The idea that a legislative representative should exactly mirror his or her constituents' views in deciding on public policy. See also trustee theory of representation

The power of Congress to enforce laws.

A form of government in which power is divided and shared between a central government and state and local governments.

Drawing the boundaries of an electoral district to favor a political party.

Those powers authorized by a legal document that are not expressly stated but can be inferred from expressly stated powers. The power of Congress to do all things ""necessary and proper"" to carry out the powers delegated to it by Article I, Section 8, Clause 18 of the U.S. Constitution. The ""necessary and proper"" clause is also known as the ""elastic clause,"" because it greatly expands the Constitution's enumeration of the powers of Congress. Implied powers can be distinguished from ""inherent powers,"" those that are expressly provided for in the Constitution.

Those powers ingrained so deeply in an institution that they need not be stated. For example, what the "inherent powers of the presidency" might be is a hotly contested subject in American national politics.

The idea that a legislative representative should use his or her best judgment in making decisions on public policy, regardless of constituent opinion. See also delegate theory of representation

John Locke, a physician and philosopher, worked with famous scientists, including Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke. In contrast to Hobbes, Locke used state of nature and social contract theory to justify limited government and the preservation of individual rights, particularly life, liberty, and property. Locke is sometimes called "America's philosopher" because his Second Treatise of Government (1690) was widely read by the colonists and important ideas found in it (as well as in works of English republican writers) are found in the Declaration of Independence, especially his theories of natural rights and his defense of violent revolution after "a long train of abuses" of power by rulers. Two verbatim phrases of Locke's are found in the Declaration.

Hamilton was a senior aide-de-camp to General Washington and an artillery captain during the Revolutionary War. He was a delegate from New York to the Philadelphia Convention and one of three authors of The Federalist, written to urge ratification of the U.S. Constitution. He later served as the first secretary of the treasury, put the nation's finances on a firm footing and advocated a strong national government.

Case Summary

Section 3 of the National Industrial Recovery Act empowered the president to implement industrial codes to regulate weekly employment hours, wages, and minimum ages of employees. The codes had standing as penal statutes.

Question(s)

Did Congress unconstitutionally delegate legislative power to the president?

Answer(s)

The Court held that Section 3 was "without precedent" and violated the Constitution. The law did not establish rules or standards to evaluate industrial activity. In other words, it did not make codes, but simply empowered the president to do so. A unanimous Court found this to be an unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority.

See: The Oyez Project, Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495 (1935)

Case Summary

As part of the 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act, Congress implemented a processing tax on agricultural commodities, from which funds would be redistributed to farmers who promised to reduce their acreage. The act intended to solve the crisis in agricultural commodity prices which was causing many farmers to go under.

Question(s)

Did Congress exceed its constitutional taxing and spending powers with the act?

Answer(s)

The Court found the act unconstitutional because it attempted to regulate and control agricultural production, an arena reserved to the states. Even though Congress does have the power to tax and appropriate funds, argued Justice Roberts, in this case those activities were "but means to an unconstitutional end," and violated the Tenth Amendment.

See: The Oyez Project, United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1 (1936)

Case Summary

Filburn was a small farmer in Ohio. He was given a wheat acreage allotment of 11.1 acres under a Department of Agriculture directive which authorized the government to set production quotas for wheat. Filburn harvested nearly 12 acres of wheat above his allotment. He claimed that he wanted the wheat for use on his farm, including feed for his poultry and livestock. Filburn was penalized. He argued that the excess wheat was unrelated to commerce since he grew it for his own use.

Question(s)

Is the amendment subjecting Filburn to acreage restrictions in violation of the Constitution because Congress has no power to regulate activities local in nature?

Answer(s)

According to Filburn, the act regulated production and consumption, which are local in character. The rule laid down by Justice Jackson is that even if an activity is local and not regarded as commerce, "it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce, and this irrespective of whether such effect is what might at some earlier time have been defined as 'direct' or 'indirect.'"

