Constitutional law Flashcards
Quickly list the main issues you need to spot
Justiciability
- ripeness
- mootness
- standing (RIC)
- Legislative powers
* commerce clause
* spending powers
*delegation
Executive powers:
- privileges
- veto
- immunity
- appointment
- removal
- commander in chief
State powers
- supremacy powers
- prremption
- privileges and immunities
- 10th amendment * commandeering
- dormant commerce clause
- Takings:
- physical
- regulatory (total or partial(
- zoning and variances
- procedural due process
- Substantive due process
- Equal protection
- Free speech
- symbolic speech (expressive conduct)
- vagueness and overbreadth
- content neutral v. content-based (intermediate v. strict scrutiney)
- Obscenity: API, sexual conduct in p.o.w., l.s.s.v.
- public forums v. non public (content-neutral= narrowly tialored, sig. govt. interest; v. viewpoint netural, rsnbly related to, legit. govt. interest)
- time place and manner restrictions
- content based v. content-neutral
- commercial speech
- obsencity
- Freedom of religion
- establishment and free exercise clause
- religiously neutral statute v. facially targeting/advancing religion (applied equally but disparate impact= SANE lemon test. If facially prefers/targets= strict scrutiny.
- Religious belief- sincerity can be examined but not reasonability. Beliefs are absolutely portected.
visualize how and when feds are immune from state tax.
visualize congress’s taxing powers
procedural due process (visualize)
free speech challenges as applied, on face, and vague/overbroad (visualize)
Supreme court appeal decisions (visualize) when and how
Dormant commerce clause (interstate economic discrimination) visualize.
Doctrine of preemption (visualize)
anti-commandeering (visualize) 10th amendment
Equal protection analysis (visualize)
Supreme Court Jurisdiction
SCT review of state court (AISG)
justiciability
Standing
Abstention Doctrine *Younger)
Case and controversy requirement
Commerce clause Powers (congress)
Educational Objective:
The commerce clause gives Congress broad authority to regulate interstate commerce—including in-state activities that substantially impact interstate commerce, singly or in the aggregate.
Taxing Power of Congress
Executive powers
Equal protection challenges (citizenship)
Power to Enforce the Civil War Amendments (13-15)
Analyzing the Validity of Presidential Actions
Legislative process (bicameralism)
Nondelegation Doctrine
Federal immunities (By branch)
federal immunity from state taxes & reglations
Sovereign immunity
When can state’s law be overturned as unconstitutional as it relates to commerce?
When unduly burdensome or discriminatory against out of staters
alochol regulations by states
preemption (express or implied) of sttate law
Full faith and Credit Clause
State action (visualize and explain its constitutional importance)
Here, the private group is not performing a traditional government function by hosting a swim competition. And merely allowing the group to reserve the pool does not affirmatively facilitate the group’s actions or entwine the municipality in the group’s management. Nor does it create a mutually beneficial relationship since any private party can reserve the pool if it provides proof of insurance and arranges its own staff. Therefore, the man is unlikely to prevail because the group is not a state actor (Choice D).
Procedural due process
Procedural due process for property
substantive due process & Standards of review
Here, the company challenged the ordinance after the city denied its application to build an apartment complex on the city’s outskirts because it failed to include retail establishments on the first floor, as required by the ordinance. This interfered with the company’s ability to use its property, which is an ordinary right (Choice A). However, the ordinance can survive rational basis scrutiny because it is rationally related to the city’s interest in reducing overcrowding and traffic in the city’s downtown area. Therefore, the ordinance is likely constitutional.
*Substantive due process applies when a right is being infringed as to all persons, while equal protection principles apply when a right is denied only to a particular class of persons.
Fundamental rights land the 14th am. Equal protection clause
2nd amendment restrictions
Scrutiny (strict and quasi-suspect)
All state and local laws must comply with the Fourteenth Amendment, including the substantive due process and equal protection clauses. The substantive due process clause applies when a law impacts all persons, while the equal protection clause applies when a law impacts a particular class of persons. And under either clause, the challenged law must survive the appropriate level of scrutiny:
rational basis scrutiny (default test) – requires the challenger to show that the law is not rationally related to any legitimate state interest
intermediate scrutiny (for quasi-suspect class) – requires the state to show that the law is substantially related to an important state interest or
strict scrutiny (for suspect class or fundamental right) – requires the state to show that the law is necessary to serve a compelling state interest.
Here, the parents of children attending a school district with the lowest per-pupil funding in the state have filed suit to enjoin the state’s use of the statutory formula to allocate education funding. Although this formula has resulted in substantial funding inequality among school districts based on their wealth, wealth-based classifications are not a suspect or quasi-suspect class (Choice A). And since the right to an education is not a fundamental right (Choice C), rational basis scrutiny is the appropriate standard of review to evaluate the formula.
intentional vs. neutral discriminatory laws
Takings under the 5th amendment
ex post facto
Establishment of Religion and the Lemon test
Free exercise clause and belief
Here, the state-funded program provides grants for the secular purpose of providing vocational rehabilitation to visually impaired individuals. Although the grants may benefit religious colleges by providing their students with financial aid, the grants’ primary effect is secular—i.e., to provide visually impaired individuals with funds for vocational rehabilitation (Choice A). Additionally, there is no excessive entanglement since the grant flows to the school based on the choice of the individual—not the government. Therefore, the court should rule for the student.
free speech (gov’t employees)
free speech challenges (facial vs. as applied)
Content-based restrictions
General first amendment speech protections
free speech analysis: general approach
free association’s narrow restrictions
