Divorce Reform—One State’s Solution

Although New York has long been a leader in reform legislation, it has also had one of the most ineffective divorce laws in the nation. Therefore, it was not unrealistic to hope that when New York recently revised its divorce laws the new product would serve as a model for future reforms in other jurisdictions. While the new law as finally enacted is defective in several respects, its provisions reflect an attempt to accommodate the basic reform trends in current divorce law. This comment investigates briefly the evolution of governmental controls of divorce, the American tradition prior to the New York reform, and the implications of the procedures finally adopted by that state

Betting on State Equality: How the Expanded Equal Sovereignty Doctrine Applies to the Commerce Clause and Signals the Demise of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act

In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court revived the long-dormant equal sovereignty doctrine, which states that the federal government cannot enact legislation that renders states unequal in power, dignity, and authority. Although the doctrine historically applied only in the context of states entering the Union, in the 2013 case Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court broadened the doctrine’s scope, holding that the doctrine applied to all disparate treatment of states. As such, the revived equal sovereignty doctrine leaves federal statutes—such as the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (“PASPA”), which prohibits state-sanctioned casino sports gambling in all states except for Nevada—on uncertain constitutional grounds. Contrary to a recent Third Circuit holding, this Note argues that PASPA’s disparate treatment of states violates the equal sovereignty doctrine. Under an approach developed by this Note, which requires Congress to demonstrate that disparate treatment of states is sufficiently related to the problem that the statute seeks to address, this Note contends that PASPA violates the equal sovereignty doctrine because the exemption of Nevada is not reasonably related to the national problem of sports gambling, which PASPA seeks to address. Importantly, adopting this approach would harmonize the Supreme Court’s Commerce Clause jurisprudence with its recently expanded equal sovereignty doctrine analysis

Landscape of Ghosts, River of Dreams; A History of Big Bend National Park

National parks join the system for a variety of reasons: great natural beauty, the need to preserve wilderness in the face of development, historic resources that the nation needs to remember, and the like. For Texas’s first unit of the NPS system, Big Bend National Park, all of the above features applied. In addition, the distinctive ecology of a mountain, desert, and riverine landscape compelled NPS officials and local sponsors alike in the 1930s and 1940s to plead with private donors and elected representatives to make Big Bend in 1944 the 28th unit of the NPS organization (at the time its sixth-largest park in the nation)

Validation of empirical measures of welfare change: comment

In an excellent article from a recent issue of this journal, Sellar, Stoll and Chavas (1985) make a technical error which causes them to misstate their closed-ended estimates of willingness to pay. Truncation of the estimated cummulative distribution function must we made explicit in compution of willingness to pay.nonmarket valuation; contingent valuation; stated preferences; welfare evaluation; willingness to pay

The Impact of Oakland's Proposed City Minimum Wage Law: A Prospective Study

The Lift Up Oakland Coalition, an alliance of community, labor, small business, and faith organizations, has placed an initiative on the Oakland November 2014 ballot that would establish a minimum wage of $12.25 for businesses in the city starting March 1, 2015. This study examines the effects of a$12.25 minimum wage on Oakland workers and businesses. Drawing on a variety of government data sources, we estimate that more than a quarter of the Oakland workforce would benefit from the proposed policy, with the average worker earning an additional $2,700 a year. Our analysis of the existing economic research literature suggests that businesses will adjust to modest increases in operating costs through reduced employee turnover costs, improved work performance, and a small, one-time increase in restaurant prices

A Multiscale Investigation of Habitat Use and Within-river Distribution of Sympatric Sand Darter Species

The western sand darter Ammocrypta clara, and eastern sand darter Ammocrypta pellucida are sand-dwelling fishes of conservation concern. Past research has emphasized the importance of studying individual populations of conservation concern, while recent research has revealed the importance of incorporating landscape scale processes that structure habitat mosaics and local populations. We examined habitat use and distributions of western and eastern sand darters in the lower Elk River of West Virginia. At the sandbar habitat use scale, western sand darters were detected in sandbars with greater area, higher proportions of coarse grain sand and faster bottom current velocity, while the eastern sand darter used a wider range of sandbar habitats. The landscape scale analysis revealed that contributing drainage area was an important predictor for both species, while sinuosity, which presumably represents valley type also contributed to the western sand darter’s habitat suitability. Sandbar quality (area, grain size, and velocity) and fluvial geomorphic variables (drainage area and valley type) are likely key driving factors structuring sand darter distributions in the Elk River. This multiscale study of within-river species distribution and habitat use is unique, given that only a few sympatric populations are known of western and eastern sand darters