See: The Oyez Project, Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942)

Case Summary

An act of the Alabama legislature re-drew the electoral district boundaries of Tuskegee, replacing what had been a region with a square shape with a twenty-eight sided figure. The effect of the new district was to exclude essentially all blacks from the city limits of Tuskegee and place them in a district where no whites lived.

Question(s)

Did the redrawing of Tuskegee's electoral district boundaries violate the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution, which prevents the United States or any individual state from denying a citizen the right to vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude?

Answer(s)

Yes. The unanimous Court held that Act 140 of the Alabama legislature violated the Fifteenth Amendment. Justice Frankfurter admitted that states are insulated from judicial review when they exercise power "wholly within the domain of state interest." However, in this case, Alabama's representatives were unable to identify "any countervailing municipal function" which the act was designed to serve. It was clear to the Court that the irregularly shaped district was drawn with only one purpose in mind, namely, to deprive blacks of political power.

See: The Oyez Project, Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339 (1960)

Case Summary

Charles W. Baker and other Tennessee citizens alleged that a 1901 law designed to apportion the seats for the state's general assembly was virtually ignored. Baker's suit detailed how Tennessee's reapportionment efforts ignored significant economic growth and population shifts within the state.

Question(s)

Did the Supreme Court have jurisdiction over questions of legislative apportionment?

Answer(s)

Yes. In an opinion which explored the nature of "political questions" and the appropriateness of Court action in them, the Court held that there were no such questions to be answered in this case and that legislative apportionment was a justiciable issue. In his opinion, Justice Brennan provided past examples in which the Court had intervened to correct constitutional violations in matters pertaining to state administration and the officers through whom state affairs are conducted. Brennan concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment equal protection issues which Baker and others raised in this case merited judicial evaluation.

See: The Oyez Project, Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962)

Case Summary

Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbade racial discrimination by places of public accommodation if their operations affected commerce. The Heart of Atlanta Motel in Atlanta, Georgia, refused to accept black Americans and was charged with violating Title II.

Question(s)

Did Congress, in passing Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, exceed its Commerce Clause powers by depriving motels, such as the Heart of Atlanta, of the right to choose their own customers?

Answer(s)

No. The Court held that the Commerce Clause allowed Congress to regulate local incidents of commerce, and that the Civil Right Act of 1964 passed constitutional muster. The Court noted that the applicability of Title II was "carefully limited to enterprises having a direct and substantial relation to the interstate flow of goods and people..." The Court thus concluded that places of public accommodation had no "right" to select guests as they saw fit, free from governmental regulation.

See: The Oyez Project, Heart of Atlanta Motel v. U.S., 379 U.S. 241 (1964)

Case Summary

In 1984, Congress enacted legislation ordering the Secretary of Transportation to withhold five percent of federal highway funds from states that did not adopt a 21-year-old minimum drinking age. South Dakota, a state that permitted persons 19 years of age to purchase alcohol, challenged the law.

Question(s)

Did Congress exceed its spending powers, or violate the Twenty-first Amendment, by passing legislation conditioning the award of federal highway funds on the states' adoption of a uniform minimum drinking age?

Answer(s)

No. In a 7-to-2 decision, the Court held that Congress, acting indirectly to encourage uniformity in states' drinking ages, was within constitutional bounds. The Court found that the legislation was in pursuit of "the general welfare," and that the means chosen to do so were reasonable. The Court also held that the Twenty-first Amendment's limitations on spending power were not prohibitions on congressional attempts to achieve federal objectives indirectly. The five percent loss of highway funds was not unduly coercive.

See: The Oyez Project, South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203 (1987)

Case Summary

Alfonzo Lopez, a twelfth grade high school student, carried a concealed weapon into his San Antonio, Texas high school. He was charged under Texas law with firearm possession on school premises. The next day, the state charges were dismissed after federal agents charged Lopez with violating a federal criminal statute, the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990. The act forbids "any individual knowingly to possess a firearm at a place that [he] knows...is a school zone." Lopez was found guilty following a bench trial and sentenced to six months' imprisonment and two years' supervised release.

