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Constitution Tag

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on October 14, 2016 8 Comments
The problem with Florida's death penalty began earlier this year when the Florida legislature rewrote the death penalty law in light of the Supreme Court ruling that its existing law was unconstitutional.  The rewrite was flawed and resulted in a challenge that resulted in today's rulings that Florida's death penalty is (still) unconstitutional. The Miami Herald reported at the time:
Lawmakers have approved a crucial rewrite of Florida’s death penalty sentencing law, hoping it passes muster after the current version was recently declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. The bill, passed overwhelmingly by the state Senate Thursday, now heads to Gov. Rick Scott for his signature. . . . .  Florida’s new law requires juries to unanimously vote for every reason, known as aggravating factors, to warrant a death sentence. A trial judge must sign a written order confirming those findings.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on October 01, 2016 14 Comments
Alabama was at the center of much national discussion concerning same-sex "marriage," and at the center of much of that was Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore.  Moore first came to national attention regarding a Ten Commandments monument and was removed from office as a result.  He ran for and won reelection and now has again been suspended for the entirety of his remaining term.  This time, however, he will be unable to run for reelection because he is over the Alabama state age requirement. AL.com reports:
Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore has been suspended from the bench for telling probate judges to defy federal orders regarding gay marriage. It's the second time Moore has been removed from the chief justice job for defiance of federal courts - the first time in 2003 for refusing to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building. The Alabama Court of the Judiciary (COJ) issued the order Friday suspending Moore from the bench for the remainder of his term after an unanimous vote of the nine-member court.

Posted by Taryn O'Neill on August 29, 2016 103 Comments
State legislators from across the country will meet in for a simulated Article V convention of the states for the purpose of proposing amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The gathering, hosted by Citizens for Self-Governance, will take place next month in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia and will be the first-ever test run of an actual Article V convention. As explained earlier, Article V details two processes for amending the U.S. Constitution. The first requires congress write and propose an amendment that is then sent to the states for a ratification vote. The second process requires two-thirds of the state legislatures submit applications for a convention for the purpose of proposing amendments. The applications must specify an amendment subject matter or matters. Should two-thirds of the states submit applications pertaining to the same subject matter, an Article V convention of the states is called.

Posted by Mary Chastain on August 26, 2016 17 Comments
Advocacy group Student Matters filed a federal lawsuit in Connecticut to make education a constitutional right due to the state's restriction on magnet, charter schools, and school choice programs. It alleges the state's limited school choice for parents force "thousands of low-income and minority students to attend low-performing schools." The group insists now is the time for the federal courts to recognize education as a fundamental right:
“The fundamental principles of equality in our country demand that every child have a chance to get an education, to learn and to have that platform to succeed,” said Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., an attorney for the plaintiffs.
The Washington Post reported:
An advocacy group best known for using the courts to challenge California’s teacher tenure laws has now taken its legal strategy to Connecticut, where it has sued state officials over “anti-opportunity” laws that restrict the growth of magnet and charter schools and that limit inner-city students’ ability to transfer to more affluent suburban school districts.

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 19, 2016 20 Comments
As we've documented countless times at College Insurrection, many students in America today have a flawed understanding of free speech and other Constitutional subjects. There once was a time when it was safe to assume students were taught about the Constitution and America's other founding documents, but the behavior on many campuses today suggests that's no longer happening. South Carolina just passed a new law to remedy this situation. The Daily Signal reports:
This New Law Ensures South Carolina Students Will Study the Founding Documents Gov. Nikki Haley, a Republican, signed a South Carolina House bill into law that implements the study of U.S. founding documents into the state’s public high schools.

