D'Angelo Law Library Blog

Oct. 30 Obama Rally Parking Restrictions

If you haven't heard, President Barack Obama is scheduled to appear at a political rally on the Midway Plaisance (basically right in front of the Law School) tomorrow, Saturday, October 30.  As a result, parking near the D'Angelo Law Library will be restricted.  On Saturday, the city of Chicago plans to close all of the streets in an area extending from 58th Street in the north to 61th Street in the south, and from Cottage Grove Avenue in the west to Stony Island Avenue in the east. There will be no parking in the affected areas starting at 6 a.m. Saturday, and all traffic will be banned starting at noon. The restrictions are in effect until midnight Saturday.

Members of the University community and visitors to the Library should plan on using alternate parking and transportation arrangements on Saturday. Numerous area bus routes will be re-routed in the neighborhood as a result of the closures. For updates, please visit the University’s Transportation and Parking site, or follow transportation and parking updates on Twitter. Setup preparations for the event may also cause parking changes in advance of Saturday; car owners should check city alerts and signage on affected streets as the event approaches. Please be aware that as with any presidential event, extraordinarily high security will be in effect at the Midway rally, which is scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday. Residents and community members should be prepared to cooperate with added law enforcement precautions and requests.

First 100 Days: Agency Reports

As Obama's selection of Cass Sunstein as "regulation czar" indicates, this administration understands the importance of administrative law. Accordingly, the White House blog has a nice round up of Federal agency reports on each of their first 100 days.

March Madness and the Law

The NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament officially began last night with Morehead State's victory over Alabama State in the play-in game, but March Madness does not really start until Thursday, around noon on the east coast, for that is when the first round kicks off in earnest and all tournament brackets must be turned in.  Since he is quite busy, President Obama has already filled out his bracket, which is pictured above and may be viewed on the White House Blog. As far as I know, this will not be included in the Compilation of Presidential Documents.

The phrase "March Madness" was the subject of a case before the Seventh Circuit, Illinois High Sch. Ass'n v. GTE Vantage, 99 F.3d 244 (7th Cir. 1996), which dealt with the trademarking of the phrase. The opinion, written by Chief Justice Richard Posner, has been cited in approximately fifty law review articles, with only a handful being student comments with clever titles (see, e.g., Daniel D. Domenico, Mark Madness: How Brent Musburger and the Miracle Bra May Have Led to a More Equitable and Efficient Understanding of the Reverse Confusion Doctrine in Trademark Law, 86 Va. L. Rev. 597 (2000)).

NEW Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents

With the new presidential administration comes a new online source of official documents released by the White House press secretary.  The new Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents will provide online access to presidential documents. Both the new Daily Compilation, and its predecessor the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, are available at www.presidentialdocuments.gov. President Obama's Inaugural Address also is available at this site.

President Obama overturns Bush order on Presidential records

In one of his first actions as President, Mr. Obama has overturned an Exeuctive Order issued by Mr. Bush in 2001 that expanded the power of current and former Presidents and their heirs to restrict access to their official records. The White House press release states:

"This order ends the practice of having others besides the President assert executive privilege for records after an administration ends. Now, only the President will have that power, limiting its potential for abuse. And the order also requires the Attorney General and the White House Counsel to review claims of executive privilege about covered records to make sure those claims are fully warranted by the Constitution.”

The text of Mr. Obama's order can be found here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ExecutiveOrderPresidentialRecords/ 

ht to the National Coalition for History, online at http://historycoalition.org/ 

Change has to come to the White House (.gov)

Approximately one hour ago, I joined several students, staff, and faculty in the University of Chicago Law School's Green Lounge (the same place where Barack Obama used to talk with faculty and students) to watch Mr. Obama sworn in as the forty-fourth President of the United States of America. In the short time that's passed, a new White House website has already been launched, featuring several recent speeches, the agenda for President Obama's new administration, and the first White House blog post from Macon Phillips, the Director of New Media for the White House.  Obama's campaign made innovative use of the internet and new technologies, so it will be interesting to keep an eye on WhiteHouse.gov, which should be a much more dynamic web presence than it has been under past presidents.

For comparison, this is what WhiteHouse.gov looked like eight years ago.

Before Barack Obama and Beyond: Minorities, Elections, and the Law

As part of the University of Chicago's Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemoration, D'Angelo Law librarians Lyonette Louis-Jacques and Patricia Sayre-McCoy have put together a bibliography titled, "Before Barack Obama and Beyond: Minorities, Elections, and the Law," which includes books, websites, articles, statutes, cases, and other resources related to voting rights.  This valuable resource can be found by going to the Library's Election Law research guide.