Curriculum Guide · Courses

Professor Super

J.D. Course 410 | 3 credit hours

Although numerous courses in law school discuss state law, few courses discuss in much detail the governmental organs that make and enforce that law. State constitutions often include separation of powers provisions and declarations of rights that will be familiar to students of the federal Constitution, but in other respects their functions and roles are quite different. State legislatures are by no means mini-Congresses, and local governments are anything but mini-states. States’ interactions with localities implicate some of the same issues as federal-state relations, but those issues often get resolved in very different ways. Both the aspirations and the fears shaping those relationships are fundamentally different for both institutional and historical reasons. Local government law confronts one vital problem largely absent from federal constitutional law: deciding which political, social, and economic communities merit official recognition. We will consider both geographic and functional fragmentation.

The course will address and seek to reconcile the multiple visions and functions of local government in the U.S. political system. These include roles as local representatives of state governments, as distinct political, social, and economic communities, and as devices for organizing economic activity. We also will examine the various constitutional and statutory arrangements designed to prevent state and local governments from trammeling on one another’s proper domains.

Students may not receive credit for both this course and Local Government Law Seminar.