Constitutional Law – Page 30 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Data on the Foreign Travel of Wisconsin’s Federal Legislators

Post author:Ryan Scoville
Post published:November 12, 2013
Post category:Constitutional Law International Law & Diplomacy Public

It’s common to hear of federal legislators traveling abroad on official business to meet with foreign leaders. Because this practice has a variety of significant implications for the execution of U.S. foreign relations, I decided to look into the extent to which Wisconsin’s representatives and senators have been involved over the last five years. My sources were WikiLeaks cables and public reports on publicly and privately financed foreign travel. While it’s not always easy to identify the purpose of any given trip, detailed accounts are often contained in State Department cables, which you can access by performing keyword searches on WikiLeaks’s website. My findings are below. As you’ll notice, Wisconsin’s legislators traveled abroad, if at all, only in 2009–not a single representative or senator reported foreign travel on public funds from 2010-present. I wasn’t able to obtain information on privately-funded travel for the last four years, so it’s possible that some travel still occurred during the period, but the drop-off in publicly-funded travel is striking. And a little bizarre. Perhaps it’s pure coincidence. Or maybe it’s a response to fiscal austerity? I don’t know.

Lewd and Lascivious Behavior Laws: A Milwaukee Story

Post author:Irene Ten Cate
Post published:November 11, 2013
Post category:Civil Rights Constitutional Law Criminal Law & Process Milwaukee Public Wisconsin Criminal Law & Process Wisconsin Law & Legal System

The Accused

Lee Erickson’s bio attests to his national prominence. Among other things, he served on the Choral Panel of the National Endowment of the Arts and as dean of the American Guild of Organists. But in Milwaukee, he is best known as the conductor of the chorus of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (MSO). Erickson was appointed associate director of the MSO Chorus in 1978, and he has served as the chorus’s director since 1994. By all accounts, the group has flourished under his leadership. The MSO website quotes music director Edo de Waart as saying: “The MSO has the good fortune of having a first-class volunteer chorus. With a chorus of this caliber, the options for performing great works in the repertoire are immense.” Frequent guest conductor Nicholas McGegan has called the chorus “a real gem,” and Tom Strini of the ThirdCoast Digest referred to it as “the jewel in Milwaukee’s cultural crown.”

If you type Erickson’s name into the Google search box, however, these achievements aren’t among the first results that appear on your screen.

US Treasury and IRS Recognize Same-Sex Marriages for Federal Tax Purposes

Post author:Ryan Gehrke
Post published:August 30, 2013
Post category:Constitutional Law Public Tax Law

accounting-calculator Yesterday the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced that legally married same-sex couples will be recognized and treated as married for all federal tax purposes. As long as the couple is legally married it does not matter if they live in a jurisdiction that does not recognize same-sex marriages. The announcement comes just months after the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Windsor, which held that a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) violated principles of equal protection under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The ruling gives married same-sex couples the freedom to move throughout the United States without having to worry about federal tax implications. However, the ruling does not apply to couples in domestic partnerships or civil unions.

Yesterday’s “ruling applies to all federal tax provisions where marriage is a factor, including filing status, claiming personal and dependency exemptions, taking the standard deduction, employee benefits, contributing to an IRA, and claiming the earned income tax credit or child tax credit.” IR-2013-72. The ruling is to be applied retroactively so married same-sex couples have the opportunity to file or amend federal tax returns for the 2010, 2011, and 2012 tax years. Before amending returns, couples will want to determine if their combined income will subject them to the “marriage penalty” which could place them in a higher tax rate bracket.