Civil Rights and the Equal Protection Clause
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There is nothing about equality - for people anyway - in the original language of the Constitution. States yes, people no. There are arguments that equal treatment before the law - on the national level - was implicit in the language of the 5th Amendment, but there's nothing explicit about it. Not until the end of the Civil War did a serious movement take hold to add equality before the law - on both the national and state level - to the Constitution. Since then the equal protection clause has been a mainstay of Supreme Court cases since its vaguely written and has been applied to a large variety of claims - some successful - some not.
Blog Tags:
- Affirmative Action.
- Civil Rights.
- Equal Protection.
- Fundamental Rights.
- Gender Discrimination.
- Rational Basis Review.
- Same Sex Marriage.
- Strict Scrutiny.
Elections
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Elections are - perhaps - the distinguishing feature of democratic republics. They are the mechanism that connect the preferences of the public with the activities of the governing institutions, but they do so in a variety of ways. Some institutions are tightly connected to the public, some are not. And there is the ongoing question of who gets to vote in elections and who gets to make those decisions. In the original Constitution, states were given complete authority to establish all laws related to elections, including determining who got to vote. As with civil rights, the national government has stepped in and placed limits on state control over elections largely because the groups that dominate states tend to pass laws limiting participation by members of other groups. This section covers a few general issues associated with elections, the specific detail of elections will have to wait until 2306.
Blog Tags:
- Elections.
- Elections 2016.
- Proportional Representation.
- Two Party System.
- Winner Take All Systems.
