SCOTUS - Supreme Court of the United States

onejayhawk said:
On a side note, was there ever a 10th Amendment case? Obergefell and Windsor both had a logical 10th Amendment argument. Was it ever even raised?

J
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The 10th is really not seen as significant, especially with the 14th in place.

The Tenth Amendment, which makes explicit the idea that the federal government is limited to only the powers granted in the Constitution, has been declared to be a truism by the Supreme Court. In United States v. Sprague (1931) the Supreme Court asserted that the amendment "added nothing to the [Constitution] as originally ratified."

States and local governments have occasionally attempted to assert exemption from various federal regulations, especially in the areas of labor and environmental controls, using the Tenth Amendment as a basis for their claim. An often-repeated quote, from United States v. Darby Lumber, 312 U.S. 100, 124 (1941), reads as follows:


The amendment states but a truism that all is retained which has not been surrendered. There is nothing in the history of its adoption to suggest that it was more than declaratory of the relationship between the national and state governments as it had been established by the Constitution before the amendment or that its purpose was other than to allay fears that the new national government might seek to exercise powers not granted, and that the states might not be able to exercise fully their reserved powers.
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The Supreme Court rarely declares laws unconstitutional for violating the Tenth Amendment. In the modern era, the Court has only done so where the federal government compels the states to enforce federal statutes. In 1992, in New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144 (1992), for only the second time in 55 years, the Supreme Court invalidated a portion of a federal law for violating the Tenth Amendment. The case challenged a portion of the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1985. The act provided three incentives for states to comply with statutory obligations to provide for the disposal of low-level radioactive waste. The first two incentives were monetary. The third, which was challenged in the case, obliged states to take title to any waste within their borders that was not disposed of prior to January 1, 1996, and made each state liable for all damages directly related to the waste. The Court, in a 6–3 decision, ruled that the imposition of that obligation on the states violated the Tenth Amendment. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote that the federal government can encourage the states to adopt certain regulations through the spending power (e.g. by attaching conditions to the receipt of federal funds, see South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203 (1987), or through the commerce power (by directly pre-empting state law). However, Congress cannot directly compel states to enforce federal regulations.

In 1998, the Court again ruled that the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act violated the Tenth Amendment (Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997)). The act required state and local law enforcement officials to conduct background checks on persons attempting to purchase handguns. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, applied New York v. United States to show that the law violated the Tenth Amendment. Since the act "forced participation of the State's executive in the actual administration of a federal program", it was unconstitutional.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
 
In the two cases you speak of, the 14th Amendment covered it nicely - one in cutting down a Federal law as violating the 14th and the other cutting down state laws as violating the 14th. If you can't get past the 14th, you do not get to the 10th. I don't think 10th Amendment arguments were raised by the losers in either case - at least at the Supreme Court stage where the Court narrows the issues based on the questions it sets for argument.
 
Which returns us to the question, why is the 14th given so much sway that the 10th is ignored, even in the arguments? In the abstract, they should have equal weight. In practice, one supercedes the other.

J
 
The 14th provides a limitation on the states. The 10th is irrelevant if a state is violating the 14th. Think of the 14th as a primary the state has to win before getting into the general of the 10th.
 
JollyRoger said:
The 14th provides a limitation on the states. The 10th is irrelevant if a state is violating the 14th. Think of the 14th as a primary the state has to win before getting into the general of the 10th.
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Which brings us back to the original point--the 10th been effectively discarded. The obstacles to applying it are insurmountable.

Imagine having to give it equal weight with the 14th. Treat it as a balance, a conflict of law issue, not a succession.

J
 
Ok, under 10th Amendment analysis, the states do not have a right to violate equal protection or due process rights. Just like in McDonald, the state's 10th Amendment right to regulate guns is subject to the limitations placed on the state by the 2nd Amendment.
 
That's bad news. Haters of the Constitution would win big if she died or was forced to retire in the next 2 years.
 
onejayhawk said:
I will not wish ill on anyone, but what if Trump gets two more nominations, one from each wing?

J
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Workers and consumers will be screwed for another generation?
 
Sommerswerd said:
If RBG holds on until Trump is gone I wonder if she actually retires, or if she is determined to die on the shield as I always thought she would...
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About that, the keyword from the procedure is two, ie two nodules. Since RBG is a non-smoker, this is worrisome. Atlantic did an article:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/12/rbg-cancer/578869/

You did not answer my question. What would two new Justices replacing, say, Thomas and Breyer do to the Court?

J
 
I think Kelo vs. City of New London is perhaps one of the most bizarre and worst decisions the court has made in the last 20 years.

The government using eminent domain to seize property to sell to private citizens/business is about as potentially corrupt as it comes. As the dissenting opinion stated, it is incredibly easy to imagine how out of control such a practice could become. It's also one of the handful of times I've agreed with the "right" side of the bench. The fact that almost all of the states have changed their constitutions to protect private owners' property being sold to business interests shows how potentially bad that practice could have become.

The supreme court's best ruling in the last 20 years was probably Obergefell vs. Hodges. Due process and equal applicability under the law are legal pillars and ought to be upheld whenever possible. The dissent's opinion was almost a complete pile of extra-legal garbage. However, I did agree with the dissent in that not allowing same-sex couples to get married in no way violates their privacy. But due to the dissent's extra-legal reasoning, this privacy point actually undermined their own argument. If the government said people with a J in their name can't get married, it wouldn't violate their privacy (names appear on legal documents such a birth certificates) but it would violate equal applicability.
 
NukeAJS said:
I think Kelo vs. City of New London is perhaps one of the most bizarre and worst decisions the court has made in the last 20 years.

The government using eminent domain to seize property to sell to private citizens/business is about as potentially corrupt as it comes. As the dissenting opinion stated, it is incredibly easy to imagine how out of control such a practice could become. It's also one of the handful of times I've agreed with the "right" side of the bench. The fact that almost all of the states have changed their constitutions to protect private owners' property being sold to business interests shows how potentially bad that practice could have become.

The supreme court's best ruling in the last 20 years was probably Obergefell vs. Hodges. Due process and equal applicability under the law are legal pillars and ought to be upheld whenever possible. The dissent's opinion was almost a complete pile of extra-legal garbage. However, I did agree with the dissent in that not allowing same-sex couples to get married in no way violates their privacy. But due to the dissent's extra-legal reasoning, this privacy point actually undermined their own argument. If the government said people with a J in their name can't get married, it wouldn't violate their privacy (names appear on legal documents such a birth certificates) but it would violate equal applicability.
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The problem with Kilo is not that the decision gave a good outcome. But rather that the federal constitution is silent on that aspect of state law. So there's nothing in the US Constitution that would really help the case.
 
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