Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States on Constitutional Questions: 1914–1917. II

1918 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 427-457
Author(s):  
Thomas Reed Powell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Minimum Wage ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Employment Agency ◽  
Commerce Clause ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Compensation Law

The decisions of the Supreme Court during the October terms of 1914, 1915, and 1916, indicate on the whole a more tolerant attitude towards the judgment of state legislatures on questions of the police power than one would be apt to infer from the criticisms called forth by the few cases in which laws were declared invalid. The cases on these questions gave rise to more diversity of opinion among the judges than did those arising under the commerce clause. In most of the important cases there was dissent, and several were decided by a vote of five to four. Chief Justice White, and Justices Van Devanter and McReynolds were opposed to the Oregon ten-hour law, the Washington compensation law and the Washington employment agency law; while Justices Holmes, Brandeis and Clarke were in favor of all three. On certain crucial questions these six justices seem quite likely to counteract each other, and leave the balance of power with Justices McKenna, Day and Pitney. Justices Pitney and Day were in favor of the ten-hour law and the compensation law and opposed to the employment agency law. Mr. Justice McKenna was in favor of the ten-hour law and the employment agency law and opposed to the compensation law. In the Oregon Minimum Wage Case, the court was divided four to four, Mr. Justice Brandeis not sitting.

scholarly journals State Legislatures Have the Courage to Pass Antiabortion Laws and Test the Ideology of the “New” United States Supreme Court

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-150
Author(s):  
Jill Oeding
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Undue Burden ◽  
Constitutional Right ◽  
Reported Data ◽  
The Right

Many state legislatures are racing to pass antiabortion laws that will give the current Supreme Court the opportunity to review its stance on the alleged constitutional right to have an abortion. While the number of abortions reported to be performed annually in the United States has declined over the last decade, according to the most recent government-reported data, the number of abortions performed on an annual basis is still over 600,000 per year. Abortion has been legal in the United States since 1973, when the Supreme Court recognized a constitutional right to have an abortion prior to viability (i.e. the time when a baby could possibly live outside the mother’s womb). States currently have the right to forbid abortions after viability.  However, prior to viability, states may not place an “undue burden” in the path of a woman seeking an abortion. The recent appointments of two new Supreme Court justices, Neil Gorsich and Brett Kavanaugh, give pro-life states the best chance in decades to overrule the current abortion precedent. The question is whether these two new justices will shift the ideology of the court enough to overrule the current abortion precedent.

Constitutional Law in 1936–37: The Constitutional Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in the October Term, 1936

1938 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 278-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E. Cushman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Minimum Wage ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Political History ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Constitutional Decisions

The 1936 term of the Supreme Court will probably be rated a notable one. This is due both to the Court's own work, and to certain extraneous occurrences which could hardly fail to have some impact upon it. In any attempt to evaluate the work of this term, one should bear in mind the following facts: First, a month after the Court convened President Roosevelt was reëlected by one of the most impressive popular and electoral majorities in our political history. Second, in February the President submitted to Congress his proposal for the reorganization of the Supreme Court, including the enlargement of its membership by the addition, up to fifteen, of a new justice for every one remaining on the Court beyond the age of seventy. This proposal aroused violent opposition, the debates on it continued for many months, and ultimately the plan was defeated largely through the efforts of the President's own party. The discussions on this proposal were going on during much of the time in which the Court was sitting. Third, in every case in which New Deal laws were attacked, they were held valid. These results were accomplished in many instances by five-to-four margins, and in the Minimum Wage Case by a five-to-four reversal of a previous five-to-three decision.

Constitutional Law in 1924–1925: The Constitutional Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in the October Term, 1924

1926 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-106
Author(s):  
Robert E. Cushman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Motor Vehicle ◽  
The United States ◽  
Motor Vehicle Theft ◽  
National Authority ◽  
Commerce Clause ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Constitutional Decisions ◽  
Foreign Commerce

