The Essential Cases

Question 1

District of Columbia v. Heller (2008)

Answer 1

Interpretation of Second Amendment
Majority: Scalia (Broad Reading)
-Ordinary meaning of text
-Meaning hasn’t changed (bear/keep and arms)
-Reference to other amendments that refer to “rights” as personal (rather than as a group)
-Textualist Reading (Employs Dictionaries and Syntax) - Prefatory (Introduction) Clause doesn’t limit/expand right

Dissent: Breyer (Narrow Reading)

• Case-law has history of limiting this particular amendment (distinction between the other use of “rights” as referred to elsewhere)
• Raises the relevancy of the clause (and therefore the importance of the “militia”)
• Relies in part on Madison’s unincluded language, which more specifically describes the importance of militia.

Question 2

Marbury v. Madison (1803)

Answer 2

Establishes Judicial Review
-“It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.”
-Cannot expand the judiciary’s powers (Article III is a ceiling, not a floor).
+Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee applied the same rule to the States.

Question 3

Baker v. Carr (1962)

Six Factors

Answer 3

Political Question Doctrine
-Reviewed Malapportionment of districts under Equal Protection Clause, NOT the Guarantee Clause. Found a violation in this case (person wasn’t afforded equal voting protection). Case has been limited by Veath.

Factors for finding a Political Question:

1. Textually Committed to Another Branch
2. Lack of Judicially Discoverable & Manageable Standards
3. Impossibility of Deciding without an Initial Policy Determination not of a Judicial Nature
4. Lack of Respect to Coordinate Branches
5. Unusual Need for Unquestioning Adherence to a Political Decision Already Made
6. Potentiality of Embarrassment from Multifarious Pronouncements of the Law

Question 4

McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)

The General Facts

Answer 4

Necessary and Proper Clause

• Despite being a government of enumerated powers, the Court held Congress could create the Bank of the United States because it followed from the power to handle money.
• Necessary and Proper means Convenient or Useful (not “essential”). Broad interpretation.

Authority of States to Tax Federal Government
-Impermissible due to Supremacy Clause (Power to Tax = Power to Destroy)

Question 5

McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)

The Essential Quote

Answer 5

Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional.

Question 6

United States v. Comstock (2010)

Five Additional Factors

Answer 6

Majority reaffirmed broad reading of the Necessary and Proper Clause. Analysis was whether the Statute constitutes a Means that is RATIONALLY RELATED to the implementation of a constitutionally enumerated power.

Five Factors:

1. Necessary and Proper
2. History
3. Governmental Custodial Interest
4. State’s Interests
5. Statute’s Narrowly Tailored Scope

Dissent suggests this test is difficult to apply and is a step into police power. Also, N&P Clause should only be applied one degree (N&P to enforce Taxing Power, but not anything further).

Question 7

Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)

Answer 7

Broad view of the Commerce Clause very early on. Characterized “Commerce” as including activities that are “intermingled” with various states.

• Marks the early period in which few cases were overturned on grounds of over-extension of Commerce Clause power.
• View changes after 1887.

Question 8

Wickard v. Filburn (1942)

Answer 8

Return to the Broad View of Commerce, extending Commerce to reach into intrastate activities. Marked a period of strong deference to Congress and an emphasis on the democratic process.

Substantial Effect on Interstate Commerce (Cumulative Effect of Interstate Activity affects Interstate Commerce)
-Later broadened into Rational Basis test (Heart of Atlanta).

Question 9

Lopez v. United States (1995)

Principles and Two Quotes

Answer 9

Return of limiting the power of the Commerce Clause. The regulation of guns on school grounds was too tenuous to be covered under the Commerce Clause.

• Concurrence (Thomas) would have rejected the whole rule of substantial effect.
• Dissent (Breyer) considered there to be a substantial effect based on the rational basis test.

+CANNOT Pile Inference Upon Inference
+Not part of a larger regulation of economic activity in which the regulatory scheme could be undercut unless the intrastate activity in question was regulated

Question 10

United States v. Morrison (2000)

Answer 10

Civil damages provision in bill was not included Commerce Clause Powers. Substantial Effect test cannot be applied unless economic in nature. Majority rejected the economic impacts presented by Congress via all of its statistical evidence.
-NOT Inherently Economic

Question 11

Gonzales v. Raich (2005)

Answer 11

Substantial effect found where the product being regulated was inherently economic, albeit illegal (weed).
-Part of a Larger Regulatory Scheme

Concurrence (Scalia) would have relied on Necessary and Proper Clause, considering Congress could make it illegal, it could also regulate it.

Dissent (O’Connor): States serve as laboratories, but this decision gives too much power to Congress to impede state objectives. Hurts Federalism objectives.

Question 12

South Dakota v. Dole (1987)

Answer 12

Taxing and Spending Power: Strings Tied to Highway Funds (Drinking Age)
-The “pressure” did not turn into “compulsion” (not coercive) because it was only a fractional amount (5% reduction in funds).

Dissent (O’Conner and Brennan) felt that the drinking age wasn’t reasonably related to building highways and, thus, couldn’t be tied to the funds.
-Additionally, they rejected on Twenty-First Amendment grounds (alcohol regulation is reserved to the states).

Question 13

National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012)
Commerce Clause

Answer 13

Majority (Roberts and four justices in Dissent) argued that the Individual Mandate could not be upheld on the grounds of Commerce Clause powers.

• Not a “regulation” of commerce because it forces people into the marketplace.
• No Limiting Principle (Vegetables)

Dissent (Ginsberg+others) argued that since everyone must enter the market, Congress isn’t forcing people to buy an unwanted product, but merely defining the terms on which it may be bought.
-Moreover, the uninsured, as a class, could constitute a substantial effect on interstate commerce (there was a rational basis for Congress to find this).

