News
Massachusetts Regulates Short-Term Rentals
Massachusetts’s Governor Baker signed An Act Regulating and Insuring Short-Term Rentals on December 28, 2018. The act regulates short-term rentals provided through services like Airbnb. The governor rejected an earlier version of the bill, and returned amendments primarily allowing for an exemption for owners who rent out their property for two weeks or less per […]
I’m Bill, on Capitol Hill
April 25, 2018 at 5:57 am For those of you loyal readers of the BU Law Blog, you may have seen Brynn’s earlier post about the International Conference on Legislation and Law Reform in Washington, DC. I also had the chance to head down to our nation’s capital last week and participate in the […]
Brynn Felix on the International Conference on Legislation and Law Reform
April 22, 2018 at 5:46 pm Last week I had the privilege of once again attending the International Conference on Legislation and Law Reform, held at the Washington College of Law at American University. I had attended last year’s conference along with several other alumni from BU’s Legislative Policy & Drafting Clinic; you can read […]
Footloose in New York City–The Repeal of the Cabaret Act
The 1984 film, Footloose, imagines the small, midwestern town of Bomont, where dancing and rock’n roll music have been banned, only to be redeemed in the end by a teenager’s impassioned plea. Footloose’s plot may seem farfetched but a law with similar intent has gripped New York City since 1926 when the city passed the […]
Is There Such a Thing as Free College?
New York became the first state to make tuition free for two- and four-year colleges for certain students. Governor Andrew Cuomo first introduced his Excelsior Scholarship plan in January 2017, and signed it into law in April 2017. New York State’s Excelsior Scholarship will provide free tuition to students whose families earn less than $125,000 […]
With Obamacare in peril, the Governors Speak Out
Before the Affordable Care Act (ACA), I did not have health insurance. My home state Florida did not mandate health insurance coverage for residents and my undergraduate university did not require me to have health insurance. In essence, I was a typical American in my early 20s. I did not think I needed health insurance, […]
Up In Smoke (and Vapor): Hawai’i Raises Minimum Smoking Age and Regulates E-Cigarettes
On January 1, 2016, Hawai’i became the first state in the nation to increase smoking age restrictions to 21 years old. Under Act 122, Hawai’i prohibits the “sale, purchase, possession or consumption of cigarettes, other tobacco products, and electronic smoking devices (or e-cigarettes) to anyone under age 21.” Before Hawai’i, only municipalities such as New […]
New York Legislature (Re)Considers “Death with Dignity”
The New York legislature have become the latest lawmakers to consider whether terminally ill patients have a right to end their own lives with lethal medications prescribed by doctors. The bill, titled the New York End-of-Life Options Act, states that its goal is to make “aid in dying an open, legitimate option for terminally ill […]
Can Mandatory Liability Insurance Stem Police Brutality? By: Phil Schneider
The deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Freddie Grey in Baltimore has placed a spotlight on the problems of police brutality and misconduct. Responding to those deaths and other examples of police abuses, large scale protests, some of which have turned violent, and the Black Lives Matter movement have become prominent parts of […]
Privacy in the Tech Age: Delaware Law Protects Personal Identifying Information
On Jan 1, 2015, Delaware’s “Safe Destruction of Records Containing Personal Identifying Information” law (“§736”) went into effect. Under this law, a Delaware business that tries but fails to adequately destroy a record containing an employee’s personally identifying information (“PII”) could face liability. Any employee who suffers actual harm due to such a failure can […]