Constitutional Law. State Constitutions. Transfer of Railroad Employees' Contributions from State Pooled Account to Federal Account Held Unconstitutional Diversion of Tax Funds

1940 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 333
Keyword(s):  
Constitutional Law ◽  
State Constitutions

State Constitutional Law in 1929–1930

1930 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 666-686 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver P. Field
Keyword(s):  
Constitutional Law ◽  
State Courts ◽  
State Constitutions ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
The Subject ◽  
State Constitutional Law

State courts determine, in the absence of constitutional provision to the contrary, whether amendments to state constitutions have been proposed and adopted in the manner provided for these constitutions. Not every minor deviation from the course of action marked out in the constitution for its amendment is deemed sufficient to justify the court in declaring that the amendment has been “unconstitutionally adopted,” but whether these deviations are serious enough to warrant such a declaration is a question to be determined by the courts themselves. Statutes supplementing constitutional provisions on the subject of amendment are valid if not in conflict with the constitutional provisions themselves, and substantial compliance with these rules is also required by the courts. Sometimes the provisions regulating the subject of publication of proposed amendments are constitutional; at other times they are statutory. In either case, publication in the manner provided for, and for the period of time provided for, is necessary to the validity of the amendment. Publication for two weeks, when the period should have been four weeks, was deemed sufficient by the Nebraska court to invalidate the amendment involved.

Who Decides?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey S. Sutton
Keyword(s):  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
State Governments ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
Constitutional Protection ◽  
State Constitutions ◽  
Law And Politics ◽  
Federal Constitutional

The earlier book, 51 Imperfect Solutions, told stories about specific state and federal individual constitutional rights, and explained two benefits of American federalism: how two sources of constitutional protection for liberty and property rights could be valuable to individual freedom and how the state courts could be useful laboratories of innovation when it comes to the development of national constitutional rights. This book tells the other half of the story. Instead of focusing on state constitutional individual rights, it focuses on state constitutional structure. Everything in law and politics, including individual rights, eventually comes back to divisions of power and the evergreen question: Who decides? The goal of this book is to tell the structure side of the story and to identify the shifting balances of power revealed when one accounts for American constitutional law as opposed to just federal constitutional law. Who Decides? contains three main parts—one each on the judicial, executive, and legislative branches—as well as stand-alone chapters on home-rule issues raised by local governments and the benefits and burdens raised by the ease of amending state constitutions. A theme in the book is the increasingly stark divide between the ever-more-democratic nature of state governments and the ever-less-democratic nature of the federal government over time.

State Constitutional Law in 1932–33

1933 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 577-596
Author(s):  
Charles G. Haines
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Constitutional Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
State Constitutions ◽  
State Constitutional Law ◽  
Unusual Stress ◽  
Emergency Measures

One of the best known members of the bench in the United States raised the query whether constitutional law was not becoming so textual and so formal in its applications that it was losing touch with the realities of life. For the operations of government to be “cabined and confined” under ordinary circumstances raises difficulties not readily surmounted; but in times of unusual stress, either constitutional limitations unduly restrict urgent and necessary action or they must be ignored to permit emergency measures. A resumé of the decisions of state and federal courts affecting state constitutions for the year 1932–33 indicates the tendency both toward undue formality in interpretation and toward the warping of the constitutional mold to sanction ways and means of dealing with extraordinary conditions. Law, like life, is a matter of growth, and, as Lord Bryce long since observed, under written constitutions ways of growth must be found either within or without the provisions of fundamental laws.

The First State Constitutional Conventions, 1776-1783

1908 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 545-561
Author(s):  
W. F. Dodd
Keyword(s):  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Judicial Power ◽  
State Constitutions ◽  
Constitutional Conventions ◽  
Historical Origins ◽  
The Revolution

The distinction between constitutions and statutes is a fundamental one in American constitutional law, but it is a matter of surprise that no one has yet attempted to discuss this distinction in its historical origins. Brinton Coxe in his Judicial Power and Unconstitutional Legislation has traced the development of the doctrine that statutes in conflict with the constitution may be declared invalid by the courts. Judge J. A. Jameson in his Treatise on Constitutional Conventions has given a brief account of the adoption of the first State constitutions; but no one has yet studied the adoption of these constitutions in order to find what were the theories of their framers as to the distinction between constitutions and statutes.By the term constitution, as used both in England and America before the Revolution, was understood the general and more permanent principles upon which government is based. The term was used on both sides of the Atlantic to signify something superior to legislative enactments, and the principles of the constitution were appealed to as beyond the control of the British parliament.