Posted by Taryn O'Neill on June 02, 2016 46 Comments
Last week, Louisiana passed a resolution calling for a Convention of States as described in Article V of the U.S. Constitution. The resolution passed on May 25 with a vote of 62-36, making Louisiana the eighth state to call for a meeting of the states for the purpose of proposing constitutional amendments addressing abuses by the U.S. Federal Government. Other states that have called a Convention of States for the same purposes are Florida, Georgia, Alaska, Alabama, Tennessee, Indiana, and Oklahoma. Increased national interest in a Convention of States (COS) is due largely to the government's failure to operate as the Framers envisioned. Having accrued a national debt of over $19 trillion and a debt-to-GDP ratio of 105%, the government's size and scope has grown far beyond anything the Founders could have imagined. Meanwhile, the states, having created the Federal Government, find themselves acting at the mercy of Washington's limitless regulations and outstretched tentacles, lest they lose federal sacred funding.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on May 31, 2016 5 Comments
The Southeast Asian country of Malaysia is moving towards a total imposition of Islamic Sharia. Malaysia's government has pledged its support for an Islamic penal code that seeks to impose Sharia-prescribed punishments such as amputations, public stoning and flogging on its multi-religious population. The new legislation referred to as “Hudud Law” also seeks to segregate women from public life in Kelantan province, a predominantly Muslim northern state. The proposed constitutional amendment will allow other Malaysian provinces to align their legal system to stricter Islamic law as well. With a population of around 30 million, only 61 percent of the people identify as Muslim. Apart from Christianity that makes up to 10 percent of the population, Malaysia is home to many ethnic Chinese and Indians who mainly follow Buddhism and Hinduism respectively.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 29, 2016 10 Comments
The NRA's Freedom's Safest Place series of videos is excellent. So far, we've run posts about three of the videos: The video below came out a month ago, but I just saw it:
I'm a mom, a business owner and a patriot. But I am not a politician. A few years ago I founded a nonprofit to defend voters' rights and stop election fraud. We exposed corruption—so the corrupters wanted me silenced. The IRS, FBI, ATF, OSHA and a U.S. Congressman turned my life upside-down. Their investigations were invasive, abusive, relentless … and political.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 13, 2016 16 Comments
In December 2013, we reported on how a Utah federal judge strikes down key part of anti-polygamy law in a challenge by the  Brown family of "Sister Wives" TV fame:
The legalization of polygamy followed logically from the legal arguments against one man-one woman, as was predicted not just by me, but also by Professor Martha Nussbaum, one of the leading legal advocates for gay marriage, “Polygamy would have to be permitted.” And it’s coming true in a small step, as a federal court in Utah, while not holding that polygamists were entitled to state-sanctioned civil marriage, nonetheless struck portions of Utah’s anti-polygamy laws banning polygamous “cohabitation” and polygamous “purported” marriages. The full decision is embedded at the bottom of the post....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 13, 2016 45 Comments
An Administrative Law Judge in New Jersey has rejected a challenge to Ted Cruz's eligibility to be president in rejecting an attempt to remove Cruz from the NJ primary ballot. The Judge's decision (full embed at bottom) is very similar to my analysis in my September 3, 2013 post, natural born Citizens: Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, Ted Cruz. NJ.com reports:
Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz is a "natural-born citizen" under the U.S. Constitution and therefore can run in the June 7 New Jersey primary, a state administrative law judge said Tuesday. "The more persuasive legal analysis is that such a child, born of a citizen-father, citizen-mother, or both, is indeed a 'natural born citizen' within the contemplation of the Constitution," Administrative Law Judge Jeff Masin wrote....

Posted by Sarah Rumpf on April 04, 2016 12 Comments
On Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a unanimous ruling in Evenwel v. Abbott, a voting rights case that dealt with how districts are drawn. The opinion was written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, with Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito concurring. With the unanimous ruling, Justice Antonin Scalia's death was not a direct factor in this decision, but since the Court left a major issue still open, the critical question of who will fill Scalia's seat still looms.

When drawing district lines, who should be counted?

