Volume 43, Issue 1 (Fall 2024)

Tenant Union Law

Volume 43, Issue 1 (Fall 2024)

By Greg Baltz*

 Tenant unions organize rent strikes, compel landlords to collectively bargain, orchestrate mass eviction defense networks, and even take control of buildings. Although there is no overarching statutory or regulatory framework detailing the rights and obligations of tenant unions, there is a web of intersecting laws governing relationships among tenants, their unions, landlords, lenders, developers, and government. This Article identifies these laws as tenant union law and illustrates how tenant unions organize in the shadow of this law to build power.

This Article excavates the relevant legal architecture by analyzing ten modern tenant union campaigns from across the United States. The campaigns highlight where the absence of a single overarching framework governing tenant unions left the unions strategically flexible to respond to changing politico-economic conditions, like during the foreclosure crisis or the COVID-19 pandemic.

An Antimonopoly Approach to Governing Artificial Intelligence

Volume 43, Issue 1 (Fall 2024)

By Tejas N. Narechania & Ganesh Sitaraman*

 Since OpenAI released ChatGPT, debates over the regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) have intensified. But for all the interest in regulating AI, there has been little discussion of AI’s industrial organization and market structure. This is surprising because parts of the AI supply chain (i.e., the “layers” in the “AI technology stack”) are highly concentrated.

In this Article, we make the case for an antimonopoly approach to governing artificial intelligence. We show that AI’s industrial organization, which is rooted in AI’s technological structure, evinces market concentration at and across a number of layers. And we argue that an unregulated AI oligopoly has undesirable economic, national security, social, and political consequences.

Prosecutorial Discretion and the Crime of Abortion

Volume 43, Issue 1 (Fall 2024)

By Mridula S. Raman*

 In an election cycle in which Republicans soundly trounced Democrats, one of the few silver linings for liberals was that voters in numerous states enshrined abortion access in their state constitutions. However, even as voters protected or expanded abortion rights in some jurisdictions, there remain serious threats to abortion rights elsewhere: In some states, we may soon see prosecutors charge people who have abortions with murder, or even capital murder. While this is not a wholly new phenomenon—even pre-Dobbs, some prosecutors brought homicide charges against people who had abortions—those charges generally did not stick. Now, in this post-Dobbs and post-election landscape, there is a credible threat not only that prosecutors will bring serious charges for abortion, but also that they will be able to secure convictions and hefty sentences.

Intertemporal Collective-Action Problems in Graduate-Worker Organizing

Volume 43, Issue 1 (Fall 2024)

By Eamon Coburn*

This Note explores a recent paradox in graduate-worker union organizing. While graduate workers have displayed virtual unanimity in choosing to unionize in a string of recent victories, many of these workers will graduate or finish working before their unions can negotiate a first contract.

Conversely, some early-year students who stand to benefit the most from unionization as future bargaining unit members do not yet work and are consequently ineligible to vote. The Note identifies this “intertemporal collective-action problem” in graduate organizing, proposes a legal solution, and explores its broader implications for the labor movement.

In the (Court)Room Where It Happens: The Case for a More Expansive Standard for Intervention in the Federal Courts of Appeals

Volume 43, Issue 1 (Fall 2024)

By Jordan Thomas*

Although Rule 24 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure governs intervention in federal district courts, no corresponding rule governs intervention in the courts of appeals. As a law and policy matter, this procedural void is troubling; some of the nation’s highest profile, most politically contentious Supreme Court cases over the past four years involved motions to intervene at the circuit-court stage. Fortunately, recent meetings of the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure (FRAP) indicate that this body is in the initial stages of considering an FRAP amendment on this topic—a rulemaking process that usually takes two to three years.

“Overawed”: Worker Misclassification as a Potential Unfair Method of Competition

Volume 43, Issue 1 (Fall 2024)

By Alvaro M. Bedoya & Max M. Miller*

“A man operating a gas station is bound to be overawed by the great corporation that is his supplier, his banker, and his landlord.”[1]