Justiciability Issues

Question 1

Congressional Spending Power

Answer 1

1. must be for general welfare
2. Must be spent/conditioned unambiguously
3. Must be related to Federal Interests
4. Cannot be coercive
5. Other Constitutional restrictions

Question 2

Jurisdiction

Answer 2

• Original Jurisdiction
  
  • Clause 1
    
    • The courts have the power to decide on all legal cases that involve the Constitution, US laws, and treaties made by the US government.
    • All Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls
    • All Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction
    • Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party
    • Controversies between two or more States; between a State and Citizens of another State
    • Between Citizens of different States
    • Between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.
  • Clause 2
    
    • In all cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction.
    • In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.
• Appellate Jurisdiction
  
  • All other cases → Appellate Jurisdiction
    
    • Defined by Congress

Question 3

Supremacy Clause

Answer 3

Constitutional Law overrides State Law → Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land

Question 4

Case or Controversy

Answer 4

• There must be a case or controversy for the Courts to decide
  
  • Cannot be an advisory opinion
  • If there is no controversy or conflict, then the Courts cannot review the matter

Question 5

Standing

Answer 5

• Injury
  
  • Concrete and particularized
  • Actual or imminent
• Causation
  
  • The party being sued must have a causal link
• Redressibility
  
  • Can there be a resolution?
    
    • If the Mona Lisa was stolen and burned, and suit is filed for the retrieval, there is no standing. There is no redressibility.

Question 6

Taxing Power

Answer 6

• Article I - Section 8, Clause 1
  
  • The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

Question 7

Prudential Standing

Answer 7

• party may only assert his/her own rights
  
  • Not for parties not before the court
• A plaintiff may not sue as a tax payer who shares grievances in common with other tax payers

Question 8

Test for establishing Gerrymandering Claims

Answer 8

• Proof of intent to burden individuals based on Party Affiliation
• an actual burden on political speech or association rights
• causal link between invidious intent and actual burden

Question 9

Ripeness

Answer 9

Matters where the facts of the case have developed/matured enough that a substantial judicial decision will resolve the matter.

Question 10

Mootness

Answer 10

• If matters are resolved before, or redress happens, before case can be reviewed
• Exceptions
  
  • Voluntary cessation
    
    • If party stops unlawful action, but intends to continue it upon declaration of Mootness, then Mootness can be excepted
  • Capable of repetition, yet evading review
    
    • Roe v Wade
  • Class action suit
    
    • Roe v Wade → as long as mankind will exist, women will still get pregnant → class action lawsuit permitted on exception

Question 11

Political Questions

Answer 11

• If the decision will result in the SCOTUS getting involved in a political matter, SCOTUS cannot review.
• 6 part test
  • Textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department
  • A lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standard to resolve it
  • Impossibility of deciding without an initial policy determination of a kind clearly not for judicial discretion
  • Impossibility of a court’s undertaking independent resolution without expressing a lack of respect for the other branches of government
  • An unusual need for unquestioning adherence to a political question already made
  • Potentiality of embarrassment from multiple pronouncements by various departments on one question

Question 12

Commerce Clause

Answer 12

• Congress can regulate if…
  
  • Commercial → if not…
  • Inter-State → if not…
  • Aggregated Behavior
    
    • If this behavior were aggregated, as a result of factually happening, then it can be regulated.
    • The controversy being discussed must be a Transactional matter

Question 13

Mathews v. Eldridge Test → Individual Liberties v. Gov’t Powers

Answer 13

1. Private interests affected by Gov’t action
2. Risk of erroneous deprivation of private interests / Alternatives to Gov’t Action
3. Gov’t Interests

Question 14

Executive Power v. Congressional Power

Answer 14

1. when “the President acts pursuant to an express or implied authorization of Congress, his authority is at its maximum”
   
   • For it includes his Constitutional Powers, plus what Congress granted him
2. “in absence of either a congressional grant or denial of authority” there is a “zone of twilight in which he and Congress may have concurrent authority,”
   
   • “congressional inertia, indifference or quiescence may” invite the exercise of executive power
3. When “the President takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress . . . he can rely only upon his own constitutional powers minus any constitutional powers of Congress over the matter.”