State and Local Government Law

Catalog description

State governments have been called our “laboratories of democracy,” and local government entities are often the vanguard of developing policies to tackle some of our most urgent social ills: homelessness, racial and economic inequities, gun violence, and human rights. This course will introduce students to the foundational concepts in this area such as the sources of legal authority to act, relationship of local governments within our federal system of government, and conflicts between and among state and local governments, with a view towards how those principles impact practical policymaking to address those pressing issues. Special attention will be paid to the ways in which litigation affects how local governments act internally, and how litigation has been used as a means to guide public policy, both successfully and not.