Con Law Flashcards
Equal protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;
nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws
Rational basis review
age, benefits, etc
P has to prove whether the State has a legitimate interest and whether the means used to achieve tis legitimate state interest are reasonably related or rationally related to that state interest.
Under the rational basis test, it is not necessary for the fit between ends and means to be perfect. The fit merely has to be reasonable or rational.
Congress’s powers
are limited to those expressed in the Constitution. To enact a law on a particular topic, Congress must rely on some identified grant of legislative authority in the Constitution. Section Five of the Fourteenth Amendment is one such grant of authority.
“legislation which deters or remedies constitutional violations can fall within the sweep of Congress enforcement power even if in the process it prohibits conduct which is not itself unconstitutional…” Congress’s power, however, is remedial. It has been given the power “to enforce” not the power to determine what constitutes a constitutional violation.
City of Boerne v. Flores
in drawing the line btwn measures that remedy or prevent unconstitutional actions and measures that make a substantive change in the governing law
the court in Boerne stated that the constitutional question is whether there is a “congruence and proportionality between the constitutional injury to be pre-vented or remedied and the means adopted to that end.” Lacking such a connection, legislation may become substantive in operation and effect.
Proportionality requirement of Flores
allows Congress to outlaw conduct that courts likely would hold unconstitutional under existing judicial precedent.
Congress may also outlaw a broader range of conduct to prevent constitutional violations. But Congress cannot rely on its Fourteenth Amendment enforcement power to prohibit a kind of behavior that is unlikely to involve a constitutional violation at all.
Flores held that Congress cannot, under its Fourteenth Amendment power, legislate to prohibit constitutional behavior where there is no constitutional injury to be prevented or remedied.
state laws that discriminate against out of state commerce in favor of in state commerce
either on their face or in practical effect ar subject to strict scrutiny and thus a nearly per se rule of invalidity.
Even is state law is not discriminatory
state laws that affect interstate commerce can also be invalidated if the burden on interstate commerce is clearly excessive in relation to the putative in state benefits.
In Exxon the court decided that under the discriminatory impact test
read the Hunt discriminatory impact test to apply to a direct impact on out of state firms in the primary market (apples) regulated by the state. In Exxon, the discriminatory impact was in a market (refining) different from the one regulated by the state (service stations), and so the state law was not found to be discriminatory.
In City of Philadelphia, in regards to an environmental purpose
the Court made clear that it does not matter whether the law has a legitimate environmental purpose; the state may not use discriminatory means to accomplish it. Insofar as the law is discriminatory, it is invalid unless it is narrowly tailored to meet a legitimate, nonprotectionist purpose.
In particular, a law is not narrowly tailored if
there are less discriminatory alternative means to accomplish the states purpose.
State as a market participant
the state may discriminate in favor of residents when buying or selling good and services because the state is acting as a “market participant” rather than as a regulator of an economic activity.
Thirteenth Amendment
addresses “private” discrimination
Strict scrutiny also applies to
race-based affirmative action plans
must be “necessary” to achieve a “compelling governmental interest.
Minority set-aside programs enacted by city or state will be subjected to strict scrutiny and will usually be found unconstitutional on equal protection grounds.
A fetus a viable
The fetus is not yet viable in many pregnancies that have gone beyond the first trimester. Typically viability occurs late in the second or early in the third trimester
There are several limitations on the jurisdiction of federal courts
- the P myst have standing to press his claim
- there must be be some basis for federal court jurisdiction (diversity, federal question),
- there must be a “case or controversy” (non political)
A political question is one the that Constitution commits to another governmental branch, which the judicial process is inherently incapable of resolving and enforcing. There are three criteria for determining political questions:
- a “textually demonstrable” constitutional commitment of the issue to the political branches;
- lack of manageable standards for judicial resolution; and
- difficulty or impossibility of devising effective judicial remedies
Free exercise must yield to a rational and generally applicable law even if that law proscribes conduct required by religion
the court held that “the right of free exercise does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes conduct that his religion prescribes.
The General Welfare Clause, Article I, S8, states that Congress shall have power to
“lay and collect Taxes to pay the Debts and provide for the general Welfare of the United States.” This clause gives Congress the substantive power to tax and spend, limited only by the requirement that the taking and spend be for the general welfare. Congress may delegate its legislative power as Long as the person or body receiving the delegated power is directed to conform to an intelligible principal set forth by Congress.
Police powers may not
improperly burden a persons constitutional rights, and it must not unduly burden interstate commerce
Suspect classifications
are race and alienage
Fundamental rights are
interstate travel, voting, and privacy.
To be valid a state law must meet a three-part test
- it must be enacted within the state’s police powers
- it must not violate any person’s constitutional rights; and
- it must not improperly burden interstate commerce
Distribution of free text books by a state to a private racially-segregated school
would constitute state encouragement of racial discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Under procedural due process there need only be fair process if:
the right being deprived is a property right (or life or liberty.)
Ordinance neutral on its face but has a disparate effect
Absent evidence that the (city) intended to discriminate against a class (eg women) , the scheme will not be subject to any heightened level or review. Accordingly, a court will assess the ordinance under rationality review and uphold it unless it is not rationally related to a legitimate government interest.
For a congressional statute to be constitutional, it must be
enacted pursuant two one of Congress’s enumerated powers under Article I of the Constitution.
The Tenth Amendment effect is to prohibit the federal government from commandeering the lawmaking power of the states or local legislatures. However when the statute is applicable to both private and governmental entities
and it’s a direct regulation that is generally applicable, and does not commandeer the legislative function of the local government, it does not violate the Tenth Amendment.
Eleventh amendment
only bars federal court suits against a state brought by private citizens, not federal suits Brought against the state by the federal government
Obscene material
material cannot be obscene unless the work is “patently offensive,” something that requires portrayal of “hard core sexual conduct”
Work is obscene when:
- the average person, applying contemporary community standards would find that “the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest;
- the work must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct “of a sort that is specifically defined by the obscenity law in question; and
- the work “taken as a whole” must “lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value
Restrictions on commercial speech
must satisfy intermediate level scrutinyy, and a close fit between means and end is one of the requirements for that level of review
Two types of speech that are unprotected
a. speech that is deceptive (false advertising); and
b. speech that relates to illegal activity
Three part test that amounts to mid-level scrutiny
a. the interest the government is trying to further by speech restriction must be “substantialy” important
b. the restriction must “directly advance” the governmental interest; and
c. the restriction myst be no more extensive than is necessary to serve the governmental interest. In other words, there must be a cute close “means end til”between government objective and the restriction
Tenth Amendment
state sovereignty. The federal government may not compel the states to enact or administer a federal regulatory program. Cannot commandeer the states.
Right to interstate travel
insures new residents the same right to vital government benefits and privileges in the states to which they migrate as one enjoyed by other residents.
It is a fundamental right!
Dormant Commerce Clause
does not apply to the conduct of a state that is acting as a market participant rather than as a regulator. if the state is acting as a regulator and favoring in-state economic interest over out of state interests, this sort of discrimination is virtually per se a violation of the DCC.
substantive Due process fundamental rights:
childbearing, child rearing, right to Mary, and right to sexual expression
Equal protection fundamental rights:
marriage, sexual relations,, voting, court access, and the right to travel
Vagueness
a statue will be void for vagueness if the conduct forbidden by it is so unclearly defined that persons of common intelligence would have to guess at its meaning and would differ as to its application