sleeping in cars – because it hurts their ‘quality of life’ | Gary Blasi | Comment is free | theguardian.com

The 1% wants to ban sleeping in cars – because it hurts their ‘quality of life’ | Gary Blasi | Comment is free | theguardian.com.  [Though it is published by the Guardian, the examples are from the U.S.]

Statement by Robert Greenstein, President, on Chairman Ryan’s Budget Plan — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Statement by Robert Greenstein, President, on Chairman Ryan’s Budget Plan — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

-A good student of mine sent this to me and it seems worth sharing.