Question 14

National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012)
Taxing and Spending Powers

Answer 14

Majority upheld on Taxing Powers. Majority holds that the Court is obligated to read the statute in a light that would prevent it from failing (i.e., as a Tax rather than a Penalty). The “Penalty” was a tax because:

• Was paid to the IRS
• Claimed on tax return
• Produces revenue

Plurality on the issue of Coercion (total reduction in Medicaid funding) (“gun to the head”).
-However, Ginsburg rejected this as saying that Congress could have repealed the whole law and began anew without any taint. Furthermore, it was Congress’s money in the first place.

Question 15

New York v. United States (1992)

Answer 15

Majority (O’Conner) held the Take Title Provision to be unconstitutional because it COMPELLED the States to act. Congress had three alternatives:

1. Conditional Funding
2. Cooperative Federalism
3. Pre-Emption

Commandeering disconnects governments from the people thus: NO ACCOUNTABILITY. It will be the Federal law, but under the guise of state-law.

Question 16

Printz v. United States (1997)

Answer 16

Just as Congress cannot force legislation upon the States (NY v. US), Congress may not force the States to execute federal laws (even on an interim basis).
-Duty vs. Prohibition: Congress may prohibit a state from even doing stately things (selling driver license info, since it is a commodity)

Question 17

City of Boerne v. Flores (1997)

Clause, Test, and Majority Opinion

Answer 17

Exemplifies the Federalist Perspective of the Fourteenth Amendment. Congruence and Proportionality Test.

Majority (Kennedy) argues that Congress merely enforces, not determines what constitutes a constitutional violation. RFRA (law preventing neutral laws from burdening religious freedoms) is unconstitutional.

• Must be a Congruence/Proportionality between Injury Prevented/Remedied and Means adopted to that end.
• Court rejected Government’s argument it was applying the Free Exercise Clause (First Amendment) to the States (via 14th Amendment).

Question 18

United States v. Arizona (2012)

Issue & Four Main Points of Case

Answer 18

Field Preemption - Immigration

• States cannot prescribe a penalty for a federal law.
• Court held that the State’s intent to prevent a person from seeking a job in the state would hinder the balance struck by Congress (on the issue of immigration).
• State officers cannot assume enforcement of a federal law (if officer suspect an alien to have committed a crime that would subject them to deportation, the officer would merely detain them).
• Court was unsure whether detention of suspected illegal immigrant and wait for verification by federal government would, at this point, be preempted.

+Court did not consider the illegal vs. legal immigrant status as relevant in deciding the case.

Question 19

Youngstown Sheet & Tube v. Sawyer (1952)

Answer 19

Majority (Black) held that there were no inherent presidential authority. The president merely has the power to enforce the laws, not to create them (thus, he exceeded authority here).

Concurring (Jackson) opinion (considered the essential holding) divided the authority into three parts. Since Congress in this case considered giving the president the power to take over plants but then rejected it (although not expressly prohibiting it in the statute), the president couldn’t exercise this power (despite the fact that it was for the war effort).

1. Maximum Authority: Acting with express or implied authorization.
2. Zone of Twilight (Independent Presidential Authority) where Congress is silent on the question during an emergency.
3. Lowest Ebb: President is acting incapable with Congressional intent.

Dissent: President should be empowered due to the nature of the war and because Congress had given the president some authority.

Question 20

Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States (1935)

Answer 20

Cannot delegate unfettered control to executive branch. Congress must give some intelligible principle.

• Unanimous decision against this consolidation of power (separation of powers issue).
• Part of the old view on the commerce clause. Not likely to be followed in the future.

Question 21

Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan (1935)

Answer 21

Similar to the poultry case, except the decision was not unanimous. This was the “Hot Oil” case.
-Cardozo in dissent felt there was a sufficiently intelligible principle for the president (a change from his previous holding in Schechter Poultry).

Question 22

INS v. Chadha (1983)

Answer 22

Congress tried to reserve for itself a legislative veto, but it was found unconstitutional as a violation of Bicameralism and Presentment (the finely wrought structure created in the Constitution).

• VETO = LEGISLATION
• Part of the compromise made.
• Process is not designed to be quick, but rather slow for consideration.

Dissent (White) didn’t find any objection to it because the veto:

1. Wasn’t prohibited by the Constitution
2. Increased Accountability
3. Veto was not a sword by which Congress has struck out to aggrandize itself at the expense of the other branches.

Question 23

Motor Vehicle Manufacturers v. State Farm (1983)

General Facts and Holdings

Answer 23

Hard Look Doctrine (Reviewing Agency’s POLICY Decisions)

Majority (White): Motor vehicle agency insufficiently considered the details (namely, airbags option and dismissal of seatbelt benefits) and, therefore, made an improper policy decision.

Dissent (Rehnquist) felt that the change in administration was sufficient to justify the change in position on policy. This was the democratic check on agencies.

Question 24

Motor Vehicle Manufacturers v. State Farm (1983)

The Essential Quote from the Majority

Answer 24

Agency must examine relevant data and articulate a satisfactory explanation for its actions, which show a ‘rational connection between the facts found and the choices made.’

Question 25

Food & Drug Administration v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco (2000)

Answer 25

Judicial Review of Statutory Interpretation

Although SCOTUS was forgiving in Chevron, it was not here because the interpretation of the enabling statute was one of the very authority of the FDA, rather than an insignificant detail.

• No deference if the Agency is interpreting its Scope
• Deference only for determining a Rule (Chevron)