Fundamental Law and the Processes of Constitutional Change in Australia

1978 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. D. Lumb
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Constitutional Change ◽  
State Constitutions ◽  
Special Place ◽  
Fundamental Law

This article explores the concept of “fundamental law” as it relates to the Australian legal system. Concentrating in particular on constitutional law and the special place in that body of law of the doctrines relating to amendment of the Federal and State constitutions, Dr Lumb examines the source of the power to amend the constitution, the limitations on that power and the aspects of our legal system which may be beyond the power to amend. It attempts to discover those elements of our constitutional systems which are so fundamental that they may not be materially altered by any form or process of constitutional alteration.

Judicial Determinations by Administrative Commissions

1916 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-250
Author(s):  
Charles W. Needham
Keyword(s):  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
State Constitutions ◽  
Arbitrary Power ◽  
Judicial Decisions ◽  
The People ◽  
Administrative Body ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Regulatory Powers ◽  
Judicial Determinations

One of the most striking features of our constitutional law is the persistent purpose to protect the liberties of the people from arbitrary power by vesting the functions of sovereignty in three coördinate departments of government. This division is accomplished by express provisions in some state constitutions and by necessary implication in all constitutions, federal and state. By judicial construction the legislature may not exercise judicial or administrative powers; the executive may not exercise legislative or judicial powers, and the judiciary is denied the exercise of legislative or administrative powers. This fundamental principle of constitutional law is established by judicial decisions, both state and federal, of long standing and uninterrupted unanimity.A commission is an administrative body; may it exercise judicial functions, and if so to what extent? The question involves, first, a definition of judicial functions; second, a statement of the exceptions to the rule that judicial powers may not be exercised by the administrative department; and, third, an appreciation of the relation of judicial determinations to the regulatory powers vested in commissions. We may then consider whether or not the present scope of judicial determinations by commissions, and the court review of such determinations, are satisfactory.

Of Ski Trails and State Constitutions

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Zackin
Keyword(s):  
Constitutional Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
State Constitutions ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
The People ◽  
Constitutional Tradition

This chapter examines why state constitutions have been so widely criticized and consistently excluded from descriptions of America's constitutional tradition. It seems that the people who wrote the state constitutions failed to grasp the purpose and the nature of constitutional law. Their recognizable features are surrounded, even engulfed, by hundreds of mundane administrative details. Indeed, many state constitutions contain provisions about policy choices as detailed as the construction of ski trails. In order to recognize the principled nature of state constitutionalism, the chapter analyzes the ubiquitous assumptions about “higher lawmaking” and states' idiosyncrasies that have animated its critics. It explores whether we should really revise our conception of American constitutional rights based solely on the state constitutions' (highly detailed) contents. It argues that the criticisms leveled against state constitutions are misplaced and demonstrates that they are actually constitutional.

Part II Rights Guarantees under State Constitutions: the New Judicial Federalism, 7 Lockstepping State Constitutional Rights with Federal Constitutional Law

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Williams Robert F
Keyword(s):  
Constitutional Law ◽  
The State ◽  
State Courts ◽  
Equal Protection ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Equal Protection Clause ◽  
State Constitutions ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Judicial Federalism ◽  
Federal Constitutional

This chapter discusses the practice — adopted by a number of state courts — of stating that state constitutional rights provisions will be interpreted identically to, or in “lockstep” with, similar or identical federal constitutional rights provision. State courts do this in a variety of ways, ranging from cases where they do not seem to acknowledge the possible difference between state and federal rights protections; to case-by-case adoption of federal constitutional interpretations; to “prospective lockstepping” where they announce that in the future the state and federal rights provisions will be interpreted identically or according to some other similar formulation. The chapter gives examples of these different approaches, as well as variations on them. It includes a specific focus on the wide range of state constitutional equality provisions, which, according to many state courts, are to be interpreted the same way as the federal Equal Protection Clause. These various forms of prospective lockstepping are criticized, on the grounds that they cannot actually represent “holdings” and are therefore not binding on future courts.

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