Recent proceedings involving large municipalities such as Detroit, Stockton, and Vallejo illustrate both the utility and the limitations of using the Bankruptcy Code to adjust municipal debt. In this article, we contend that, to truly resolve the distress of a substantial city, municipal bankruptcy needs to do more than simply provide immediate debt relief. Debt adjustment alone does nothing to remedy the fragmented decision-making and incentives for expanding municipal budgets that underlie municipal distress. Unless bankruptcy also addresses governance dysfunction, the city may slide right back into financial crisis. Governance restructuring has long been an essential element of corporate bankruptcy. Given the monopoly position of local governments as providers of local public goods, governance reform is even more important in the municipal bankruptcy context. Some might argue that reducing a city's debt is the best bankruptcy courts can do, because a more comprehensive approach would, among other things, interfere with state sovereignty. In our view, these concerns do not withstand inspection. Based on a careful analysis of the historical origins of the current municipal bankruptcy provisions, as well as an assessment of recent Supreme Court jurisprudence, we argue that governance reform is permitted even under existing law. To be sure, the states themselves, rather than a bankruptcy court, ideally should be the ones to effect municipal governance reform. But political factors and the salience of the fiscal crisis make state intervention unlikely, thus underscoring the need for a more comprehensive approach to municipal bankruptcy.

This issue of the Yale Law Journal (the fifth issue of academic year 2015-2016) features articles and essays by notable scholars, as well as extensive student research. The contents include: "Governance Reform and the Judicial Role in Municipal Bankruptcy," by Clayton P. Gillette & David A. Skeel, Jr. "Professional Speech," by Claudia E. Haupt "Casey and the Clinic Closings: When 'Protecting Health' Obstructs Choice," by Linda Greenhouse & Reva B. Siegel "Returning to Common-Law Principles of Insider Trading After United States v. Newman," by Richard A. Epstein The student contributions are: Note, "Will Putting Cameras on Police Reduce Polarization?," by Roseanna Sommers Note, "Federal Questions and the Domestic-Relations Exception," by Bradley G. Silverman Comment, "Toward an Efficient Licensing and Rate-Setting Regime: Reconstructing § 114(i) of the Copyright Act," by Joseph Pomianowski Quality digital editions include active Contents for the issue and for individual articles, linked footnotes, active URLs in notes, and proper digital and Bluebook presentation from the original edition.

This manual strives to provide a clearer path for judges and clerks of court handling a chapter 9 case. It outlines the statutory requirements and processes that apply in any Chapter 9 case and provides examples of relevant cases and resources. It is organized into several parts including: Part II summarizes the history of Chapter 9 and discusses constitutional challenges to the original municipal bankruptcy laws enacted in 1934 and the structural and constitutional issues analyzed by lower courts in the context of Chapter 9. Part II presents and overview of the Chapter 9 process, contrasting it with the Chapter 11 process and providing several primers on issues unique to a Chapter 9 case. This section also includes basic information on matters, such as municipal accounting, the municipal bond market, and public pension obligations. Part IV identifies key administrative matters for the judge and the clerk of court in a Chapter 9 case. Part V explains what transpires after the filing of a Chapter 9 petition and appointment of the bankruptcy judge. It follows not only the legal steps required at the beginning of the case and eligibility determination, but also covers questions, issues, and information the judge may want to consider as the case starts down the Chapter 9 path. Part VI discusses the administration of the case -- i.e. what happens after the order for relief but before the plan confirmation process. Part VII covers the end of a case: it examines the plan, the disclosure statement, and the confirmation process. it includes information on postconfirmation jurisdiction and implementation issue. You will also find information about modification of the plan or if the debtor is unable to confirm a plan within a reasonable time, or dismissal of a case. Part VII is devoted to smaller municipal cases and cases involving special purpose entities or instrumentalities of a state. Part IX focuses on larger municipal cases. These cases can present factors and considerations unique to the size of, and stakeholders, in these cases. Part X summarizes key takeaway points for judges and clerks of the court handling Chapter 9 cases.

An authoritative review of the long history of federal responses to state and local budget crises, from Alexander Hamilton through the COVID-19 pandemic, that reveals what is at stake when a state or city can't pay its debts and provides policy solutions to an intractable American problem. What should the federal government do if a state like Illinois or a city like Chicago can't pay its debts? From Alexander Hamilton's plan to assume state debts to Congress's efforts to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of the most important political disputes in American history have involved federal government responses to state or local fiscal crises. In a Bad State provides the first comprehensive historical and theoretical analysis of how the federal government has addressed subnational debt crises. Tracing the long history of state and local borrowing, David Schleicher argues that federal officials want to achieve three things when a state or city nears default: prevent macroeconomic distress, encourage lending to states and cities to build infrastructure, and avoid creating incentives for reckless future state budgeting. But whether they demand state austerity, permit state defaults, or provide bailouts-and all have been tried-federal officials can only achieve two of these three goals, at best. Rather than imagining that there is a single easy federal solution, Schleicher suggests some ways the federal government could ameliorate the problem by conditioning federal aid on future state fiscal responsibility, spreading losses across governments and interests, and building resilience against crises into federal spending and tax policy. Authoritative and accessible, In a Bad State offers a guide to understanding the pressing fiscal problems that local, state, and federal officials face, and to the policy options they possess for responding to crises.

"Essential...in showcasing people who are persistent, clever, flawed, loving, struggling and full of contradictions, Broke affirms why it’s worth solving the hardest problems in our most challenging cities in the first place. " —Anna Clark, The New York Times "Through in-depth reporting of structural inequality as it affects real people in Detroit, Jodie Adams Kirshner's Broke examines one side of the economic divide in America" —Salon "What Broke really tells us is how systems of government, law and finance can crush even the hardiest of boot-strap pullers." —Brian Alexander, author of Glass House A galvanizing, narrative account of a city’s bankruptcy and its aftermath told through the lives of seven valiantly struggling Detroiters Bankruptcy and the austerity it represents have become a common "solution" for struggling American cities. What do the spending cuts and limited resources do to the lives of city residents? In Broke, Jodie Adams Kirshner follows seven Detroiters as they navigate life during and after their city's bankruptcy. Reggie loses his savings trying to make a habitable home for his family. Cindy fights drug use, prostitution, and dumping on her block. Lola commutes two hours a day to her suburban job. For them, financial issues are mired within the larger ramifications of poor urban policies, restorative negligence on the state and federal level and—even before the decision to declare Detroit bankrupt in 2013—the root causes of a city’s fiscal demise. Like Matthew Desmond’s Evicted, Broke looks at what municipal distress means, not just on paper but in practical—and personal—terms. More than 40 percent of Detroit’s 700,000 residents fall below the poverty line. Post-bankruptcy, they struggle with a broken real estate market, school system, and job market—and their lives have not improved. Detroit is emblematic. Kirshner makes a powerful argument that cities—the economic engine of America—are never quite given the aid that they need by either the state or federal government for their residents to survive, not to mention flourish. Success for all America’s citizens depends on equity of opportunity.