The case originated when two Texas residents, Sue Evenwel and Edward Pfenninger, challenged the state's legislative redistricting, which currently includes the total population of the area, as is commonly done across the country. The plaintiffs argued in favor of counting only those residents who were actual voters to draw the districts.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 21, 2016 81 Comments
About a month ago, when Donald Trump was claiming that Ted Cruz probably was not eligible to be president, Trump was questioned by Jake Tapper about whether Marco Rubio was eligible. Trump exhibited some legal understanding of the issue, citing an op-ed written by Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe. Trump's conclusion was that he had no doubts Rubio was eligible:
"It's a different [than Ted Cruz], very different thing because he was born here. He was born on the land."
As the attacks on Cruz's eligibility rose in intensity and Trump threatened suit, I predicted that Trump would have a hard time holding that line if Rubio rose in the polls and became Trump's main challenger:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 14, 2016 12 Comments
The unexpected news that Antonin Scalia died was a punch in the gut. It reminded me of when I first heard that Andrew Breitbart had died -- my wife saw it on Twitter and asked whether it was true. Her comment about Breitbart applies equally to Scalia, A personal note on the death of Andrew Breitbart:
Since my wife called this morning to let me know of Andrew’s death, it has been hard to focus on anything else.  In her words, we don’t have that many bright media lights, and to lose him hurts.
Scalia was more than just a Justice. He was the embodiment of resistance to liberal political correctness and social justice war perpetrated through the judiciary rather than the electorate. I never met Scalia, but I heard him speak once at the Justinian Society in Providence, Rhode Island. He was larger than life, had total command of the room packed with 150 or more lawyers, and was incredibly self-deprecating. And we all laughed so hard at times it's a miracle no one choked on lunch.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 12, 2016 166 Comments
It's Friday afternoon. This should get the holiday weekend off to a nice, quiet start. Donald Trump, angry that negative ads are being run against him, is threatening to sue to keep Ted Cruz out of the race based on the claim that Cruz is not a "natural born Citizen" and not eligible. (h/t Hot Air) My view is here. I *thank* the people who have emailed me to call me a traitor and fraud and hack because of my view on the subject. Here is Trump's Friday Twitter Trumpertantrum: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/698231571594276866?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Trump also is retweeting some some hoorahs for his threat:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 03, 2016 79 Comments
In all the news noise over the Iowa caucuses, a decision by the Illinois Board of Elections passed almost entirely under the radar. There was much hoopla when two voters filed a challenge to Ted Cruz appearing on the ballot because Cruz allegedly was not a "natural born Citizen" and ineligible. (My research and conclusions on the subject are here.) I have not been able to find the actual decision, but Huffington Post reports:
Two objectors, Lawrence Joyce and William Graham, had challenged Cruz's presidential bid with the board, contending that his name should not appear on the March 15 ballot because his candidacy did not comply with Article II of the Constitution. Adopting the recommendations of a hearing officer who considered the matter last week, the board of elections on Monday rejected both objections, ruled Cruz eligible and ordered that his name be certified for the election.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 19, 2016 15 Comments
The U.S. Supreme Court this morning granted a Petition by the U.S. government for review of lower court decisions putting a halt to Obama's executive immigration action. That action halted deportation for up to 5 million people in the country illegally. Our prior posts have the background: Interestingly, the Order granting Certiorari added a constitutional issue to the case. The lower courts had decided it based on Obama administration failure to follow proper administrative procedure: Texas Immigration Case Supreme Court Order granting Cert. ScotusBlog summarizes today's action and what is to follow:

Posted by New Neo on January 19, 2016 94 Comments
Professor Jacobson has opined on the question of whether Ted Cruz qualifies to be president as a "natural born citizen." The short answer is: he definitely does. However, as Professor Jacobson also indicated, that hasn't stopped Trump from attempting to foster doubts in voters’ minds about it. You can see the results in the increased amount of chatter about the issue---which is likely to have been exactly what Trump wanted when he put forward his oh-so-helpful suggestion that Ted Cruz could and should settle the "natural born citizen" question by going to federal court and seeking a declaratory judgment on the matter. So, why doesn't Cruz do what Trump has suggested, and put it to rest? The reason is that it is almost certain that Cruz couldn't get a court to rule on the issue. J. Christian Adams, who was in the Justice Department under George W. Bush, explains why:
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