Our August student guest blogger will be 2L James Wold. James is originally from Janesville, Wisconsin, and has worked for over a decade as a sports editor. He is interested in sports law, particularly international sports law. Many thanks to our previous guest, 2L Erik Eisenheim.
A substantial majority of people in the Chicago “megacity” – the region stretching from the Milwaukee area, across metropolitan Chicago, and into northwest Indiana – want to see their political leaders make a priority of action that benefits the region as a whole, and not just actions focused on the needs of their own area.
But what does that mean when you get into details? How does that translate into reality?
That main finding of broad support for regional cooperation and those two questions shaped a groundbreaking conference at Marquette Law School on Tuesday. “Public Attitudes in the Chicago Megacity: Who are we and what are the possibilities?” focused on the results of what is believed to be the first extensive poll of residents of the sections of Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana that are part of the “megacity.” The conference was sponsored by the Law School and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Describing the broad conclusions, Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll and the Law School’s professor of law and public policy, said, “What we see is a substantial majority, over 70% in Illinois and Indiana, and 61% in Wisconsin, who say they would rather see cooperation among the governors and the elected officials,” than for political leaders to focus only on their own states’ concerns.
This is week Two of the Summer Session in International and Comparative Law, taking place in Giessen, Germany. Pictured to the left are my students in the class on Comparative Law. They come from Mexico, Peru, Senegal, Brazil, Zimbabwe, Spain, Moldova, Vietnam, the Slovak Republic and, yes, even Wisconsin. Along with my co-teacher, Thilo Marauhn from Justus Liebig University here in Germany, we have been comparing the constitutional systems of the United States and Germany, and also contrasting the quasi-constitutional structure of the European Union. It may not look like it in the photo, but we are certainly having a great deal of fun.
Other classes this session include International Economic Law & Business Transactions, The Law of Armed Conflict, and International Intellectual Property Law. The faculty come from the United States, Germany, Lithuania, and Great Britain. The faculty are all experts in their fields and, judging from our dinner tonight, we all share an appreciation of German beer.