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I'm hopeful the recent disco revival won't last but that other resurging movements of the 1960s and '70s will. That era saw the birth and explosive growth of the modern environmental movement alongside other sweeping actions for peace and equality. Public pressure led to critical environmental laws that continue to protect our natural resources and our health and safety. In 1970, Congress created the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and enacted the Clean Air Act, which authorizes the federal government to limit air pollution, and the Occupational Safety and Health Act, which established the first nationwide program to protect workers from on-the-job harm. Two years later came passage of the Clean Water Act, a landmark amendment to existing anti-pollution law that requires our government to restore and maintain clean and healthy waterways across the land. That was some era -- the last great upsurge of government protections.

It might not be easy to get to the merits of United States v. Washington. A funny thing happened on the way to oral argument: The state of Washington modified the 2018 workers' compensation law at the center of the case, raising the prospect that there is no longer a live dispute for the justices to resolve.

Under established constitutional law, states may generally not tax or regulate property or operations of the federal government. This principle is known as intergovernmental immunity. Congress may waive this federal immunity, however, and the scope of that principle is the major issue in Monday’s oral argument in United States v. Washington.

Women led the battle for industrial democracy — even before they won the vote. However, women’s contributions to and leadership of the organized labor movement, though lionized within the movement itself, have largely escaped public consciousness.

Women’s History Month isn’t just a time to recognize achievements made throughout the decades to advance women’s rights and demand equity. It’s also an opportunity to celebrate women making history today, the ones in our unwritten history books.

Employers prefer to deal with their workers one on one. But workers have shown throughout history they will not abide by this unfair practice. They organize, they work together, and, when their employers refuse to deal with them all at once, they strike. Workers engaged in, and prospered from, collective action long before passage of the National Labor Relations Act. The law merely sought to regulate this action for the public good, to replace strike with negotiation, conflict with cooperation. History is now repeating itself; labor strife is increasing, thanks in part to the rise of legal contracts that force workers to settle disputes in a rigged system of arbitration rather than an impartial court of law.

In a fair and just country, corporations are held accountable in the courts if their irresponsible behavior harms people. However, like many policies, the communities most impacted by forced arbitration are historically marginalized groups. Indeed, forced arbitration has a disproportionate impact on low-income Americans and Black and brown women when they are the victims of discrimination. Their abuse goes beyond the general adverse impacts of forced arbitration, noted in a new report by the Center for Progressive Reform.

A few years ago, Roschelle Powers took a routine trip to visit her mom, Roberta, at her nursing home in Birmingham, Alabama. When Roschelle opened the door, she found her mother vomiting, disoriented -- and clutching a handful of pills. Roberta’s son, Larry, visited a few days later and found his mom alone and unresponsive. She died soon after – with 20 times the recommended dose of her diabetes medication in her blood. The Powers family charged the nursing home with misconduct, but the company denied responsibility -- and the family couldn’t take their case to court because they had signed a contract that robbed them of their right to a free and fair trial. Instead, contractual legalese forced them to settle their dispute in a rigged system of arbitration rather than in an impartial court of law. My colleagues and I share this story, chronicled in a New York Times investigation of forced arbitration, in the opening pages of our new report about the disproportionate toll this widespread practice has on marginalized and vulnerable groups.

Last week, my colleagues and I advocated for a pair of clean water bills in Maryland and Virginia, which were spurred by research completed by the Center for Progressive Reform (CPR). One would create a Private Well Safety Program in Maryland, and the other would create an aboveground chemical storage tank registration program in Virginia. Both laws are sorely needed. This two-part blog series explains why. Today’s piece looks at our efforts to protect clean drinking water in Maryland; check back tomorrow for Part II, which explores our collaborative efforts to protect Virginians from toxic chemical spills.