The decisions arising under the commerce clause of the Constitution during the 1924 term of the Supreme Court did not involve any striking extension of national authority in that field. There was no case approaching in significance the Recapture Clause Case decided in the previous term. However, the reinforcement of a familiar principle through a striking application of it, or the lucid and pungent expression of an old doctrine, lends some significance to several cases which otherwise have no far-reaching importance.In the case of Brooks v. United States the court sustained the constitutionality of the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act of 1919. The act subjected to heavy penalties any one who transported or caused to be transported in interstate or foreign commerce any motor vehicle, knowing it to have been stolen, and any one who, with the same guilty knowledge, “shall receive, conceal, store, barter, sell, or dispose of any motor vehicle, moving as, or which is a part of, or which constitutes interstate or foreign commerce.” It is certainly no surprise to learn from the opinion of Chief Justice Taft that the power to regulate commerce which is broad enough to enable Congress to bar from interstate transportation lottery tickets, diseased cattle, adulterated food, prize-fight films, and the like, and to penalize the interstate transportation of women for immoral purposes, is a power which can likewise be used to punish those who abuse the privileges of interstate and foreign commerce by using them in the furtherance of larceny or the disposal of stolen goods.

State Building, Health Policy, and the Persistence of the American Abortion Debate

1997 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helene Silverberg
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Building ◽  
State Regulation ◽  
Reproductive Health Services ◽  
Abortion Debate ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Roe V Wade

In the years since the Supreme Court handed down its ruling in Roe v. Wade (1973), the abortion controversy has raged across America with increasing vigor. Since Ruth Bader Ginsburg's appointment solidified the Rehnquist Court's moderate bloc, holding the line on Roe's basic principle but inviting more state regulation, the conflict over abortion is likely to expand and intensify in most of the fifty states. The increased and bitter activity since the Supreme Court decided Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989), which gave state legislatures more latitude to respond to pro-life pressures, provides only a small indication of what the future may hold. Almost twenty years after Roe legalized abortion in the United States, an end to the “clash of absolutes,” as Laurence Tribe has recently called the American abortion conflict, seems nowhere in sight.

Constitutional Law in 1909-1910: The Constitutional Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in the October Term, 1909

1910 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 483-497
Author(s):  
Eugene Wambaugh
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Due Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Fourteenth Amendment ◽  
Successful Attempt ◽  
Commerce Clause ◽  
State Statutes ◽  
The Supreme Court

It is indeed a substantial grist that the Supreme Court of the United States at the last term of court has ground for students of political science. The first opinion was delivered on November 1, 1909, and the last on May 31, 1910, and the court decided no less than sixty-five constitutional cases. Notice that with caution it is merely said that the court decided no less than that number; for it is often somewhat a matter of opinion whether a case should be classed as constitutional, and it may well be that there are readers who will find that the court exceeded sixty-five. And how were those sixty-five divided? Many turned on more constitutional points than one, and thus an enumeration of the cases bearing on the several clauses of the Constitution will reveal a total exceeding sixty-five. The enumeration, subject to amendment in accordance with each student's views, gives the following results: The Fourteenth Amendment, twenty-four cases; the Commerce Clause, twenty-one; the Obligation of Contracts Clause, eight; whether cases arise “under the laws of the United States,” eight; Full Faith and Credit Clause, five; and sixteen other clauses, from one to four cases each, aggregating twenty-seven.Through these dull figures some important facts shine distinctly. The Fourteenth Amendment and the Commerce Clause clearly took a vast part of the court's energy, and each of these provisions has to do with the curtailment of functions which prima facie belong to the several states. In other words, the chief feature of this term, as of every recent term, has been a more or less successful attempt of litigants to overthrow state statutes as denials of due process and equal protection or as interferences with interstate commerce.

Flag Desecration as Seditious Libel

1991 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 814-822 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Wat Hopkins
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Protest ◽  
Court Ruling ◽  
Supreme Court Ruling ◽  
Majority Opinion ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
American Flag

Burning the American flag under certain conditions is regarded as protected political protest, as the 1989 U.S. Supreme Court ruling found in Texas v. Johnson. Justice William J. Brennan Jr., who wrote the majority opinion, found this act was political speech and therefore allowed. To find otherwise would be to sanction prosecution for seditious libel, long discarded in the United States. The Supreme Court a year later also overturned a Congressional attempt to prosecute flag desecration under any condition. This study summarizes attempts of state legislatures and lesser courts to deal with those who use the flag as part of an act of political protest.

In the Supreme Court of the United States: Clara Watson v. Fort Worth Bank & Trust..

1988 ◽  
Vol 43 (12) ◽  
pp. 1019-1028 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald N. Bersoff ◽  
Laurel P. Malson ◽  
Donald B. Verrilli
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fort Worth ◽  
The Supreme Court
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