Question(s)

Is the 1990 Gun-Free School Zones Act, forbidding individuals from knowingly carrying a gun in a school zone, unconstitutional because it exceeds the power of Congress to legislate under the Commerce Clause?

Answer(s)

Yes. The possession of a gun in a local school zone is not an economic activity that might, through repetition elsewhere, have a substantial effect on interstate commerce. The law is a criminal statute that has nothing to do with "commerce" or any sort of economic activity.

See: The Oyez Project, United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995)

Case Summary

On November 3, 1992, Arkansas voters adopted Amendment 73 to their State Constitution. The "Term Limitation Amendment," in addition to limiting terms of elected officials within the Arkansas state government, also provided that any person who served three or more terms as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Arkansas would be ineligible for re-election as a U.S. Representative from Arkansas. Similarly, the Amendment provided that any person who served two or more terms as a member of the United States Senate from Arkansas would be ineligible for re-election as a U.S. Senator from Arkansas.

Question(s)

Can states alter those qualifications for the U.S. Congress that are specifically enumerated in the Constitution?

Answer(s)

No. The Constitution prohibits States from adopting Congressional qualifications in addition to those enumerated in the Constitution. A state congressional term limits amendment is unconstitutional if it has the likely effect of handicapping a class of candidates and "has the sole purpose of creating additional qualifications indirectly." Furthermore, "allowing individual States to craft their own congressional qualifications would erode the structure designed by the Framers to form a 'more perfect Union.'"

See: The Oyez Project, U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779 (1995)

Case Summary

In 1996 California voters passed the Compassionate Use Act, legalizing marijuana for medical use. California's law conflicted with the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA), which banned possession of marijuana. After the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) seized doctor-prescribed marijuana from a patient's home, a group of medical marijuana users sued the DEA and U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft in federal district court. The medical marijuana users argued the Controlled Substances Act--which Congress passed using its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce--exceeded Congress's Commerce Clause power. The district court ruled against the group. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and ruled the CSA unconstitutional as it applied to intrastate (within a state) medical marijuana use. Relying on two U.S. Supreme Court decisions that narrowed Congress's Commerce Clause power--U.S. v. Lopez (1995) and U.S. v. Morrison (2000)--the Ninth Circuit ruled using medical marijuana did not "substantially affect" interstate commerce and therefore could not be regulated by Congress.

Question(s)

Does the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 801) exceed Congress's power under the Commerce Clause as applied to the intrastate cultivation and possession of marijuana for medical use?

Answer(s)

No. In a 6-3 opinion delivered by Justice John Paul Stevens, the Court held that the Commerce Clause gave Congress authority to prohibit the local cultivation and use of marijuana, despite state law to the contrary. Stevens argued that the Court's precedent "firmly established" Congress' Commerce Clause power to regulate purely local activities that are part of a "class of activities" with a substantial effect on interstate commerce. The majority argued that Congress could ban local marijuana use because it was part of such a "class of activities": the national marijuana market. Local use affected supply and demand in the national marijuana market, making the regulation of intrastate use "essential" to regulating the drug's national market. The majority distinguished the case from Lopez and Morrison. In those cases, statutes regulated non-economic activity and fell entirely outside Congress' commerce power; in this case, the Court was asked to strike down a particular application of a valid statutory scheme.

See: The Oyez Project, Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1 (2005)

From Wikipedia: Federalist No. 51 is an essay by James Madison, published on February 6, 1788. No. 51 addresses means by which appropriate checks and balances can be created in government. This is one of the most often quoted Federalist Papers for its arguments in favor of separation of powers.

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From Wikipedia: Federalist No. 10 is an essay by James Madison arguing for the ratification of the United States Constitution. It addresses the question of how to guard against "factions" with interests contrary to the rights of others or the interests of the whole community. Madison argues that a strong, large republic would be a better guard against those dangers than smaller republics like the individual states.

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The supreme law of the United States that provides the framework for the government. The Constitution outlines the nation's institutions of government and the most important rights of the people. The document was created in 1787 during the Philadelphia Convention. The government created by the Constitution took effect on March 4, 1789.

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